Retaliator Bolt Action Conversion Kit available soon!

 
In days gone by it was a simple thing to acquire a performance bolt-action rifle. You simply headed down to your local store (online or brick and mortar, your pick) and grabbed either a Longshot or a Longstrike. Nowadays, things aren't so simple. The Longshot re-release has its own problems and the Longstrike's indirect plunger system and general poor performance leaves it lacking in the Elite era.

The Retaliator is a solid platform, one that is versatile and customisable to boot but has a nasty over-hand priming action in its stock form. Well, I decided to fix that.

This ambidextrous kit allows you to replace the over-hand action with an aluminium bolt handle. The kit contains all the 3D printed parts, screws and nuts you need to make the conversion. A little bit of thread lock is all you need to make it super-durable and to last over an extended time. The kit contains a single bolt handle that can be placed on either the left or the right hand side of the assembly depending on your preference.

Miss your top rail? We at Blastersmiths UK feel that the Retaliator's top rail just gets in the way so we got rid of it. If you're pining for its return then we do offer split picatinny rails that can restore it. They will be offered as an additional option to the kit in matching colours. If you wanted a different colour for something a little more distinctive or striking, they can be ordered separately.

This kit will be on sale for £25 (inc VAT at 20% so £20.83 for US and other non-EU countries) from Friday 21st July 2015 on a 4 week lead time in our full, and growing, range of colours. A full fitting video and demonstration will be coming shortly.

- Mike

www.blastersmiths.co.uk

Elite Alpha Trooper Catch Upgrade Kit

The above image illustrates how little the Elite Alpha Trooper's catch plate changed between design iterations. A small bulkhead of plastic was added to the plate in order to accommodate the new plunger system but that was it. The remainder of the bracing plastic and the wing slots for the plunger flanges remain to provide a catch plate that flexes and fails under enhanced load.

Our inproved 3D printed catch plate provides a much neater solution by being designed exclusively for the Elite Alpha Trooper. It possesses a much deeper ledge for bracing the plunger assembly against and a thicker holding bulkhead for the plunger. It's much stronger and less pliable than the original. There's no need for upgraded catch plate springs, just a simple improved catch.

Our new catch can be had with a spring for £8 (inc VAT at 20%) from our website.

MkII 'Miranda' Pattern Magazine Holders

We've been working to refine our budget range magazine holders over the last few months. The current shock cord design is proving a little problematic in the price bracket it's in. To that end, we needed to find something that would fill the 'economy' price bracket magazine that we know the HvZ and student populations crave.

Meet our MkII 'Miranda' Pattern Magazine Holders. They represent something of a paradigm shift compared to our previous iterations and there are number of reasons for that. And yes, they are named for Miranda in Serenity.

First and foremost, you'll notice they're flapped. Too often have I lost darts at Green Cloaks events where I've been crawling through ferns and underbrush so these pouches solve that particular problem. Of course, I'm not a huge fan of flaps for ease of access. To that end, we added a small tab of Velcro to the inside of the pouch and made them deep enough to carry their required number of magazines. The flap can then be tucked behind the magazines in order to provide ready access without needing to fight through a pouch.

With a couple of these on your MOLLE vest or belt, you can have one in a 'ready' state while the others are in reserve. These pouches are designed to be both magazine holder and dump pouch in one. You cycle the magazines from front to back, removing from the front and replacing the spent magazines in the back. The weight of the magazine creates a handy aperture that's easy to re-insert a magazine into.

MOLLE Mounted Versions:

Our MOLLE mounted version still relies on our MOLLE Attachment Bar system (MAB) but the webbing has been reconfigured to accept MALICE clips, too.

Belt Mounted Versions:

The belt mounted versions are reverting to our universal belt loop system with the addition of a snap fastener at the bottom to really secure the hold. This feature was added after this weekend at Green Cloaks Event 3: Into the Rad where I had multiple failures of my Firestrike belt mounted holster that argued with my vest rig. In the end, adding a pop snap solved the problem.

UPDATE:  We've replaced the belt system with a new strap system. Installation instructions on that can be found here.


These versions will be available in our full range of colours rather than just black and camouflage. Black double and triple pouches will be £8 and £10 respectively with an extra £1 for colours. Camouflages with matched fittings and straps will be available, too.

The future of our shock cord retention pouches:
The shock cord retention pouches that we currently supply do have a future. However, we would like to do a better job on them and so they will be bumped up to our 'premium' bracket where they will have sewn, reinforced PALS legs that thread into MOLLE and the like. The price will rise to match and it's too early to say how much that might be.

