Setups: Elite Alpha Trooper

It's been a while since I've posted, and even longer since I did a "setups" post. If you missed the first two, they were the Gear up Recon and the Elite Rampage. So let's dive in to setting up the remake of one of Nerf's most popular blasters, shall we?

Right, first up, the Alpha Trooper is pretty minimalistic in it's stock form, so obviously you can't load the hell out of this thing. There's other blasters for that. The Elite Alpha Trooper's strength is it's slamfire capability and it's compact size. You want to only add to the blaster in areas that will aid you and nothing else, otherwise you'll end up losing the compact size advantages. So bandoliers are out, as you'll want to be on the move all the time anyway. To combat the dart consumption of slamfire and lack or mags available to you, I suggest some "tactical tape". A pair of 12rd mags taped together gives you 24 dart capacity and easy reloading, as well as the option to pick up darts as you go and put them in the bottom mag. This means you don't need a tactical vest or bandolier and this frees you up to move quicker.

Accuracy is also another sore point of Slamfire blasters, so to help remedy this try a sturdy stock, like lightning storm's stock, and a single attachment point sight like a red dot sight, or if you've scoured the earth to almost no end to obtain, an elite pinpoint sight (Thank you Dninja!). Zoom sights are bit pointless on a blaster where you'll be doing most of your engaging at less than 60 feet, so really, any non-zoom sight that can utilise just the single rail will help you lock on to your target in combination with a decent stock.

Internally, go for reliability and ease of prime. An OMW 5kg spring will be just fine in this blaster with locks removed. you could probably go crazy and do a brass breech, but I'm not sure how effective this would be Vs. the gain.

With this setup, you can easily go for capture points in games of capture the flag or similar, since you'll be able to move quicker than anyone else without anything weighing you down, and you have the option of laying out a fair amount of darts in short slamfire bursts, but prolonged situations are probably something to avoid when possible

Firing video: Remedy Metal Longshot

A few of my friends keep asking me to show them a video of my Remedy Metal Longshot, featured in this post so they can see the power of this thing. Well, recently I picked up a handy little mountable camera, so I decided to go ahead and make a firing demo video. I don't do videos often but I might have anothr in the works soon, depending on the free time I have available. Anyway, enjoy!

Nerf "Elite" Reflex review

One of the old mini N-strike blasters that carried over into the new elite colour scheme is the Nerf Reflex,and these have recently popped up here in target stores in Australia, so I thought I'd pick one up and give it a shot.

At $8, this unit sits at the same price point as the Nerf Triad. They essentially fill similar roles, but the Triad and Reflex have a few different features from each other. First off, the Reflex is kind of like a really small and simple recon pistol. It features a top tactical rail and slide cocking mechanism, striking blue, white and orange colour scheme and sling loop on the handle. Unfortunately, the handle is very small. I couldn't find a way to hold this blaster comfortably. It's also only a single shot blaster with no extra dart storage, but is packaged with 3 elite darts. It does look rad in elite colours, and it's size is perfect to carry around in your pocket. But then again, a Triad or Jolt also fits in your pocket...

Designed for people with 2 fingers and a thumb.

Performance of this blaster was something that really disappointed me. There has been no change to the internals when carried over to the elite range from the original N-strike line. So it still barely fires a dart more than 25 feet, and is unreliable. I found I had to squash the dart in to the barrel a little to make sure it fired properly The reason for this is that the reverse plunger system inside is actually tiny. At first it looks like a sizable reverse plunger system, then you look at where the catch is and figure out that if that's the length of the draw, then the actual plunger tube is only half of what you see. The back half is only to guide the spring and to function as a priming indicator out the back of the blaster. Needless to say, modifying this unit is a waste of time. For the sake of trialing the theory, I removed the air restrictor and improved the seal on mine. I didn't get any extra range, but I was able to fire any Nerf dart.

See that plunger tube? only half of that is actually plunger tube.

Overall, the elite Reflex is still a Reflex, just with new colours. Since the Reflex's first release, a number of other small blasters have hit the scene which really out do this Blaster in every way, like the Firestrike of Triad. I would avoid this blaster unless you're like me and are collecting the entire blue elite range.

Spudfiles gets a facelift!

Long running potato cannon forum Spudfiles has recieved a major overhaul and now includes a Nerf showcase, and discussion section. I was lucky enough to kick off the Nerf showcase with the Remedy Metal Longshot #2.

Spudfiles was my first port of call while I was learning to build potato cannons and is probably the richest source of information on available for that type of thing. The community there is supportive of progress and a few individuals are constantly pushing the envelope for what can be done to shoot various projectiles using air or combustion power (or in the case of mad scientists, both). Safety is also strong message pushed by spudfiles community which is really great, senior forum members often steer less clued-up users in the right direction so that everyone can enjoy spudding without any worries.

If you're in to potato cannons, air guns, or Nerf basters, do check out the newly refreshed Spudfiles and join the community. I have been a part of the forum since before I even touched a Nerf gun, and I think it will be interesting seeing the hardcore spudders' input in to the Nerf sections, perhaps we will see some direction of progression that no one has ever tried before?

