One-Handers and Behemoths

So recently I've taken the liberty of going big. It certainly makes blasters look more menacing, and with my Rapidstrike, the flywheels make an intimidating sound anyway.

Pinpoint
I have been working on the Pinpoint for over two years now, and recently it has gone through several makeovers. I extended the barrel, added a piece of a Recon to act as a small fragment of a shell, and added a sorely needed bipod. There have been many projects called "nerf sniper" or something of the sort, but they mainly focus on outward appearance. The Pinpoint is engineered almost entirely for performance. It can reach muzzle velocities of over 130 feet per second, and it has unmatched accuracy and stability.

Rapidstrike (Cobra Mk III)
Yes, I did have to try 3 times to make a one-hand automatic blaster that worked properly. It really didn't go well the first two times, with darts melting and motors shaking themselves to death and many other dramatic failures. But now it works, it is remarkably comfortable, it only uses one hand, and it's HUGE.

This blaster and the pinpoint both adapt a lot of technology from archery. The arm cuff on the Cobra III is similar to arm guards used in archery to protect the forearm from the bowstring. This blaster is actually quite heavy, but I can still support its weight with my arm fully extended.

Kingfisher
The Kingfisher, my Retaliator mod, is now a one-hander. It reloads by means of a neck strap/cord, attached to the sliding primer on the top. I also added a string reaching from the end of the handle to the end of the stock (because it looks nice and makes it look a lot bigger). Je vous presentez le Kingfisher.

About what I said earlier in the way of hugeness...

As you can see, my Rapidstrike is big, heavy, and intimidating. It's even more intimidating with a 6-dart clip in it. It has some nice performance, just an accuracy upgrade from stock form, but not much.

The Big Picture of Development

The development of dart blasters can be compared to the development of firearms. And that's exactly what I'm doing in this article.

The earliest known weapons mankind used were rocks thrown at targets. The Nerf counterpart would be the original Nerf ball, made from the invention that started it all - Non-Expanding Recreational Foam.

Then it goes to Chinese hand cannons, and Nerf making a "gun" to shoot the harmless foam balls.

Chinese hand cannon (Wikipedia)

In Europe, firearms developed into the first smooth-bore personal firearm, and then muskets, which lines up with the invention of darts.

Then we reach the point of flintlock rifles, and here Nerf makes a jump and skips a step.

Europe then develops breech-loading technology, and Nerf comes out with the Sawtooth, a 5-shot clip-fed blaster.

Sawtooth (Nerf Wiki, AFoN)

This also covers the invention of repeating firearms, starting with revolver pistols (comparable to the Maverick REV-6).

Then, finally, we get to the age of automatic firearms. The first automatic blaster was the Stampede, not  breech-loading, similar to early gatling guns. Then with the invention of breech-loading automatics, we have the Maxim gun, firing 600 rounds per minute, but requiring a team of 10 to operate. For blasters,

we come to the well-known Vulcan, which only requires 1 person, but it would be nice to have two.

Overall, the largest difference between these two developmental timelines is the scale of them. Nerf products first came out in 1970 with the Nerf ball. Humans started throwing rocks before they became sentient. Then we get to the first Nerf blasters, debuting 18 years later, and that compares to the gap from pre-sentience to the Yuan dynasty, say, 18 million years or so. At every step of the way, Nerf moves far faster. Currently, Nerf hasn't yet developed an automatic breech-loading rifle. 15 years from the first nerf blaster, we have advanced as far as firearms did over a span of about 1500 years. 

This summer, I plan to get my hands on a newer Vulcan and modify it into an automatic sniper. But that means another article entirely.