Now THAT'S how you paint a stampede!

Mr. Johnson from the Johnson Arms wordpress blog has done it again, I saw this pop up in my feed and was absolutely stunned at the look of this stampede he has done for a buyer, so I just had to post it, Johnson's work more than deserving! So there's a pic for now, and go to http://johnsonarms.wordpress.com to see the blog, including the post on the stampede HERE.

Custom Nerf Nitefinder

In between writing for this blog, riding and working, I've also been moving house, so I have been really busy. The upside of this, Is that I've found well over 100 Nerf darts (from places you wouldn't even think of looking), and this, my custom Nitefinder. I did a review on these and also a mod guide a while ago, but I had no idea where this one was to include it in the pictures or write up.

Anyway, This was the very first Nerf gun I owned and modded. It started out as a simple stretched spring, then later I decided to drill the restrictor out, and I got some great ranges out of it. But, me being me, I wanted more power. So, I added an extra spring to work inside the original one. And then I went further, and added a stock fabricated from a piece of L bar and a short piece of box section steel. I cut a small section out of one side of each L bar piece so that it could be screwed flat to the side of the Nitefinder's body. This stock gave me added stability in Nerf wars to be able to hit 80 foot ranges with decent accuracy. A while later, I bought a Longshot and attached the scope to this, and did my first painting attempt .

2 bolts either side secure the stock

This Nitefinder is one Nerf gun that I can say I'll sill keep using for a while, though not one of my best modding jobs, it looks OK in my opinion, I do like the minimalistic stock look. Performance is still quite good, it's short, so very easy to get around with, powerful enough to get good ranges, and pretty accurate for a Nerf gun. The downside is that it is slow to reload and quite loud. But, like I said, I'll still be using this blast from the past.

Nerf Alpha Trooper custom rebuild: part 2

Continuing on with my rebuild of my Nerf Alpha Trooper from parts, I had a bit of spare time to come up with a solution for the lack of fitting barrel tip, and also added an attachment rail to the left side.

The previous barrel tip was the end of the inner barrel from the "front gun" barrel extension that comes with the Nerf Longshot, and I though it didn't really look right. So, wondering what the Alpha Trooper would look like with the Spectre "silencer" barrel, I decided to do something to incorporate one. The one thing I didn't want to do was make it permanent, though. So, with a ton of grinding down, I was able to get a barrel adapter piece from my old Longstrike to sit in place quite well and line up with the inner barrel tube tube perfectly, so i hot glued it in place on one side of the blaster shell. After putting it back together with the silencer barrel on, I thought it looked pretty good, but i was worried the extra barrel length would have an effect on range, so I tested it out, and found I only lost 1-2 feet on average.

The side rail was the next thing to do, and I already had a spare Nerf Recon top slide that I could use to obtain a clean, flat rail from. I cut directly on the crease and then used a bench grinder to clean up the cuts. placing it on, I used hot glue again to fill in any grooves under the rail and it now seems really solid. I wasn't sure what side I should put it on at first, but eventually I decided I would just put it on the left for now and try to find another Recon slide to cut up and put on the other side as well.

With all of the attachments on, it looks a little bulky, but very cool, and nothing gets in the way. The weight is still way less than a stampede, and better yet, it can still be stripped right down to be just the blaster if needed.  I still need to put the right hand side rail on, find a dart jam door, clean up the hot glue a bit and add some paint. I'm looking for suggestions for colour schemes, and comments on this setup, so feel free to suggest and comment away!

More from Johnson Arms

You may remember not too long ago, I posted up some custom paint works from Johnson Arms. I've had a ton of positive feedback from friends about that post but I also received a comment from the Mr. Johnson himself a couple of days ago, pointing me in the direction of his Deviant Art gallery, here. I've said it before, I love custom paint work. just yesterday I finished doing a custom paintjob on my bike, but that's a different story for a different blog. I feel, however, that the best custom paint I have ever seen in terms of Nerf or Airsoft has come from Johnson Arms.

