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Rant on nerf modding

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:19 pm
by iknowmy3tables
So since I’m in college and participating in Humans vs Zombies I’m now doing a lot of stuff with nerf guns. However when I search the internets and peak around into the nerf societies, I find that they have building concepts that I just don’t understand. For example many nerf moders will modify multi-shot nerf guns into single-shot nerf guns, like this this or like this this they claim that it makes the gun shoot further by up to say 30 feet (as if that’s a lot), and it makes it more accurate (as if the difference is significant). It still seams really stupid to me, if you wanted a single-shot nerf gun why didn’t you just buy a single-shot nerf gun for so much cheaper, in fact it shouldn’t be so hard to make a homemade air plunger gun with a bigger volume plunger and higher tension spring that you would get anywhere in a toy. Notice in the second video that kid wasted another functional gun to use for a stock, ahem* look closely at the yellow stock, does that stock look comfortable to you? I’ve played with the same gun and it’s not comfortable, if I had to choose between that stock and no stock in all situation I would choose no stock because that thing is so misshaped that it doesn’t really work as a stock, not to mention how ugly it is on the gun. Speaking of wasting nerf guns I also don’t understand integration mod’s like these link3 link4 these are very impressive and difficult, to do but why, the performance isn’t better, you just wasted a nerf gun, there has to be a cheaper way, maybe buy a cheap toy gun instead of an expensive nerf gun.

Anyways it seams as if nerf gun modders are more willing to spend money on changes that hardly increase overall performance, typically us spudders aren’t willing to spend a large amount of resources unless it helps penetrate another layer of plywood, good looks while nerf modders are willing to give up a lot for just 30feet or even just some minor aesthetic value

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:47 pm
by jhalek90
hahah i agree.

And to be totally honest, the absolute best nerf gun you can make is a lung powered blow gun made from a 1/2''x''4' piece of PVC, or 1/2 copper... for home made darts.

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:04 pm
by SEAKING9006
On the subject of nerf guns.... Expect a new thread in the Pneumatics Showcase from me within the next two weeks. I have something to show you guys. :D

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:31 pm
by blackhawk13
my air cannon is as good at 5 psi as those mods. thats not bragging either. anyone can do better than those mods.

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:34 pm
by SEAKING9006
Yeah. They even have a name for the 'system' of taking two ball valves and putting them inline with each other for multiple shots. They call it a 'wraith system'.

Just wait until I get to university, if I get my hands on a rapid prototyper I'm gonna show these guys what a REAL sidearm looks like.

Gotta hand it to them though, some of those guys are real artisans with bondo.

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 8:22 pm
by btrettel
Nerf forums are disasters. This is why I've basically given up on the Nerf online community.

You are correct iknowmy3tables. Many things in Nerf are simply stated as true and repeated until everyone believes them. Nerf unfortunately is very unscientific. Some people have noted a popular dogma isn't true--they usually get bashed by the brainless droves at the forums. See http://nerfhaven.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15469 for an example.

I've given up on trying to explain to ignoramuses who want to ban pneumatics from wars. Many think that pneumatics are inherently dangerous (I'd agree that it is easy to make a dangerous pneumatic, but it also is easy to make a dangerous springer so this point is moot). I've mentioned that kinetic energy density is what they should look at to determine the safety of a gun and how a gun propels the dart is irrelevant, but they neither want to listen, understand, or change their stubborn policies.

My threads never get replies there. And I've seen many interesting homemade Nerf guns go completely unnoticed. Most people there are too stupid to notice when there's something good. This is why people there consider using two ball valves as some sort of innovation.

Not only that, but the frat boy with PMS attitude that most of the administrators at NerfHaven have really turns me off. If you've stuck around for a while at NerfHaven you certainly know what I'm talking about.

</rant>

I've said this all before and unfortunately I don't have the balls to take it to the administration at NerfHaven as I'll likely get banned. I do have a use for NerfHaven, but I'll make it clear that I'm not happy with the present Nerf internet community.

SEAKING, don't get your hopes up about rapid prototyping. I've used my university's FDM rapid prototyper and while the location is convenient, the prices aren't substantially lower than online services. You might as well try some online services now to save yourself some time.

You might find that the surface finish, tolerances, or something else aren't to your liking as well. There are many things to take into account when rapid prototyping.

Online services typically offer a variety of different methods too, so that's a concrete advantage over a university's service. My university also does CNC milling, which unfortunately was out of my price range. I actually don't use the parts I made but the experience was well worth the $45 or so that I spent.

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 8:28 pm
by VH_man
I am an Avid nerf modder....

Honestly, I was part of one of those forums, and I became a "senior member" within a day. everyone was wowed when I molded epoxy.....

Just post your finished concepts and dont even participate in any discussions. Maybe you can teach some people things.

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:27 am
by inonickname
Image
This is what I find after two minutes of browsing on NH..

Modded blasters are pathetic.

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 2:59 pm
by SEAKING9006
There are only two guns I find worthwhile on NH.

One of them was from here.

The other is a longshot that has been modded so that over 90% of its weight is Bondo, and it is a near perfect replica of the Lancer rifle from Gears of War. Everything else was hopeless.