Edit: Posting this at 2am? Yes, that is correct. I finished work an hour ago. This is one of the reasons why I don't post regularly.

Nerf Rapidstrike review

Nerf's releases lately have been pretty average in my opinion, incredibly poor reviews of the Nerf Centurion and lackluster Zombiestrike range have put me off buying the Rapidstrike for some time for fear of disappointment, but I picked up one from Target for $69 (full price). Luckily with that price, I was still far from disappointed with this blaster.

The Rapidstrike is the latest release in the N-Strike Elite range and is this year's flagship for that range. It is a fully automatic flywheel blaster, probably targeting the replacement of the Stampede, which was Nerf's massive release a few years ago being the first fully automatic n-strike mag fed blaster. To me, yes it does replace the beloved stampede but it is a different blaster altogether rather than a revamp.

Cool, so what's it got? This is a very well designed and well made blaster. It's the little things that make the Rapidstrike stand out completely. Around the grip area is designed to be functional and easy to use. There is the usual acceleration trigger as with all flywheel blasters these days, and directly forward is an ambidextrous mag release, allowing fast mag changes (which, as you'll find out later, will be used a lot!). At the base of the grip is a sling loop as well. The stock is retractable with a lever release on the rear of the stock. Also featured is an orange-clear jam door to let you quickly see what is going on in the case of  jam or misfire. The rapidstrike also comes with a clear 18-dart magazine. The front of the magwell has an angled grip for those that prefer that style of grip over a foregrip. Nerf has also been generous with Tactical rails too, one top handle rail, a top rail on the barrel as well, a rail on the left and right side of the barrel and an underbarrel rail as well. finally, it has a built in sight through the top handle with a front flip up sight and a barrel adapter. Just kidding, there's more. Two more sling loops are available to use on the rear of the top handle, and an integrated sling loop at the front of the barrel. Have I missed anything? Everything functions perfectly on this blaster, it's very solid feeling, and the stock sliding action is smooth. Pulling the trigger is much lighter than a semi automatic flywheel but still retains a certain amount of feel. When it fires, the internal dart pushing mechanism is smooth and never misses a beat. In terms of loadouts on this blaster, I highly recommend large capacity magazines or drums, and also having a method of carrying spare magazines or perhaps using 18 dart mags taped together. If you prefer a foregrip, the Retaliator's foregrip goes nicely for moving around but you can't go past the stampede grip for bunkering down and defending. The only thing that bothers me about the aesthetics of this blaster, is why they chose to paint an orange stripe on it instead of a white one like the rest of the line, and why there is STILL NO TOP RAIL ACCESSORY IN THE ELITE RANGE?!? Seriously, just release the damn elite pinpoint sight to everyone, Nerf.

Performance is where it shows that it is a different kind of blaster to what the Stampede was. While the stampede once modified could steadily chug out darts with decent range and relatively good accuracy, The Rapidstrike is evidently geared more towards maximising dart output in exchange for accuracy, especially after performing some basic voltage mods. It will empty an 18 dart magazine before you can even think about how many mags you have spare, but will not be a blaster to pick people off one dart at a time as it's spread is about as accurate as hip firing a slamfire blaster. However, this means that using short bursts of 3-4 darts is extremely effective for suppressing and area denial. Combine that with it's short length and light weight and it is also fantastic for rushing and attacking. No one in their right mind is going to try to attack a maniac with a Rapidstrike without being able to do so from as far away as possible. It's also very reliable. I have heard some reports of constant jamming, however the only times I encountered a jam was when I was using seriously mangled darts, and even then it would still manage to get them out the barrel most of the time. Other times consisted of a misfire, pulling the magazine out and the culprit dart just falling out, and putting the magazine back in and firing again straight away. Pulling the trigger is satisfying and the first time I emptied the magazine (about 30 seconds after I got it out of the box) I was left with a huge grin and started formulating plan on how to ambush the next person to step foot in my house.

Modifications are where this blaster can get pretty complex. Inside is a huge tangle of wires, circuit boards, switches, resistors and 3 motors. From what I can tell, the dart pusher operates on a form of logic gate to ensure it returns to it's retracted position. It seems the curcuit has an input from the trigger and also a switch under the pusher, which is released when the pusher returns. So for it to fire, the trigger must be depressed, for it to stop firing, the trigger must be released and the pusher must return back to release the pusher switch, in turn cutting the voltage to the pusher motor unless the trigger is still depressed. Furthermore, there is a thermistor on the trigger curcuit, and two resistors for each motor including the pusher motor. Once you've got your head around that, you can rewire the internals and load up the voltage and even go as far as replacing the motors and setting up individual power sources for the pusher and flywheel motors. This should net you something similar to what the mad scientists at Brisbane Nerf Group have come up with:

In all, this is one of the very best Nerf blasters I've owned. It's well designed, functions great, performs really well and is intimidating to come up against. I used my modified Rapidstrike for about 90% of the time at the 4th anniversary BNG war, and only stopped because I had no spare batteries. I absolutely love this thing. I definitely recommend this blaster over the Centurion. Since the orange stripe really comes down to a matter of opinion, I'll give this blaster the highest rating I've given any blaster on this blog, and that is a 10/10. I really can't properly fault this blaster on anything at all.

