A New Project: "Winter Soldier"

So, I finally watched Winter Soldier. And I loved it. Although the fighting styles were limited to just guns, grenades, and small knives, with the exception of the shield. But it inspired me to develop an idea I got when I first heard the term "Winter Soldier."

I'm starting a new project, and I'm probably alone in my work, but any collaboration would be greatly appreciated. Odds are, I won't have any help anyway. But it's worth a shot, right?

On to the new idea. What if there was a new class of blaster and competition, one where people were required to wear clothing that leaves no skin exposed? It would only be natural, as these battles would only take place in the wintertime. With gear covering everything, darts can hit a lot harder, and therefore fly faster, and instantly the game becomes exponentially more intense.

Winter Soldier class blasters would fire weighted darts, flying at up to 200 fps. The darts would be very rigid in structure, having a hard enamel on the surface of the foam, except for about half an inch at the tail, which would seal in 1/2" PVC, PETG, or brass.

Getting the blasters up to that power level will take some heavy engineering and application. There are a number of approaches:

• Flywheel
• electric
• brushed
• brushless
• hydraulic impeller
• liquid nitrogen
• dry ice
• compressed air
• water
• other hydraulic fluid
• Plunger
• PVC breech
• PETG/Brass breech
• favorable technology, as it has been developed very well by the NIC. Thanks, guys. The world owes you one.
• Compression-ignition charge
• Diesel engines don't need spark plugs because the fuel ignites by the heat from the sudden compression in the cylinder. This concept could also be applied to a plunger firing darts.
• In model rockets, a small charge fires into the fuselage of the rocket from the top of the engine, popping out a streamer or parachute, called a recovery system. To keep the recovery material from being damaged by the heat from the charge, flame-retardant paper is wadded up and put between the charge and recovery system.
• The entire plunger and breech would have to be metal, and the dart foam would have to have flame retardant compounds in it. 
• Triggered Blast Valve
• No longer in any blaster on the shelves, this is a very high-quality piece of technology. This type of valve is found in some drink dispensers and in BuzzBee rocket launchers. I will pay a fortune for a couple of those blasters.
• Now, in all the BuzzBee Extreme blasters, there is a very similar device, although the main release valve is actuated by releasing the air from a secondary chamber. With the pressure limit safety removed and the chamber pressure higher, the valve in the secondary chamber requires too much force to actuate, and the shell can't withstand that force. The blaster has to be disassembled in order to release the chamber pressure.
• The chamber can be charged by a few methods:
• hand pump
• dry ice
• liquid nitrogen
• science-fair-style vinegar and baking soda (not really though, that doesn't work)
• carbonated drink (you can get a shot or two out of an 8oz bottle of soda, but the pressure is pretty weak)

The Pinpoint worked by means of a triggered blast valve. It was made out of a BuzzBee Berserker. These days, those are hard to get my hands on. Hydraulic flywheels could be very effective, but those things still have to spin up to some extremely lofty speeds.

The Winter Soldier idea is defined by the changes to the rules and safety limits. Normally, you are "out" if you are touched by a soft Nerf object or other brand of dart and you do not catch it. This rule is made to be compatible with Nerf sports items. In Winter Soldier competition, the rule would not include the catching bit, and the sports items would not be included. The other new rule is that

This could turn out to be very exhilarating and intense. Too bad it won't work in Singapore or Brisbane. It does require cold weather. But any support on developing these high-power blasters, or information about existing developments in this area.

Comments are greatly appreciated :)

N-Strike Epic

Introducing DLSTS

The story starts with me buying a Centurion. I looked at the chart on the box, and noticed how biased it was. Then, I noticed a performance claim on a cleaning solution, and it also had an asterisk by it. But instead of saying, "actual results may vary," it said, "tested according to ASTM-[I forgot the numbers.]" And I thought, what if there were testing standards for dart blasters? I figured it was worth a shot, so I started work on what I called the Dart Launcher Standards of Testing and Safety, or DLSTS.

 It's quite an endeavor, I know, but it could turn out to be quite useful in the future. Even if companies don't use it, bloggers still can. And they won't overestimate or underestimate, because they can completely not estimate.

After I had worked for a few hours on it, I realized that this would be impossible to do all by myself. So, I'm asking for suggestions, ideas, whatever you might think of that could be added or changed.
DLSTS Page

Getting back up to speed

So, it's been a while since I last made a blog post. First things first, the pinpoint simply doesn't exist anymore. A leak that sprung a few months ago just became too much and the blaster ceased to work, so I scrapped it.

In happier news, my Retaliator mods are going quite well. They're not anything really new, though.

On to what I have invented: the straw-core dart. A straw is inserted into the dart and held in place by a tad of rubber cement. This keeps the dart from warping and makes it fly mostly straight.

