New website!

We finally have our new website: blastersmiths.co.uk MkII went live on Monday afternoon here in the UK. We're rather happy with all the new functions it offers and even more happy that it's out of the way and we can start devoting our Development Fridays to actual tactical equipment and not just infrastructure.

The main cool thing about the website (damn, I sound 13!) is the custom buttons. You'll notice those nice white buttons that light up allowing you to select your choices for your gear. For things like our Lightweight Shoulder Rigs where you can make hard point selections, these buttons are ideal. It also looks kind of Star Trek with all those rounded edges and bright lights. :)

Anyway, we've got most of our catalogue on there now with fully integrated international shipping so our international friends no longer have to worry about contacting us for a shipping quote. Steve, our exceptionally talented Operations Director, led an effort to code a full calculator for our website and it works wonderfully! It even calculates VAT correctly so US (and other non-EU) customers can expect to pay 20% less than the list price (provided you don't get stung with import duty and local taxes, of course).

So yes, go and peruse our latest creation and order things so that we may serve. In the mean time, we're going back to real development. Trust me, we've got some special things lined up in the months. :D

Rough Cut Back Holsters

I've been asked on 4 separate occasions in the last week about these so I thought I'd make the response pretty clear and unified. The question is always the same: can I get an RC holster that will sit atop my shoulder blades so I can draw it like this? The person in question then mimes drawing from their back over their shoulders and blatting me in the face with an imaginary or, rarely, real Rough Cut.

It's simple: there's a reason we've not got them on the market yet - it's not possible to offer both effective drawing and re-holstering in that configuration.

Let me explain: not being able to see where you're placing your blaster when holstering is a pain in the plums. You can get to our staff's level of proficiency with the MkII and MkIII and not need to look where you're placing your blaster but when starting out you really need to be able to see what you're doing. It takes time to ingrain things into muscle memory and not being able to see what you're doing really hampers that.

So what about work rounds? Well, there are several I'm not a fan of any of them. We looked at magnets. Steve, our crash test dummy got concussion when the RC we were testing decided it didn't want to stick to his back any more. Why? The funky profile of the Rough Cut isn't flat and so it will suffer from the variations in different. OK, so you could cover the case of your RC in steel or something but that's not terribly practical. Even then, a stock Rough Cut without darts weighs 460g - that's a lot of magnets.

Velcro? Yeah, it sort of works but it's a pain finding quantities of it that will stick to the blaster without problems. Industrial strength stuff works to an extent but if you miss the plate by a little bit on your back it will fall off and give you concussion. The other problem is that Velcro comes in two parts: hook and loop. Yes, the loop part is all nice and fluffy but leaving that hook part exposed will mean it'll get gummed up something rotten leaving you with either a dud panel on your expensive rig or your shiny blaster covered in gunky Velcro.

Drawing the blaster isn't a problem - we've got half a dozen ways of doing that. However, returning it to a pouch without problems is next to impossible without the help of an obliging friend. We're happy to modify an existing shotgun holster for you but you won't be able to return the blaster under combat conditions without an obliging friend. Oh and it'll cost you £30 including VAT and will only be MOLLE mountable. On the bright side, it'll be nice and padded with all that tasty, delicious closed cell foam protecting you and your blaster. :)

Pouches & Holsters

Not the best photo! Camera's on the fritz again!

This item is a modified MkIII holster requested as a cos-play piece by a customer. He requested an additional magazine flap pouch on the exterior of his holster and the movement of the grab strap to a more leading position.

This is interesting not for the grab strap placement but for the pouch. We've looked at doing these ever since we deployed the MkII back in March. At least one of our competitors offers a similar facility but its not been asked of us until recently.

This is a flap - and we've all seen what our team think of flaps in combat. For our variant, we'd seek to add our traditional elastic loop and golf toggle rather than a standard flap The issue of course is that the combat efficacy of a holster magazine holder. For one, I wouldn't seek to place these on our production holsters but the option is in the spirit of our development. We will seek to mock up a prototype for mainstream production in the next few weeks and then when the new website goes live there will be the option to have an additional magazine pouch, a dart plate for the MkII holster or additional MOLLE webbing for affixing various options.

Elsewhere, this is the first item that has our new polyester twill binding for additional strength and a better look and feel over our traditional black bias binding. We'll continue to roll this out across all our products, it's a much better looking solution to edging pieces. The pouch itself is a gusseted and uses top stitching to keep its shape. Again, a first for us. In all, we had to try a few new things to make this work. It's all part of how custom work helps us push the envelope.

Our kit can be bought at www.blastersmiths.co.uk - for now, ones with pouches can be ordered custom at customs@blastersmiths.co.uk until our new website goes live.

In-depth: Magazine Holders

Why can't I hold all these clips!?

With the release of the singly available 18 dart magazines from Hasbro and some British Nerfers being able to acquire them for as little as 50p per magazine (no, that's not a typo!) we thought it was time to have another look at a range of products that have been on the market a while but not been promoted over much. Carrying all those magazines is a challenge.


Enter our fabric magazine holders and stack kits.Using 500D Cordura, these holders keep magazines secured and out of the way until they are needed.

Traditionally, these have been MOLLE mountable but recently, we've developed a better loop system to allow them to be held on your belt just as easily as a MOLLE vest. With their golf toggle style enclosure, these are designed for quick and easy access under combat conditions.Extra webbing can be added for a small fee to allow further expansion for things like dump pouches and the like. That also applies to the belt loop variants.

1812 Triple Holder

We designed these to be available in two sizes. A 6 and 12 dart magazine sized variant and a 12 and 18 dart sized variant. The adjustable golf toggle means the two sizes of magazine for each holder is readily and securely accommodated. The number of magazines held ranges from singles to full hex stacks that can take 6 magazines.  The stack kits are simply a pair of holders with one having extra webbing so that it can be attached behind the other. Of course, you could have extra webbing added to the outside of your stack kit for even more carriage!

These can all be ordered by email or our new website when it goes live. Prices are on our current website. Choosing belt loops instead of MOLLE compatibility won't cost you any extra. Orders can be placed by emailing orders@blastersmiths.co.uk - we do ship worldwide, just ask.

On another note, our new website is coming, we're just testing it and finishing things off. It should be live within the next couple of weeks. :)