UPDATE: Nope, the old shock cord pouches don't have a future. We're only supplying Mirandas from here on out. We can't commission the old versions even if we wanted to because the fabric we used literally no longer exists. It was made by 1 mill in the world (up in Lancashire, UK) who no longer supply it. We can't make the old design in any other fabric so we're only supplying these now.


The MkII 'Miranda' pouches go on sale on our website from Friday 10th July 2015.

Prototype: Full Tactical Vest

Tactical vests are an interesting thing. We've avoided providing a full one for a while because we figured that people could just grab one from their local army surplus store, throw some pouches on there and be done with it. Between a visit to our local surplus store and regular contact with the fine folks at Green Cloaks here in the UK, we found we were wrong. I spent an hour rummaging through our local store (Marcruss Outdoors here in Bristol) and found that, surplus Osprey body armour covers aside, the vests on offer weren't particularly appealing for the mil-sim LARPer. For example, this Mil Tec MOLLE Vest was available for £30. I checked the label and it's made from toughened polyester which seemed a little odd but I suppose you can't expect Cordura in that price range. Toughened polyester is fine but Cordura is infinitely better. There were others like it in similar price brackets and none of them had in built magazine storage.

Upon my return to the office, I started putting together a design for a vest that's built from our usual Cordura and had inbuilt magazine pouches. Sling loops were included, too, because I personally love the idea of a 1 point tactical sling run through loops on my left shoulder. We've adopted a new policy here in the office: the designer of the item has to produce the first prototype. The idea is to stop us from producing something that's impossible for the production team to build. While I don't have the world's best sewing skills, it's certainly worked to keep designs simple yet effective. Here it is shown over a set of black motocross armour for contrast and because it shows a typical usage case for something like Green Cloaks.

This is the first prototype out of the gate. There are a couple of bugs to fix but we've tried to balance affordability with efficacy. It's built from our usual high quality Cordura nylon and is padded with our 3mm spacer mesh for full breath-ability and comfort. The sling loops are just about visible on the shoulders but come as standard. The design is supposed to offer a complete off the shelf solution without needing to add further pouches and such. The MOLLE coverage allows for optional additions as and where necessary.

Most importantly, this particular line will be our first offering in a variety of sizes. While custom sizing is our preference, sizing options will give us the ability to sell things in a way we're not used to. Players and clients will be able to choose from a range in the field without having to wait for us to produce something fitted to them. Of course, we'll retain the custom option at no extra charge for those that are prepared to wait.

Changes for the final production version include:

• Reinforced magazine pouch apertures for easier magazine insertion - the current single layer of Cordura and edging tape isn't enough
• Change the edging tape colour from olive to army green
• Altering the position of closure buckles to prevent gaping
• Droping the neckline by a few mm to prevent it getting all up in your throat
• Velcro loop tape at the top of the vest will be replaced by just MOLLE Velcro loop tape rather than the current alternating system.

We're also exploring the option of adding interior pouches for armour panels. A number of LARP systems require rigid plating to count as armour for role play purposes while other players have requested space for extra padding simply to deaden the impact of a round travelling at 300FPS (I'm looking at you Australia :P). We'll probably have that as an add-on option for an extra £10 or so. Plates will be sold separately and we'll probably provide a template for them to make life easier for people wanting to make their own.

Current working price for this off the shelf in black will be £60 inc VAT or £70 inc VAT for Flecktarn and British Woodland DPM (as shown above). It'll be a couple of weeks before we get all the bugs worked out but the prototype will certainly see action next month at Green Cloaks Event 2. Watch this space. :)

EDIT:

So we tested it Event 2 and it came through with flying colours. We'll get a black one made up in the not too distant future and get it on the website. It's pictured above with the sling loops in action and Velcro patches in place. :D

Stampede Wiring Kit: Revision 2

In our first new product for 2015, we've added a few new upgrades to the Stampede wiring kit. There have been a number of tweaks including adding an LED mount for your master power switch and some key protections added for this ageing fleet of blasters.

Inline fuse holders, fuses and relays!

With more modern N-Strike Elite magazines, we've identifed a failure mode that is fatal to the Stampede motor when using high powered Lithium chemistry batteries. The differences in the moulds between N-Strike magazines and the newer N-Strike Elite magazines are sufficient to cause a misalignment in the bolt during the firing cycle. This causes a collision with the forward dart tooth and resultant stall. Given the high discharge capacity of Lithium packs, it's often the case the battery is able to continuously discharge enough current to oxidise the motor coils and set fire to the internals of the blaster (literally in one case).