Another version of the straw-core had only a small ring of foam and a head on a straw piece. This dart flew extremely straight and was very light, but only went 40 feet or so after being fired above 100 fps. It had very little momentum and a lot of drag. 

Also, I miniaturized my Rapidstrike, and I redid the battery mounting. The result is an Uzi-like blaster with the power of a 12 volt rapidstrike... Well, it is a 12 volt rapidstrike. But with a lithium battery, it is capable of firing without accelerating first. I did this many times when I was ambushed by my brother, and I actually won a few of those rounds. 

It also has a small barrel that is easily removed. The barrel gives it significant accuracy, but without the barrel it just fires a general swarm of darts.

And lastly, I still need to decide between getting a Centurion for its immense plunger, or getting a rampage for its 25-dart clip. Any help deciding would be wonderful. Thank you. :)

K.I.S.S.

In lieu of Tactical Tag's threefold article, "the edge of innovation," I have created a response, and I stumbled upon another idea .

These recent weeks in the NIC have had an air of "let's find new technology." So Tactical Tag created a whole new blaster concept that was the culmination of all the NIC-created blaster technology. It seems to perform like an overpowered Rapidstrike. It just so happens that last weekend I finally did the lithium upgrade on my Rapidstrike that has been waiting for a long time- it boasts 60-70 fps and about 6 shots per second. 

Okay, it's been several days since I wrote on this article. Back to it. About the title, KISS stands for keep it simple, shithead. (Pardon my French.) This was my response to the blaster concept that was recently introduced. I'll just list some pros and cons: 

Pros:

Powerful

Fast release by the butterfly valve

Repeating/ internal power source

Compact

Cons:

Noisy compressor

Heavy all over

Distance between the breech and pump handle

Slow reload

Clunky systems

Now on to the new tech presented here- let's just take a look.

Brass breech

Butterfly valve

Compressor? Not too practical...

I just wanted to say that yes, we can innovate, but innovation is not at all an easy thing to accomplish. It takes a lot of time and money, and hasbro isn't going to spare that.

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.

Happy New Year to the NIC

Happy New Year, everyone! In this giant article I'll be doing my best to catch up on all the stuff I missed during my long period of "blog silence," for lack of a better term. I set up a sort of "display" of all the topics in this article:

First, I will debut 3 new mods: The Kingfisher, a BuzzBee Range Master Extreme, and a HammerHead.

The Kingfisher is mostly a Retaliator with a bigger spring. It has a different barrel, a carbon fiber reinforced old Recon stock, and my handy virtual-image sight. It is a quiet, accurate blaster for shorter-range shots.

The HammerHead mods I did are rather simple. First, I replaced the recoil spring with a rubber band. I often do this to make blasters quieter. With TR blasters, however, quietness will never be their strong suit. The more important mod is that I lubricated the mechanisms with my own LubriKing concoction, a water-based light lubricant made for plastic parts that would normally rub and cause friction.

The LubriKing formula is simple: 2:1 of water and soap, and then add chalk dust. This forms soap micelles around the particles of chalk, making microscopic rollers that stay between parts and reduce friction. The result is a much faster TR blaster. however, the clip should never be lubricated, since the forward ring hook has to return to its original position before the ring falls into place, otherwise the blaster misfires and/or jams.

My brother bought me a Range Master Extreme for Christmas. It has a pneumatic reservoir and a pump, as opposed to the usual plunger piston. It works as a bolt-action rifle, with the bolt attached to the assembly of the entire firing mechanism. In this setup, the piston stays fixed while the cylinder, reservoir, valve and breech slide with the bolt handle.
I found it impossible to remove the AR from the breech. The AR in this blaster actually helps accelerate the dart in the little space that it has.

The power mod was simple enough: cover the limiter valve hole with a piece of tape. This allows the blaster to charge up 7 pumps, as opposed to the previous 4-5 pumps.

I also added a functioning optical scope to replace the plastic dummy sight that it came with.

In normal conditions, the blaster ranks in my high-power class with a muzzle velocity of about 85 ft/second. At 0°F, however, muzzle velocities were around 55 ft/second.

This leads right into the topic of the Earthglider, which I have mentioned before. It is basically a remote-controlled car with a shortened Nerf sword on the front. It has the capability to outrun a person in many situations, but I made it specially for winter. It will not run on snow that is too powdery, since it digs itself in and then must be retrieved.  Its soft tires spread its weight out more than a person in boots, so in most situations, it has the key advantage of being able to traverse on the snow, not through the snow.

I also pulled out my two other snipe blasters to compare to my new Extreme blaster.
As for speed, the new sniper falls short of the Pinpoint and the Blowsword, a mere 85 fps against 105 and 115. Its accuracy, however, is paramount. The Extreme darts are made with harder foam and much higher consistency. 

Have a happy 2014! :)