Remedy Metal Longshot #2

In the last post I did say that this post would be about ignition systems for combustion powered potato cannons, but, I had to scrap that after killing my ignition system. Sometimes the modder in me takes it too far, and things backfire. Making a 12v multi-spark taser out of a 1.5v bbq ignitor was awesome... until it burned out... Oh well, lesson learned. So instead this post will cover my most recent Nerf Longshot build.

Previously, I had been working with a longshot that I'd owned for 3 or 4 years and it has it's fair share of posts here, here and here, but I recently aquired a mint Longshot, never opened up, completely stock. A rarity. I tossed back and forth whether I should just leave it alone as a collector item, but what's the fun in having a cake and only looking at it? It became the frame for a my new Longshot.

Here it is. The paintwork was inspired by a few of Brian Johnson's creations over at Johnson arms, and was my first attempt at masking. Let me tell you, there is a hell of a lot more work that goes in to a 2-tone masking paint job than you think. Ever wondered why a decent paint commissioner charges a lot of money? to do it well takes a ton of time, patience and money. I wouldn't call this a spectacular paint job on mine, but it'll be fine considering it will be used in wars and knocked around anyway.

Internally, there's the full Remedy Metal Power Train kit, and I kept the priming indicator also. The stock and some areas under the trigger bar is reinforced, and the trigger is reinforced with a bicycle spoke on each side of the pusher rod. In future I may upgrade the trigger to an Xplorer version. The spring load consists of a stock longshot spring, 6kg recon spring and 11.5kg cut and closed K26 spring, totalling 20kg all up.

Externally, there's Slydev V.2 Iron Sights and Xplorer shotgun style priming handle, allowing a good combo of rapid fire and accuracy. I prefer 12 dart mags in this as it is a good balance between capacity and free space around the blaster.

The power I get out of this is insane, I still haven't range tested but it's a safe 50m+ with an angle, or 25m+ flat with very little drop. Accuracy beyond the 25m mark starts to get a little bit hazy, but this may be the result of an inner barrel that is too short or darts that are not heavy enough.

Future mods might include a switch to a picatinny rail on top and a pair on the side of the barrel so that I can mount a scope and a laser module, increasing the ease of aiming. I don't think I will increase the spring load any further as it will start to seriously reduce the rate of priming the blaster. Enjoy, comment, leave some ideas!

I'm not dead yet

To my few regular readers, I'm not dead yet. The sudden lack of posts might make it seem that way, but I'm still here. If you're wondering, I took an unannounced hiatus to get my workshop a little better set up, and while doing that, I got sidetracked with a few other hobbies. My workshop now has 400 litres worth of fish tanks in it with Australian native fish, so that took a huge chunk of time to get right. I got back in to building potato cannons and I actually have a pretty awesome combustion cannon project under way which I will post about at a later date. And finally, BMX hurt my hip pocket again to the tune of a few thousand dollars.

So there you have it. next post will probably be about ignition systems, as that is what I'm currently working on for the current cannon.

Nerf Elite Triad and Jolt review

Battle of the mini side arms: Elite edition? Today I've got the elite Jolt and Triad for review, both have very similar styling and operation, and both pack a punch in a tiny package. What do I think of them? Well I'll start with the Triad.

When I first saw pictures of the Triad, I thought it looked like some kind of franken-jolt. In person, it's larger than I had anticipated, and not nearly as ugly as I first thought. The ergonomics are a bit off though, it is definitely not the most comfortable blaster I've held. There are many edges that jut out  in to your hand, the main one being the base of the plunger tube where the screw port is. I feel like this could have been avoided if that area was smoothed out some more.

The function of this blaster definitely makes up for the poor ergonomics however. The Triad features 3 barrels, which cleverly utilise the air restrictor system to fire one dart at a time, and block off air flow to barrels that don't have a dart loaded. This means you can stick a dart in any barrel and it will fire with full power first time no matter what. So, unlike other barrel loaded blasters, you do not have to load another dart for each shot or twist a turret or barrel selector, you just cock the blaster via the rod at the base of the handle, pull the trigger and repeat for the next 2 shots. Drilling out the air restrictors would make it a pocket shotgun, making all 3 darts fire at once with reduced power.

Ranges aren't bad, considering this is a grey trigger model, it still makes 50-60 feet with elite darts, but the accuracy seems to be a little lacking when compared to the Jolt or Firestrike for some reason. Still, the Triad makes a great side arm based on range and refire rate. if it were coming up against any other barrel loaded blaster, it would stand a good chance.

