Battle is (likely) over

Whilst working with the Whiteout Series, the color scheme reminded me of a box collecting dust in my basement.  Of course, the first thing that came to your mind was Battle Tag... the laser tag sensation that has swept the country with it's latest groundbreaking technology and future expansion of the entire lineup!

Heh, ...no.  I was asked the other day "why haven't we heard anything about Battle Tag?" and took a trip to the near-deceased Battle Tag Forum to check up on signs of life.  MikeApostol wrote this there:

...by all accounts no one has heard anything from Ubisoft about this system since many many months ago. I doubt they are continuing to work on this. I wish they were, but the lack of action or communication with them (not to mention taking it off their online store) seems to speak more than their silence. It's really too bad because it's such a great system and with a little more tweaking on the hardware and software side it could be near perfect

 I'm calling this system dead.  Way to kill your own creation, UbiSoft.  Sadly between that system doing a faceplant and Light Strike not reaching the hearts of the hardcore laser taggers I know (not to mention seeing no real signs of their products leaping off store shelves), these systems haven't come close to breathing any new life into the sport I know and love as Laser Tag.  I hope someone comes out with something to show 'em how it's done.

Nerf Project: Longstrike Blur

It's a fact:  I'm an aesthetics whore.  It's also a fact that while the Longstrike is arguably one of the best looking blasters to hit the N-Strike lineup, it also has some of the most miserable stock performance ratings.  However, thank's to this thing called "modding", we can change that.  Even moreso, thanks to Orange Mod Works for coming out with kits to help folks improve their blasters... easily.

I've picked up a Whiteout Longstrike and have been working on it a bit.  At first, I was set on just set to upgrade it, but now I kinda wanna have it surpass that by having it sit at the heart of some modifications I want to implement on it.  It's already got a Stage 1 kit installed to give it incredible power, but there are things I can improve to get it performing better while still looking slick.

Here's my project:  the Longstrike Blur.  Not only do I want it to have power, but I want to integrate other features of blasters that I find helpful into this piece of eye candy.  The two biggest points I'd like to replicate are the Slam Fire and a Pump-action reload.  While I'm not 100% certain a Slam Fire mod is doable, I am certain that I'll need to improve the priming system by making it a shotgun-style activation.  I've been using a Longstrike in Nerf Battles for awhile now anyways, making use of the Clip System with 3 magazines.  Two 6-dart clips (one I leave empty at the beginning so as to allow me to pick up darts as I go along) and one 18 round straight clip.
You can see I've already made use of Orange Mod Work's Stickers by integrating it into the clip design.  The other sticker is on the opposite side of the blaster near where I sanded off the "warning, this blaster might be Kick Ass if you mod it" disclaimers.  I'm also gonna look into improving my Streamlines so they have some weight.  Looking into filling the tips with Hot Glue to help balance those uncontrollable pieces of foam.

OMW Longstrike Issues

Today I hurriedly got to my mail box to discover the Orange Mod Works Longstrike Stage 1 Kit.  Almost instantly, I opened up my Whiteout Longstrike to install the kit to check it out.  After seeing such an excellent review of it on Nerf Mods and Reviews and seeing results of other proud OMW owners, I was eager to feel the power I had been seeing and reading about for a few weeks now.

The installation was flawless, even though I double checked things to make sure I didn't mess something up.  AR Removed, O-Ring Seal improved, Stage 1 kit set to go, I closed it all up and went to test fire.  The prime was tougher than I had expected, but with 6 kg of force (versus 2.5 in the original one), it needed that pull.  I manually loaded a Streamline into the barrel and shot... and just watched the foam fly.  It was a glorious moment!

I proceeded to load up an 18 Round Clip for some extended testing.  After about the third shot, the priming handle piece flew off.  I recovered it and resumed testing.  Then I kept running into issues with the Longstrike not priming correctly and my excitement slowly began to turn sour.  This was the same issue, I remembered, I had with my Longshot spring upgrade.  In order to fully prime the blaster, I needed both hands to pull the priming handle back evenly.

Because of the way a bolt-action blaster is set up, there is actually uneven tension in the priming system.  The Longstrike isn't designed to handle that much stress, so the parts bend a bit and when you prime it, sometimes while the one handle is all the way back, the other side doesn't quite make it.  This means the catch doesn't engage and you can't fire the blaster.  This is an issue I have yet to read about in the Longstrike and one I hope to remedy.

The other issue I ran into wasn't the kit at all... but the other downside I was reminded of when upgrading springs.  Streamline Darts are incredibly inaccurate!  While I was getting excellent ranges, about 1/3rd of my darts were flying off at different angles or spinning out of control the second they left the barrel.  So while the Longstrike now has a much greater range and packs a punch... it's not hardly accurate enough to still be called a "sniper" in my books.  