Like this. Of course, Airsoft is illegal here in Australia, but not in some other countries. This is the Johnson Arms Airsoft silenced p90. I spotted this on the DA gallery, and absolutely love it. For some reason I like orange and black colour schemes almost as much as I love red and black (as you can probably guess by the look of the blog...) Seeing paint work with such great effort and skill put in to achieve this fantastic end result

is always inspiring. I really should find some time one day to put this much time in to my own Nerf collection.

If you have a spare moment, do yourself a favour, and have  look at the Deviant Art Gallery of Johnson Arms, or have a look at the Johnson Arms Wordpress. It will be worth your while. 

Anyway, that's all for now. -Rolley.

Custom painted dart blasters by Miles

I've been meaning to get some photos and post these up here for a while. These custom painted blasters are by a mate of mine, Miles. It's not the first of his works, somehow he manages to pull off some really awesome looking paint jobs just by doing some careful masking or dry brushing. His latest work, is a Nerf Longshot, a Nerf Alpha Trooper, and a Lanard Triple Shot. All are now a bit battle worn, but still look great.

First, the Longshot. while the black and silver on a well prepared shell makes this thing stand out, it's not the only detail about this blaster that's different. Miles did an almost seamless integration of the front gun into the longshot main body, and to fire uses a ring pull on string that is the perfect length to line up with the existing longshot trigger, so both can be fired at once, or just one at a time.

Very sleek

Interestingly, instead of just discarding the top half of the front gun after the integration, Miles cleaned it up and painted it in the same colours to be used with the blaster. It also has a Tasco red dot scope on a custom made mount attached to the top rail.

Note the convenient ring-pull trigger

Without the custom barrel

Internally, only the air restrictor has been removed, no extra spring was added. Also, none of the internal parts were painted, so as not to increase wear and early breakdown. Performance? Well, there's been plenty of times I've been hit out of nowhere with a dart that originated from this blaster. Though, a red dot sight on any Nerf blaster is pretty useless, it's still way better than using a Nerf sight.

The Alpha Trooper is my favourite. It looks unreal in my opinion with the Raider stock and custom made sight. The sight was made using the base of a recon flip up sight, and a recycled lens body from the light on the Nerf Nitefinder. Again, no internal parts were painted, and only the air restrictor was removed. It maintains full slam-fire function with no jams.Performance is not lacking at all. Seeing Miles pop up with these generally means you rethink your strategy haha.

Trigger and barrel tip was left orange
to not scare the neighbours

The sight is still compatible with other blasters

quite a photogenic blaster really...

 Finally, there is the Lanard Triple Shot. Going for a more camo look on this one, still with no internals painted. This is also modded, with the turret removed and a buzz bee shell integrated in the front to be able to only take single darts. The upside of this (or rather downside for the other team) is that this blaster now yields incredible ranges. It actually has a significant recoil for a spring powered foam dart blaster. So, with this paint work suits someone in a ghillie suit.

I've been Nerf sniped with this more times than I can count

In closing, I'd like to thank Miles for letting me do a write up on these blasters. I felt that they deserved their own post, and I'm positive there's plenty more custom blasters out there that could get there own spot on this blog. If you would like to see your blasters up here, please email me some decent quality photos with details of the blasters, and your name (unless you want to go anonymous). Cfb_rolley@hotmail.com

Incredible custom paintjobs

Some may have already spotted this on another blog in their links section, as that's how I stumbled upon Johnson Arms. I have seen some really awesome paint jobs around, but I definitely haven't seen too many as detailed as this. I also absolutely love the quality of some the photos on this blog. From what I've read, they specialize in mil-sim and steam punk styles, on nerf blasters, water cannons and also airsoft (illegal here, but if you're reading from the U.S...) and you can also order custom paint jobs from Johnson Arms. I am not sure on pricing, but if you are looking for something that really stands out, this fits the part. for now, here's some pics from their blog. Also, if anyone has pics of a paintjob they've done and are particularly proud of, send them HERE. and I will try to put them up in a post as quick as i can.

Johnson Arms mil-sim Nerf Stampede

Johnson Arms mil-sim Nerf Recon