On to the Elite Jolt. I'm not really sure you could actually call it an elite Jolt, to be honest. compared to the original Jolt there has only been cosmetic changes, most notably the colours, and a barrel tip. The elite jolt I have hits the exact same ranges as the original and functions no differently. I would have liked to see a dart holder or something, but I guess that defeats the purpose of being the most minimalistic blaster in the range.

But, the colours are really nice and there has been no price change. True to the Nerf Elite styling, the blaster is mainly blue, with a white stripe and grey and orange accents. What I found strange was that the Nerf logo on one side of mine was painted black, but not on the other side.

To answer something I always wondered, yes, the Triad's plunger tube is indeed bigger. This means that turning it in to a single barrel blaster would make it a kind of "super jolt", although I'm not sure anyone has attempted this yet.

Although Nerf does not make any accessories for either of these blasters, Slydev does. These include dart holders and rail connectors. Holsters for these are also available from various third parties from what I'm told, I'll update when I find these.

Review: Nerf Elite Alpha Trooper

Arguably one of the most popular N-Strike series blaster to date has been the Alpha Trooper CS-18, anyone with a decent collection will tell you they have one or several of them kicking around. It hit shelves with a brand new 18 dart drum mag, touted slam-fire with shotgun style pump action grip and great looks. I was a little disappointed when Nerf released the Elite line without a variant of the Alpha Trooper in the line-up, but fast forward a few months and rumors began to surface of an Elite Alpha Trooper CS-12. Crisis averted!

The Alpha Trooper CS-12 is the Elite variant of the N-Strike Alpha Trooper, complete with Elite style blue and white colouration. Not much has changed on this blaster really, the only differences externally being the colour and the inclusion of a 12 dart straight mag instead of an 18 dart drum. The quality of the build is, as per usual from Nerf, a great standard. I am a little disappointed that nothing changed on the shell design though, a more comfortable priming grip or iron sights or even some rails would really compliment this blaster. I'd even go so far as to say Nerf could have added a unique stock and sold this blaster at a higher price, and they'd sell even more. But, I guess the original Alpha Trooper was really a minimalistic Raider, which caught the appeal of those who didn't like the size or fancy bits of the Raider.

Even though the Elite Alpha Trooper only features a top rail and a stock adapter as the platform for customisation, it does still look pretty good with some parts on. I like using the Stockade stock, and a Max Force Shadow Hawk scope looks cool when trimmed to fit. HINT HINT NERF SOME ELITE TOP RAIL ACCESSORIES ON YOUR BLASTERS WOULD BE GREAT. Is that too subtle?

Performance? well, this is an Australian grey trigger version, so performance is pretty pathetic, but fear not, since the rest of the world gets a decent spring in theirs, I decided to swap in a US Rampage spring to negate the detuning. Performance with a US spring is more impressive, 75 feet with an angle is on par with the rest of the Elites blasters. The slamfire is smooth and fast, but burns through darts quickly so the 12 dart mag does not last long. Internally, this blaster uses the same format as the Retaliator, except with slam-fire parts in the mix. I wouldn't mind seeing a brass breeched Elite Alpha Trooper in action, since the barrel seems to be a good length to deliver some great power. But even without complex mods, some decent power can be achieved with a few of mods like spring swap, AR removal and plunger head dead space filling.

Overall, it' great to see the original Alpha Trooper get the Elite treatment and gain the same performance increases as the Rampage and Retaliator, but I still think some add on parts out of the box would be a nice and welcome addition to an already decent blaster. But don't let that stop you from picking up this great unit. I picked mine up for a mere $14.50AU, which is ridiculously good value.  -Rolley

Tek Recon - High tech blaster tagging!

Ever wish you could have some kind of online intergration for your blaster wars? like having a smartphone mounted as a kind of heads up display that can track team mates, enemies and add another element to your gameplay? I've always tinkered with the thought, but so far not even Nerf has really touched that idea. Enter Tek Recon, a young company designing blasters to not only have smartphone mounts, but also the app to go with it, allowing you to do all the above mentioned wishes, and a little more.

I've actually been following the Tek Recon storyline since it was unveiled at the NY toy fair some time ago, and it does look like they are doing it right. I'm actually pretty keen to see these roll out, the blasters fire little rubber band type ammo with what looks like good accuracy and range, they're easy to use, look really awesome, and the smartphone mount looks like it will adapt to any smartphone, not just an iPhone or iPod Touch. What really catches my eye though, is the quality of research and development that has obviously gone in to creating the Tek Recon blasters so far. I've already mentioned the blaster designs being superb, but the app also has some great features, customisable crosshairs, firing sounds, the ability to "scan" flags and targets for different game types, GPS integration, you name it, they've thought of it and done it. What they are missing, however, is some funding. They need some funding to finalise the app, do some marketing and really, just to get these blasters on the shelves.

How can you get your hands on a Tek recon blaster and help get these to the market? Kickstarter. They've got a kickstarter project up, and they're over half way to their funding goal of $50,000. some of the rewards are really awesome too, you can choose from a single blaster, to battle packs, to packs with flags and blasters, even a pack where you fly to the Tek Recon film set to appear in their nest commercial!

