Yellow Longstrike Barrel Pic Spam

 I took some requests when I debuted my Yellow Longstrike Barrel Extension and took pictures accordingly.  I know a lot of folks have said that the Longstrike Barrel, or barrel extensions in general, are useless.  In defense of that I say to you: these blasters now look better because of it!  That, and the Longstrike's barrel diameter is wider and doesn't interfere with dart range like the others do.  That, and this project wasn't very hard to do!  Just took apart my barrel, sanded down the two panels, primed, painted, and enjoy!  Speaking of which, ENJOY!

Shelf News! Max Force Clearance!

This week's trip to my local retailers has Max Force, the glorified Spitwad guns, on clearance just about everywhere.  The entire lineup is on clearance at Toys R Us, making for some decent prices on these blasters.  I was wondering how Max Force was doing in the toy market, but apparently kids chose to not "Graduate from Foam" and stuck with their dart slingers.  I can't even get the official Max Force website to open for me.  The entire line may have quietly tanked.  And if the aisle is any indicator of another failing shooter game, Light Strike looks to be getting rid of it's plethora of accessories for the time being.

Light Strike isn't doing so hot, seeing still mostly-full shelves and falling prices.  I did manage to find Assault Strikers in the middle of a Nerf display at Toys R Us (still at full price), but things don't look too promising for these guys either.  At least their Strikers and Assault Strikers aren't getting liquidated like Max Force, where it seems to be a product-wide clearance.  There is quite a lot of shelf space for both of these lines, what with their bountiful accessories and generally large packaging, they're seemingly on the chopping block.  Things aren't looking too promising for either Jakks Pacific's Max Force or Wowee's Light Strike.

I didn't expect ANY good news to come in the form of Nerf's Lazer Tag, but those Value Packs have been spotted on local shelves now.  The only problem is that I've seen them showing up at 79.99 USD, instead of the 69.99 that they had previously been retailing for.  I'll keep looking to see if there's a cheaper price out there for these, but I am certainly surprised to see the price go UP for a "Value Pack".  Hasbro typically hasn't done this in recent "Value Pack" releases for Nerf, so it's odd to see them do this.

$30 for a Stampede

I never thought I'd see prices this good for the Stampede for awhile.  A little over a year after it's release, the Stampede is now marked down to $29.99 at Toys R Us, of all places!  Thanks to the tip from DarthRambo on the NM&R Chatroll.  The only Stampede I've owned served as the platform for my LTX DMR and in general I like the 18 dart straight Clips.  I prefer them to the 18 dart drum clips that the Alpha Trooper comes with (now also available on it's own @ Target).  A Voltage Mod and a spring from Orange Mod Works could really make this a nice blaster for someone.

If you can't seem to find these in your stores, go to Toys R Us' website and order them off there.  It's free shipping too, so it's the same price you would pay for getting it at the store without that sense of "instant gratification".  It's likely these won't stay this cheap for long.  You can also get these from Wal-Mart for 34 bucks WITH a Bandoleer included!  That's an even better value!

Yellow Longstrike Barrel Extension

So earlier I was complaining about how arguably the best looking Barrel Extension that Nerf has ever made is molded in a color that doesn't match the other blasters it can go on.  I really wanted to get a unified look out of my favorite blaster setup: the Nerf Spectre w/Raider stock and Longstrike Barrel.  So I finally decided to just go with repainting the Longstrike's blue panels yellow.

The process I used was simple:  sand off the digital camo on the Longstrike barrel with a thick grit sandpaper and then smooth it all over with a series of lighter sand paper types.  Then prime and paint the panels yellow and re-assemble the barrel for a Longstrike Barrel that'll look good on a Recon, Spectre, Deploy, or even a yellow Longshot.  I'll have more pictures up later once I find all the parts I wanna mix and match with.  Wanna see a certain combination?  Leave it in the comments and I'll see what I can do!

