Friday, October 18, 2013

Modding the NERF 6 Barrel Strongarm (Barrel Drop / Swap Mod)

Here at college we have Humans vs Zombies where we use Nerf guns to hunt down zombies (i think there's an assassin game later in the year). People have been buying Nerf guns for the past few months and modding them for better performance (pretty sure Walmart loves it haha). I got the Strongarm and then another one a few weeks later for driving someone on some errands. That means I could then do the barrel swap mod which allows for easy swapping of 6 rounds without having to reload individual darts after every shots. 


Here's an original Strongarm (notice the grey barrel supports). These are the main parts we'll be modding. Ok, stock except for the missing grip, haha.

 
 The red circles are all the screws you need to take out to pull the gun apart. 

  Slowly pry apart the halves and hold the orange piece doesn't spring out (red arrow in above picture).

The rear barrel holder will be attached to the barrel, remove two screws (black arrows).

One of these screwdrivers works great

Pull on the halves (split line in blue). I found it easiest to to put my fingers in the dart holes and wiggle it.

Ta-da!

One more screw should now be visible. Once undone, bottom holder will separate.

Put screw back with just the round orange part attached.

when you put the barrel together again make sure you have the circled green and blue holes matching. If you put them on 90deg off like i did you ll stare at it for a minute like WTF. 

This shot shows how they fit after removing the barrel from the rear holder.

Cut on the black lines. Trim down the blue circle so that it is about flush with the rest of the piece.

Ta-da, I did all that with a 50 cent exacto and a pair of pliers. make sure everything is kinda curvy so the barrel slides better.

Put the front barrel holder piece back in its place and press the gun back together. Don't worry about the barrel, modified piece or the trigger piece. Pull the holder towards you so that it can go any further. then mark it with a sharpie where you want to trim the piece. If this is not done, the holder will not drop far enough and the barrel will not fit in on the side.

That's how mine looked after removing the material. 

Just hold the case back together and you can check.

Preparing to put the other half of the case on. these things are chocked full of springs, so make sure everything is in place. That plastic piece (top right, red arrow from above) that is giving you trouble right now, no doubt, will have its own blog post.

Hold the case together (best to have someone else hold it?) and see if it will slide in and out correctly. Make adjustments as needed

Another shot 

 
Here I hot glued it just to the lower apart of the gun so that the modified piece stays in place.make sure it is flush when gluing. 

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