I'm already behind this project with my pledge on a limited edition Havoc blaster (only 75 available) and I do hope this reaches it's funding goal, so check out the video and get behind it!

Tek Recon homepage
Tek Recon Kickstarter

Review: Nerf Strongarm and Firestrike

Side arms aren't normally my thing, other than for designated pistol rounds at wars, or for shooting random stuff around my house when boredom kicks in, But I still collect them nonetheless. This week I have a Nerf Strongarm and Firestrike, both falling under the N-Strike Elite banner. These are both locally bought grey trigger versions.

Let's start with the Strongarm. Looking at the Strongarm, you can instantly see that it draws it's inspiration straight from the Maverick. I never really liked the Maverick that much, it's small and weak reverse plunger firing mechanism, design flaws and lack of modability made me move on to other blasters pretty quickly. But the Strongarm is very different and addresses the gripes some people had with the Maverick.

Aesthetically, It looks like a refined Maverick, of course. The top rail has been moved from the priming slide to above the turret, where adding accessories won't impede on priming the blaster. The small barrel opening has been widened, and the right side has a cut away in front of the turret so that jams can be cleared more easily. The turret now pops most of the way out and can be spun easily while it's popped out, and can be rotated manually one by one when loaded in the blaster, this is something that used to require a mod known as the "roulette" mod on the Maverick. The sling loop on the slide has been made bigger and the hand grip now features one as well, along with a small extension for people with bigger hands.

Performance is where this blaster shines as a six-shooter. even though it's a grey trigger version, ranges are still hitting 50+ feet with what feels like a very light spring load. Like the rest of the Elite line, Nerf have opted  for a small direct plunger system, giving it much more potential than similar sized reverse plungers. The air seal against the back of the turret is good, with a foam pad pressing against the turret as it fires. What really has been a fantastic improvement over the Maverick is the inclusion of a slamfire feature, allowing you to fire off all 6 darts in very quick succession. Elite ranges, mod potential and slamfire capability would allow the Strongarm to be used as a decent back up in tough situations, particularly if you really just need to buy yourself a few more seconds to reload your main blaster. That's the whole role of a sidearm, right?

Orange Mod Works already have a pre-order for a performance upgrade kit to suit the Strongarm, which also provides 20% discount for their future "external mod kit" (I have no idea what this would entail). So at under $15AUD, This blaster is a great addition to any nerfer who liked the Maverick or likes a manually primed sidearm, but I would not discourage anyone else from buying one either.

Right, now the Firestrike. This too obviously takes it's cues from an older N-Strike model, the Nitefinder. It always had a tough task bettering the already well rounded Nitefinder. On the outside, the layout has changed and overall the Firestrike has become a more compact unit. The light and dart holders from the Nitfinder are features that have been retained in the Firestrike but have been condensed and more form a part of the blaster rather than looking like add ons. The activation for the light is now a standalone mini trigger below the main trigger and can be operated independantly from the firing mechanism totally. The hand grip has been shortened and is less wide due to the move to AAA batteries powering the light. Priming and loading are still manual actions much like the Nitefinder. It is a very good looking little pistol that could be holstered easily, but it is a bit small for my hand size.

What is disappointing about this blaster, however, is the performance. I know this is a grey trigger version, but I still expected similar power to the grey trigger Strongarm. This is not what I got. The spring load is very light, and ranges I'm getting out of this are even inferior to the Nitefinder. I would say that I only got 30 feet maximum from the stock blaster, not something I would put under the "elite" banner. Upon opening up the blaster, I found out why. Comparing it to the Nitefinder, the draw is shorter, the plunger tube is slightly smaller, the barrel has an air release hole, the plunger head has a fair amount of dead space and the spring is pretty weak. Of course, there is an air restrictor as well. It's obvious that all these things will add up to reduced performance but I do feel the move to a shorter and smaller diameter plunger tube is something that will not allow this blaster to exceed it's previous counterpart in performance.

Overall, the Firestrike is a fantastic looking blaster, but at the same price as a Nitefinder, I would only recommend the Firestrike over the Nitefinder if there was a requirement for something that can be holstered, or if you can't find a Nitefinder. It's disappointing that a once sought after blaster has an elite counterpart that is 2 steps foreward on the outside and 1 step backwards internally. Anyway, that wraps up this review, hope you enjoyed.

Review: Modified Nerf Stryfe

Kicking off another review today, we have a Nerf Stryfe. Released a few months ago in the U.S (but not yet here?) this blaster has made some waves, being touted as the ultimate SMG style blaster. I was pretty impartial to it as I already had a few flywheel blasters, so I never sourced one out when they were first released. But that changed. I picked up a modified Stryfe from Brisbane Nerf Group's Clem, and started having my eyes opened to why this blaster is so great.