Workin for the Weekend

I've been doing some work today on two blasters.  The first is this week's Giveaway: the Sharp Shot.  I've done all the internal work and am working on ideas for a paintjob on it.  Here's a few shots of the basic internal work I've done.  Just standard AR removal, air release seal, improved O Ring Seal stuff.  I also upgraded the spring.  It's now packing the spring from the Swarmfire, which is actually about the same size only stronger.  (I have a stronger spring in my Swarmfire now)
The paintjob that I have in mind for this Sharp Shot is to do a Whiteout style repaint.  I'm just repainting the yellow shells on this, keeping the black plastic frame in it's stock colors.  The shell will be painted white with the Dart Tag logos that are etched into the paintjob to be painted Orange and Gray, to mimick the look of the Whiteout series.  I'm pretty excited to see how it turns out.

The other is painting a Longstrike Barrel yellow to go with my Spectre and Recon.  I actually found a picture of someone with a Recon and a Yellow-painted Longstrike barrel and it looked nice, so that's what I'll be doing.  It was warm enough today to do some painting when I started, but now the clouds have rolled in and it's chilly out again, so they're in my garage by a heater.  I just put down the second coat in this picture.  Before painting, I spent time sanding off all the digital camo on them so they look nice and smooth/match the Recon and Spectre's finish.  Hope it turns out good!

I also opened up a non-functioning Nerf Raider that got used (and abused) on last week's Black Friday Foam-tacular.  I suppose naming the rapid fire feature "SlamFire" gives people the idea that they're unbreakable.  Not the case.  I'll either find spare parts from a gutted Raider that my friend turned into a Laser Tag blaster or use this fella as a candidate for a Massacre kit.  Actually, I was thinking of getting a Massacre kit to put in my Clear Series Raider, so maybe I could just put those internals into this guy.  Either way, it'll live to shoot another day soon enough.

Redraw for Week #4 and Shelf News!

So as it turns out, our Weekly Giveaway winner from last week is unable to provide a shipping address.  I'm told that you can't deliver something without saying where it's going, so we're going to redraw!  And the new Week #4 winner is... Five Seven!  Or Echo... or whatever variant of those he's going by.  Make sure you send a mailing address to Icicle and he'll send out that Minimized Firefly to ya!

In the meantime, if you haven't entered to win the modded Sharp Shot for this week, time is running out!

Onto "some news".  I was at my local Toys R Us checking stuff out and I came across something I think Clip System fans will like:  TRU Exclusive Raiders with an extra drum.  They've done this before, but now it's an exclusive, so I think it'll get stocked longer on shelves.  The ones I found retailed for 34.99.  Even though it's TRU's usual high prices, it DOES come with that extra drum, which is still a good deal if you ask me.

I also found that Nerf video camera, but it's overpriced and has awful specs.  49.99USD for a Nerf labeled camera that's designed for "sport" use?  Don't even get me started on that awful digital camera or Flash drive.  My disappointment in Sakar Electronics just keeps getting better, huh?

Modified Vulcan EBF-25 Review

I started work on this Vulcan a couple months ago, but I was knee deep in Laser Tag season.  I finally got around to finishing it up in time to debut at our Black Friday Foam-tacular.  While I didn't get to use it (I let a friend run around with it), it's performance was rock solid.  It covered entire hallways with more darts than Drac has commission requests.  I tested out the Vulcan myself and ran a series of tests I caught on video to show you what this fella can do.  It's probably one of my best modified blasters yet.



At the heart of this modification is the power, which I didn't get solved until recently.  There are 4 Ultrafire Rechargeable batteries that are running 3.7 Volts each.  There are also two Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries that run about 1.7 Volts each.  The battery pack clocks in at 19.60, which is excellent for this mod.  Those Ultrafires are actually running closer to 4 Volts, so even when they start getting weak, the power going through this fella isn't going to suffer much.  It's more than enough to push through the strong spring I put in this Vulcan.