FearNoMoshpit

'k, so I'm a long time nerfer, on and off, but I've only recently come upon the idea of modding. I've opened guns up and messed around with them to fix them, but I've never thought of changing anything until I randomly came across NerfOnline.

Anyway, so I'm trying to make a decent "loser rifle" out of a BBB. I read in another post that said to 'try 1 inch 17/32" nested in 8 inches of 9/16"'. But I have a few questions about this.

1) About how long should the barrel be, overall, starting from the end of the gun's "casing" to the end of the barrel?

2) What is the outer diameter of the darts these specs are designed for? The darts I'm currently using have an OD of about 1/3" to 4/10" around the foam bit (wider around the tip, naturally) and are about 3 inches long, I'd give an exact measurement, but I can't for the life of me find a ruler in my house right now. They're the reddish-orange ones with the "whistling" tips. What's the reccommended size dart/arrow/whatnot for a BBB?

3) Would it it be better to create a barrel where the dart went overtop of it or into it?

4) PVC or brass (since those seem to be the two primary barrel mod materials)?

5) What's the best, or at least a good way to seal the gaps between the tubes? I'm thinking the teflon stuff like plumbers use to seal on shower heads, but I don't know if there's something proven to be better?

Also, on a note unrelated to barrel mods, I tried stretching the spring out, but it didn't seem to stay stretched. It would go back to it's original length after a few shots. I'm thinking about getting some more resistant/thicker wire and making a new (and hopefully stronger) spring for it. I've also heard of putting rubber bands on the gun, should I place them externally or internally, and does it matter what I hook them onto, or just as long as they're attached to the two different parts of the gun? I was also thinking about getting some bungie cord and putting a loop of it going through the little hole right above the trigger on the back end and the rear hole between the main body and the sight of the gun.

Yeah... that's about all the questions I had. Also, if anyone could reccomend any other BBB mods that they've tested/they know others have tested with good results, I'd appreciate it.

~ Noah Ahmed
P.S. Wait, one more question... do washers/pennies work okay for tips for Stefan micros? Also, does anyone have a link to a tutorial on how to make them? I found one before but I didn't bookmark it, and can't find it anymore.

Intro: This is a pretty simple mod I thought of after reading something at Nerf Online about the foam of some Nerf darts letting air out of the dart, thus decreasing it's power. I tested it and in ten trials with 6 micro darts (3 with the mod, 3 without) the modded darts got anywhere between approximately 5 and 15 feet more range than the unmodded darts, depending on the angle the dart was shot at. The modded darts also shot significantly straighter/more accurately (is straighter a word? heh... straightererer). The improved accuracy may have been coicidence, though, because I can't think of a reason that this mod would affect it. I only tested this mod with the 3" micro darts with the black rounded rubber caps (without suction cups)... the kind that sometimes comes with whistling hole thingys. Also of note is that I only tested it with a modded BBB (I took the little thing in the barrel out and shoved the micro dart inside of the barrel).


Materials: Nerf darts, clear packing tape or the clear/glossy surface scotch tape.


Tools: Scissors or relatively sharp fingernails.

Process: This is really simple. I recommend using packing tape since it has slightly stronger adhesive (I think) and you use fewer pieces of it (which is better, for reasons I'll explain later). Basically, you take and object (I used a wooden dowel) with the same Oouter diameter (OD) as the dart's inner diameter (ID) and stick the dart on it. Then you take a piece or two of the packing tape (several pieces of scotch tape are required, since it's narrower) and torque wrap the foam of the dart, compressing it slightly. You don't want to compress it too much, but a little is good (mostly to keep the OD of the dart the same before and after the tape is put on). I recommend doing two layers of tape (one piece, just wrap it around twice) so that the tape seals on inself and there isn't a narrow strip of open foam, but also so that the dart isn't unevenly weighted on one side. Do this along the whole length of the dart.


What it does: The packing/scotch tape basically forms a seal, preventing air escaping from the dart through the pores in the foam. Thusly, more air stays in the dart, powering it's flight.


Notes: If anyone wants to test this with more types of ammo and other guns, please email me the results of the modded vs. unmodded darts (fearnomoshpit [at] gmail [dot] com). Also, I said that packing tape was better because you use fewer pieces of it, which is because if your modding a dart you plan on using on a gun where you shove the dart into the barrel rather than overtop of it, like so:

Dart goes overtop of/around barrel:

____________________
____________________ <--- dart

<--- barrel
____________________
____________________ <--- dart

Dart goes into barrel:

____________________
____________________ <---barrel
____________________

<--dart

____________________
____________________
____________________ <--- barrel

the process of of shoving the dart into the barrel can easily scrunch up the tape if there are overlapping sections of it perpendicular to the length of the dart, which is pretty much guaranteed to occur with scotch tape. One downside to this mod is that you may need to replace the tape around the dart, and removing it can rip off some of the foam, making the dart deteriorate over time. Also, as one last note, considering that this can make the dart wider, sometimes even if you do torque wrap it, you may want to duct tape the rubber "cap", if there is one, to the rest of the dart. This is because the dart will be more snugly fitting inside the barrel, thus making it harder to pull out if you need to do so, and with darts with the aforementioned rubber tips, it's easy to pull the tips off because of this.


If anyone tries this (or even thinks about it at all) please give feedback.

~ Bob