So what's under the hood? nothing too extreme. The wiring has been replaced with thicker wire to handle a higher voltage, safeties removed and Clem also provided me with 4x 3.7v Trustfire rechargeable batteries and charger to boot. A lot of people run this setup and do very well with it, however, using all 4 trustfires tends to kill the motors early, so I run 3 to be safe.

Externally, this blaster doesn't come with much out of the box. It's just the blaster, 6 elite darts and a 6 dart elite mag. pretty disappointing that Nerf keeps going down the road of having tactical rails on their elite blasters without actually providing anything to put on them, but it has potential. It's a kind of a large pistol size, with a rail on top to fit anything and one below the barrel that really only fits a foregrip or something like a Slydev Jolt holder. additionally, there is a barrel adaptor and stock adaptor, which makes this more versatile than the Recon/Retaliator. It features a rev-button below the main trigger and directly forward of that is the mag release button, very sensible. The right hand side of the blaster from the rail is wider than the left to fit the flywheel system in. While this does reduce the overall width of the blaster, it looks a little strange, and the left hand side looks a bit bland by comparison. There's also 2 loops for a bandolier strap, one above the barrel and one at the base of the grip. Jam door is located on top and is a front hinge style. Overall, it's not the prettiest blaster I've seen but the build quality is great, and it does follow the Nerf Elite styling and allows for a wide range of customisation.

Customisation did you say? There is a ton of different options for this blaster, you can turn it in to an SMG, a full rifle, there's even a mod out there that allows you to fit a Nerf Rough Cut as a masterkey shot gun under a Retaliator barrel. BAD ASS! Personally, I like the foregrip, 25 dart drum and Lightning Storm stock. I do wish I had an Elite pinpoint sight for it though.

Performance? well, mine's modified. but the performance out of this is fantastic for a flywheel blaster. it's not as crazy loud as I thought it would be, but it is still pretty noisy. It doesn't bother me though since I've got other blasters that I go all sneaky-ambushy with. range tops out around 100 feet but at that range it's pretty inaccurate and is really best used as suppression. close range accuracy is good, especially when you have a drum mag and a rate of fire that could match a slamfire or full auto blaster. Semi auto fire does make your finger a little tired though. Really, the roles that this blaster excels at are CQB and suppression. There is not much you can do when you're stuck behind cover and you have someone coming at you with a screaming Stryfe, raining down a torrent of darts. You either run away, or... yeah that's pretty much it. The video below will give you an idea of what it can do modified with 3 Trustfire 3.7v batteries.

The Nerf Stryfe has a ton of potential as demonstrated by Clem's work on this blaster, but out of the box I'd say it's pretty disappointing. If you're thinking of purchasing one of these, be prepared to do some modding and have a few parts to put on it to make it your own.

Edit: sorry about the lack of light in the video, I will try to do another video to replace this one some time this week. 

Updates!

Regular readers may have noticed a few changes to the blog happening over the last couple of days, and there are still more to come. First and foremost, I've been posting more. Over the last month, time constraints that have been preventing me from posting more often have become more manageable, and though I don't actually have any more free time than I used to, I've organised my job and other commitments in such a way that I get larger chunks of free time that I can do more with (however, being a parent and doing parental duties is still something you can't "organise").

Secondly, pages on the blog have changed. There is no longer a photos page, but there is now a listing of reviews posted on this blog in it's place, and also a online store listing for retailers of aftermarket foam dart blaster parts and other equipment. The links page has also been updated. If you are a retailer or blogger that would like your page listed, let me know via comment or via the new email: street-tag-warfare@live.com

Ads are now gone completely from the blog, really they were just a placeholder to give the page some colour anyway, I will have to think of something colourful and interesting to put in their place eventually. I'll probably allow ads for the YouTube channel, as that's probably the better platform for them and at least there they can pay to expand the blog more. There's a ton of blasters and mod kits I'd love to review but realistically there is no way I can afford to cover them all out of my own pocket. Every cent any ads generate will go back in to the blog, and hopefully cover the cost of some competitions and giveaways.

Finally: social media updates. Over the next week or two, my personal YouTube account will become the platform for any videos for this blog (about time I started doing videos), and also the Facebook page will be updated more frequently.

I had plans to run a competition in the near future for a logo and banner design for all outlets of this blog, however the readership at the moment isn't anywhere near big enough or active enough to have a healthy competition. So if you'd like to see things like competitions and giveaways, get campaigning! comment on posts and spread the word! show me that you're here and that you want free stuff!!

Ultimately, this blog is owned by the people who read it. If you have suggestions or ideas for Street Tag Warfare, shoot me an email and i'll try to get it done. User submissions are welcome, I especially love high quality mods that I can feature!