And yeah, I know that rapid prototyping can be inaccurate. I do know that Texas A&M basically allows for free reign of the machine shop after class, so that's a definate 'maybe' for my application list. All I need is something a bit more sophisticated than a drill press and dremel, and I will show them what happens when you cross a Glock, a Crossman CO2 repeater, and a nerf gun. Should be fairly simple to pull off. All I need to really figure out is the arrangement of the tubing.


EDIT: Holy crap, they have the capability for (very) crude semi auto. They're evolving..... :shock:
http://nerfhaven.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17438

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:36 pm
by veginator
Just like a spudder to instantly think down upon a toy. I was once a very avid modder but I have recently given it up for airsoft. All the guns you have made examples of are the very lowest in the community. The best of them use heavy gauge industrial springs to launch the dart not 30 feet but more like 120. You probably still think this stupid but if the guns were any more powerful they would draw blood in the close quarters we would play in(and still some do).

You are right though on the forums be the most retarded thing about it. I left because it was filled with people who didn't know what the hell they were doing.

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:40 pm
by JDP12
wow... i've looked over there a grand total of twice... both times totally unimpressed.

It's very immature, and people get all worked up over fairly unimpressive stuff. It's ridiculous.

They just seem to do pointless (and often times detrimental) thstuff

My $.02

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:07 pm
by SEAKING9006
Wait, draw blood? What the hell do you guys wear, tissue paper? And if you're having blood drawn, maybe you need to cut back on the fishing weights in those stefans... (Is that how it's spelled? I just call them 'darts'.)

If they draw blood, it's fine by me. Just don't hit anyone in the eye and it's cool. Shouldn't be a problem when everyone is already wearing masks. I would rather see someone get hurt by an awesome nerf gun than nobody hurt by very poor quality ones, with draconian power restrictions.

Heat, kitchen, etc.

I looked a few months back and saw to my chagrin, a SINGLED vulcan. Defeats the entire purpose of the gun. Rather, I would have beefed the internals to produce more power and ROF.

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:52 pm
by iknowmy3tables
there are so many mods for puting a pneumatic nerf gun in another nerf gun, we could easily make a powerful pneumatic pump-chamber-valve system instead of buying a $30 titan or finding a discontinued air tech blaster. it's easy to make a pneumatic system and they hold potential for semi automatic systems. check out the pneumatically modded maverick on this page this pneumatic mod is very practical, it shoots further than a penny modded maverick without air restrictors @45psi, compared to the semi nerf guns like the hornet this is excellent, why don't I see similar pneumatic mods, it's easier and cheaper than building guns like the semi you build btrettel or PVC arsenals and gets decent range compared to stock guns. I might try a semi auto pneumatic belt blaster in the future with a qev and my 3way blowgun mod
veginator wrote:Just like a spudder to instantly think down upon a toy. I was once a very avid modder but I have recently given it up for airsoft. All the guns you have made examples of are the very lowest in the community. The best of them use heavy gauge industrial springs to launch the dart not 30 feet but more like 120. You probably still think this stupid but if the guns were any more powerful they would draw blood in the close quarters we would play in(and still some do).

You are right though on the forums be the most retarded thing about it. I left because it was filled with people who didn't know what the hell they were doing.
I mod nerf guns and I don't think moding nerf guns is dumb (though I know some of you do), I am impressed with the skills of many modders, and getting 30 more feet out of a nerf gun is quite useful for nerf wars. My complaint lies in the mods that (to me) seam unreasonable that completely kill the performance in other ways or waste money so . I'm all for spring replacements and air restictor removals these are no-nonsense mods, but it is a very common practice among modders to replace the spring systems in guns for those in pneumatic nerf airtech systems although it kills the ROF and wastes money

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:53 pm
by veginator
We would just were shorts and a T-shirt. Its just somehting thats inexpensive and fun. Thats the general idea of the whole. Of course there are the idiots that think they need to spend massive amounts of money to be any good.

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 5:17 pm
by Ragnarok
Well, there are a whole lot of hobbies that can be perceived in so many different ways.

If we look at a plethora of shooting hobbies - Firearms, Airguns, Spudguns, Paintball, Airsoft, Nerf, etc - within anyone of those hobbies, you can find enough people who'll look down on the others.

Still, Nerf does seem to be somewhat "bottom" of the heap, because of the fact it is essentially toys - and the fact is, we'll see quite a lot of reasonably young children here (and very few "experienced" adults). We can't be too surprised.

If you want to see a helping of incompetence relative to what we consider "normal", try looking back about four years at Spudfiles itself. It's only really as the originally young members have grown up (learning more physics) and site has drawn in more serious/educated adults that we've started to lose some of the old mistakes. Simple experimentation and discussion over time has started to replace erroneous dogma (much like the much over-hyped DDT issue).

Yes, they're not good, but don't pretend we ourselves are infallible.

Unfortunately, erroneous information isn't always weeded out by the truth - I've had to explain to an air rifle forum several things several times, the most notorious being like why .177" PCPs are less air efficient than 0.22" PCPs.
No matter how many times I've said it, the next time it comes up, the same people spout the same inaccurate analogies.

The correct answer to that one is of course that for the same length barrel, the lower calibre (with the lower cross-sectional area) will need to use a higher pressure to achieve the same force on the projectile - and thus the same muzzle energy.

Fortunately, this site is made up of the more intelligent and scientifically minded, so situations like that don't (really) happen.