I think other OMW kits dodge the priming issue because of their design.  The priming handles on the Recon, Alpha Trooper, and Raider all distribute tension evenly.  The Handles actually hold BOTH sides of the bolt to slide it into place evenly.  However, the Longstrike has uneven tension because you prime from either the right or left side, leaving the other side without enough tension to complete the motion.  Hopefully I can find a solution for this.  Any suggestions or help are more than welcome (please comment!)

Longstrike Carbine

This blaster has been in use for over a year now, but it hasn't gotten much publicity.  I built it for a friend who has helped me run the OLCA for years now, so I made sure it was a good one.  Turns out this blaster is STILL one of my best in terms of durability and performance.  Part of the reason why it has a boring black paintjob is because I had originally intended to do a camouflage pattern on it.  However, after seeing how powerful this blaster was in the field, we decided that adding the camo would just make it even MORE deadly... so we decided against it.  While this blaster does away with the barrel extension of the Nerf Longstrike, it is still very much a sniper rifle.  We have been unable to determine a maximum range for this blaster... the longest range we have achieved with it that was within boundaries of the game was ~1100 ft.  To make matters worse, it's fully automatic and can expend it's 25 round clip in just over 4 seconds.

Rayovac Teams up

Not sure if anyone else has seen one of these video things with Light Strike stuff on shelves.  I expected to find something like this at Toys R Us, though to be honest, I wasn't expecting something like this for the Light Strike promotion in the first place.  The videos on it are pretty much what we've already seen on the websites.  However, along with this is a tag at the end for Rayovac.  They also have Rayovac batteries conveniently located to the right of the Light Strike Products.

KATE?

So I've been curious and have gotten some less-than-helpful answers that really just make me try harder to get to the bottom of this.

Most of you Nerf fans have probably noticed the small letters printed on some of your darts.  On Streamlines, I've found A, E, T, and K.  On Whistlers I've also found K, T as well as J.  K seems to be the most common type I've found in my collection... but I'm wondering what they mean.  Of the Streamlines that I have, the E and K types tend to be the best and most durable... so are they just different manufacturers?

...or does the guy who oversees Streamline production have a girlfriend named Kate?

Strength in Whiteout?

So Nerf Mods & Reviews got me thinking today.  They tested all the different color variations on the Maverick REV-6 against each other and found that the Whiteout outperformed them all.  While I'm curious to see if it's just the luck of the draw (that the only difference is the darts or that certain production of blasters at the time) or if they legitimately are better for some reason, I couldn't help but wonder if my Longstrike was worse than my new Whiteout Longstrike, so I ran a series of my own tests.

First I put both Longstrikes on even footing.  6 Dart clips with normal streamlines (E Type), no barrels.  Both of these blasters have their AR's removed (my blue one already had that, so to have an accurate test, I did it to the Whiteout one too).  Weather conditions were sunny with hardly any wind.  I set both of them down aimed over my porch off of the railing and fired each one 6 times and inspected the results.  Both blasters achieved the same range at the end of the test.

Nerf Mods & Reviews goes to great lengths to test things out with detailed results, so I trust their information.  However, looking at the chronological releases of Mavericks, seeing that the Clear and Sonic series Mavericks performed as poorly as the original Blue one doesn't lead me to believe that Mavericks have been getting better over time.  I think the real culprit here is that we're applying an exact science to toy blasters that shoot foam.  There's bound to be errors in the production run, especially considering how long the Maverick has been around.  Whether they turn out better or worse than before is kind of a luck of the draw if you ask me.  I wonder if we were to perform AR removal Mods on all of the Mavericks if it would even the playing field.

If there is truly any sort of performance difference between the Whiteout Series and normal blasters, it's likely not with the Longstrike from what my tests revealed.  It is possible that if I had used stock blasters that the results might have been different though.  However, I wasn't about to pick up another blue Longstrike just to run that  scenario.  It's likely that if there IS actually a performance gap, it's due to the fact that Nerf may have tweaked the older Maverick to perform better.  With the Longstrike being a newer blaster, I doubt they needed to make any changes.  Out-of-the-box, the Longstrike gets pretty pitiful ranges for a glorified "sniper rifle", but the bolt action is smooth and it hardly ever jams (unless it's a beat-up dart).

My Whiteout Longstrike will be the recipient of the Stage 1 kit from Orange Mod Works, so I'll be interested to see what the performance is like between my AR-removed Longstrike and my AR-removed Stage 1 Upgraded Whiteout Longstrike is.  It's just a great looking blaster with a comfortable feel and, being a long-time Longshot user, the bolt action makes me feel right at home.  I'll be posting details of that upgrade once the parts come in.  In the meantime, you can check out Nerf Mods & Reviews' post on the Stage 1 kit >here<.  MAN am I stoked to get mine!  Should get here within the week.  Seeing what it's capable of, I'll likely install it the second that package is on my doorstep.