Remedy Metal Power Train kit: First impressions

The Nerf Longshot, for almost 8 years now has been the ultimate blaster for modders wanting huge power from a CS blaster, due to it's large plunger tube and fairly rugged "battle rifle" good looks. It's popularity among modders is pretty hard to miss, there's literally hundreds of different mods, from integration mods, to power mods, lighting, steampunk and paintworks are hard to miss, and in recent times, as modders start to push the boundaries of power, reinforcements have been popular. Everything from epoxy putty reinforcing, steel plates on the boltsled, and brass breech systems, to plunger tubes made from metal and spring plate supports. All these things have allowed higher and higher spring loads (16+kg seemed to be the norm for a while) but eventually, something usually broke or at the very least there was a huge amount of uncertainty about whether your Longshot would last another war. I myself have broken 2 boltsleds, 2 bolts, 2 back plates, and a plunger over a few years.

Let me show you, what I think, is the ultimate in power and reliability for a spring powered Longshot:

Forgot to take a photo of the kit before it's assembled - pic from Remedy Metal

This is the Remedy Metal Power Train full mod kit for the Nerf Longshot. It's a full stainless steel replacement kit which does away with the standard plunger, catch, plunger tube, back plate, bolt, bolt sled and breech system from the Longshot and replaces it with all stainless steel and delrin goodies.

Full kit installed

The plunger is all stainless, with a bigger o-ring and the screw holding it together has been moved from the plunger head to inside the catch tail, taking a weak point away from the impact area. The back plate and catch have also been redesigned and made from stainless steel, with a delrin support for the catch and an upgraded catch spring. There is also a k-26 main spring upgrade included with the kit. the plunger tube is also stainless steel and includes a vacuum hole in the design to stop it trying to suck darts in to the bolt. The bolt is also precision cut stainless steel and is a 2-part assembly with the front end sealing head (opposite plunger, as I've also heard it called) attached with a snap ring on either side (tool included for that!). The bolt is supported by a full stainless steel bolt sled and feeds in to a delrin coupler as the sealed breech, which also does away with the need for a dart tooth. At the end of the coupler is the precision cut stainless steel barrel which nests inside the existing plastic barrel, allowing it to be painted. The whole kit installed looks very nice and probably leads many people to remove their jam door to show it off.

Reinforced trigger

So it looks stunning, but how does it perform? Well, since I don't have a spare Longshot to build up, I used my old longshot that I wrote about a while ago as the test bed. I started off with just the k-26 spring as my load, but quickly realised that the stock trigger wouldn't handle pushing the catch under such load. I decided to reinforce the trigger with a pair of 14g bicycle spokes cut down to fit the groove in each side of the trigger, and filling the gap directly below the trigger tail with hot glue to support it. The first shot I fired from the assembled blaster impressed me, a lot! modified darts were already puncturing cardboard.

The spring load I'm using - 20kg. Green felt used for padding.

But I couldn't stop there, right? I had no hesitations about upping the ante with the spring load. The blaster now feels so solid and reliable, and really, there's nothing that can break in this kit with a mere k-26. So I loaded in 2 more springs, a 6kg Recon spring which fits nicely over the top of the k-26, and coils in the opposite direction, and then the original longshot spring over that, which coils back the same way as the k-26, so there was no worries about springs getting tangled when primed. All up this is about 20kg. funnily enough, I had answered a question on the Oznerf forum a week ago about 20kg in a longshot, warning that it'd be a pretty tough prime. Well, it is a pretty stiff prime and does slow down rate of fire, even with the Xplorer priming grip. But, to no surprise, the Remedy Metal kit takes it with ease. Firing this blaster is incredible. I do not have any other blaster in my load out that comes close to half the power of this thing, and thinking back to brass breeched Longshots I've seen, it'll probably out range those too.

So the verdict? Well, this isn't a final verdict. This is my first impressions after a week of messing around with it in my longshot. There's still battle testing and range testing to come. But for now, this kit is a stunning piece of Nerfing genius. It is worth every penny I paid for it and then some. The attention to detail, overall quality, reliability and power produced is nothing short of mind blowing. I have no doubt that this is a fantastic step in the right direction for aftermarket foam dart blaster parts. Look out for future posts on this kit, I hope to do a full build video using the Remedy Metal kit, if I can source an in-box Longshot from somewhere.

If you are interested in this kit, visit the Remedy Metal facebook page for updates, or http://www.remedymetal.com/ to order a the full kit or other parts.

Nerf Rapidstrike - with internals!

So everyone is raving about the Nerf Rapidstrike photos that have been leaked on baidu.com:

Well, here I was cruising Reddit, when I stumbled upon these posted up by "Rapidstrike", with a link back to Baidu once again:

Interesting, right? Until now, I hadn't covered the rapidstrike, since every other blog and their dog was all over it anyway, but no one has posted these yet, so I thought I'd get the word out. So we can confirm loads of things with this: full auto dart pusher, lots of wires and safety mechanisms... And lots of Wires. also, wires. seriously, there's literally 7 or 8 separate wires just behind the trigger...

Anyway, enjoy, speculate, plan mods, whatever tickles your fancy!

Orange Mod Works working on sealed breaches?

I saw a few pictures pop up in my facebook news feed last night by Orange Mod Works which seem to not-so-subtly hint that they are working on a sealed breach system for the Nerf Retaliator. I'm not sure what to make of this, as there is no pre-order up on their website yet, but they are calling it "the second stage", obviously referring to the stage 2 "solid" kit for the Nerf Retaliator.

From what the picture shows, it's a kit with revamped internals, adding on from kit #1. Bolt sled, metal trigger, bolt, plunger and receiver are all included by the looks, but it also features a barrel extension that is supposed to allow the dart to accelerate more as it leaves the barrel, using the full potential of the direct plunger volume of the Retaliator.

If this kit is indeed going in to production soon, I'll be pretty happy. I like my Retaliator, but at the moment it has no extra power over my rampage, so it's kind of an inferior candidate for the same role. giving it some extra power would bring it in to it's own field, it certainly couldn't out range a longshot, but it could out range a rampage with the two Orange Mod Works kits, and it's more compact than a Longshot. This kit and the stage 1 kit would make the Retaliator one hell of a pistol or short rifle.

Good work Orange Mod Works, I do hope this makes production soon!

Limey Tactical: Tacticool Nerf gear!

Finally! pouches and vests that look cool and are designed for Nerf gear!

I stumbled across this blog selling tactical nerf gear on the Remedy Metal facebook page, they are selling custom pouches for Nerf mags and drums, tactical vests, dart holder wraps and all sorts more. Most of the gear is modular to work with the Limey Tactical vests and belts. Anyone who's gone along to a few nerf wars will know that being able to carry extra gear on field is a big advantage, but if it's not secured in a way that it doesn't impede on your movement, it's clumsy and not really worth doing (tried carrying a bunch of drum mags in a bandolier? it doesn't work.)

The page is definitely worth checking out, I'll be ordering some gear when I can and reviewing it here, but from what I can see it is of very high quality.

Limey Tactical

Edit: HAPPY BIRTHDAY STREET-TAG WARFARE! I just realised that 3 days ago, it was this blog's 2nd birthday.

I would like to say that the last 2 years running this blog, though now not as often as I used to, has been great fun, especially with getting among the Brisbane based nerfing communities for wars and sharing ideas, as well as getting to know little bits of the international community (Bazookafied of Tactical Tag - thank you for mentioning my blog every now and then! If I had the means to thank you properly I would!). I hope the next chapter of this blog features more growth and readers, because that's why I do it! to entertain you guys!

Corrections and ommissions

...Regarding the post about the Centurion. It seems there's been a mix up in Hasbro's PR team which led to MyLastDart's post having to be taken down. Unfortunately, soon after this post, I will follow suit. Not that I have any relations with Hasbro whatsoever, but I'm doing it to not be a jerk to them so that one day, this blog might actually catch their interest (and then maybe one day someone will actually send me some damn blasters to review!).

Anyway, Nerf Centurion is a blaster coming out with no confirmed details and no current "released" information.

Setups: Elite Rampage

Alright, second installment of setups is covering what I usually work with when I'm using my Rampage for speed foam warfare type Nerf wars. This setup is geared towards being able to collect ammo on the fly, high capacity and fast, accurate, rushing.

Starting at the front, there is no shield or other attachment on the side rail I have mounted. There is little point of a shield unless you want to bunker down and defend, where you can hide your body behind cover and have your face protected by the shield, but that's not for this type of strategy. This means the front end is easy to point and keeps a nice field of vision. On the top rail is a Slydev high drop iron sight kit. This serves the purpose of lining up longer range shots quickly if you need to, but retains the open field of vision that you would lose with a scope.

Moving back, and it's all about capacity. A 25 round drum gives a decent capacity to work with the slamfire capability of the Rampage, allowing you to move up and storm opposing player's positions. The clear back lets you see a rough idea of how much ammo you have without taking your eyes away from the action also. But, nothing is unlimited, so the use of the bandolier with a couple of spare 6-mags lets you quickly swap in some ammo when you need to reload the drum, and that's where the stock comes in.

The Stockade stock is light and sturdy, assists in aiming with the iron sights, and best of all has storage for 10 darts. I use this to grab and store darts quickly while behind cover before I move up again. and when the drum runs out and you swap to the 6-mags, you can pull darts from the stock and the bandolier and almost fill the 25 dart drum straight up.

Finally, the internals have been tweaked with AR removal, all moving parts greased and a slightly stronger spring, which pushes the maximum range to about 85 feet. I have had thoughts of doing a brass breech, however, I'm not sure how much gain there would be. So that wraps it up, this my personal setup for a Rampage that allows for high capacity slamfire rushing!

Toy fair time! -The Toy Spy's Nerf showroom preview

New York Toy Fair is my favourite time of year, where I sit back and check out all the new releases and quietly wet myself a little with excitement. This year looks to be a pretty sweet year with more Vortex releases, more N-Strike releases and a whole new line for girls called "Rebelle". The video below is from The Toy Spy, which takes a quick look at the Nerf showroom this year, as well as shows some firing tests. unfortunately the Nerf Rebelle gear is not in this video, but some really awesome blasters like the Blazin' Bow is shown. Enjoy!