To that end, enter car blade fuses. We've determined that a single 10A car fuse soldered into the battery tray will happily protect the blaster and its internals from the aforementioned failures. Yes, it might mean you have to tape a set of fuses to the inside of your blaster but we figure most people would rather have a dead fuse than a blaster. We did look into resettable options but the blade fuses are far more economical compared to PTCs and methods that would have introduced a significant current restriction. The other advantages of a blade fuse is that it can handle burst currents for the necessary length of time without tripping. This sort of behaviour is commonly seen in the automotive industry so it seems like a sane standard to adopt here.

New 12V relays!

A second change sees the replacement of the firing micro-switch with a 12V relay instead. This changes means that the blaster can now use its stock trigger switch to fire the blaster using low current wire through the relay. This solves the problem some users were experiencing with placing the switch and removes the need for the trial and error placement process that is required by the Version 1 system. There are also advantages in preventing timing bugs that may occur as the white trigger plate inappropriately triggers the next trigger cycle when using our current micro-switch set up. It is important to note, however, that our kit now requires either 3S LiPo or 3S LiFe to fire, anything higher than 12V will destroy the relay coil and render your blaster useless.

Unfortunately, it does mean that the kit will have to increase in price to accommodate the new features but we don't really have a way to avoid this and we've kept the increases to a minimum.

The new version will be available as of Monday 19th January 2014 for £18.50 (including UK VAT at 20% so £15.41 for non-EU customers). All orders placed on or after that date (UK time) will be filled with the Revision 2 kit and priced accordingly.

Fresh Magazine Holders

We've been doing some work with our suppliers and generally developing our range of 18/12 dart box magazine holders. Since we converted them to MOLLE Attachment Bars back in October, we've been expanding the range of available of camouflage fabrics. We've been working with our suppliers to reduce the cost of trim matched variants and have managed to pass those savings onto our clients. There are a number of price drops and changes. We've removed singles as they didn't sell terribly well and aren't a great economy in terms of production. Our Hex and Quad stacks still offer great value for money and exploit the full flexibility of the MOLLE system.

Early stage Woodland DPM holder, the Khaki thread has been upgraded to Olive

Rather than producing multiple listings, we've streamlined them all into one listing and simplified the options. This has allowed us to introduce drop-leg variants across all camouflage fabrics at the click of a button.

The other great news about our 18/12 magazine holders is that they can hold the 15 dart curved 'Worker' magazines that are currently coming out of China. They're good and secure in there and don't occlude any box magazines they might be alongside.

The new listings are available here, subject to our usual 2 week lead time. We're currently closed for a Christmas break (auto-posting bot FTW!) so any orders will be taken as being placed on 5th January. :)

Blastersmiths UK & BlasterTECH announce partnership!

Blastersmiths UK and BlasterTECH today announced a working partnership that they hope will be beneficial to both companies. BlasterTECH is an emergent wiring loom and electrical modification company based in Brisbane, Australia. They have recently started selling wiring looms through their website, BlasterTECH.com.au with the aim of lowering the threshold to entry for the average Nerf modder. Blastersmiths UK already sells an array of un-soldered kits and 3D printed parts so a trading partnership seemed like the natural step forward for the two companies.

The two companies first encountered one another through BritNerf.co.uk, the UK's primary Nerf forum. Mike, from Blastersmiths UK, and Dean, from BlasterTECH, got chatting around electrical modification and the potential of selling modified blasters. Regrettably, the regulatory environments in both the EU and Australia prevent the sale of fully modified blasters on their own at the commercial level but kits and pre-soldered looms can be sold in the EU and Australia respectively. BlasterTECH moved forwards with their wiring looms and accepted the offer of distributor in order to resell 3D printed components and some tactical gear in order to fund future development.

Australian customers can purchase BlasterTECH wiring looms direct from their website (www.blastertech.com.au) with immediate effect and from the 1st November 2014 will be able to access a wider array of Blastersmiths UK products without the risks of international shipping or the wait that comes with lead times for custom made goods. All Blastersmiths UK products listed on BlasterTECH.com.au will be available in stock for immediate dispatch in accordance with BlasterTECH shipping policies.

Looking to the future, the two companies are looking to work closely on further developing kits and looms for the full range of electronic foam dart blasters, including Nerf's Elite Demolisher 2-in-1. There is a great deal of untapped potential in the many electronic blasters out there and the two companies are looking forward to tapping that and bringing new products to the foam dart blaster marketplace.

/pressrelease

So what does this all mean?

In the midst of all the hype about our MABs and such, we're lucky enough to be able to announce our first Australian distributor for our second largest market. No more international shipping risks or waits on lead times, it'll all be there in your back garden without the fuss of international orders. From November 1st, it'll be there for you to buy straight up. From holster and slings to Rapidstrike kits, it'll all be either Blastersmiths UK original stuff or Blastersmiths UK Certified stuff. :)

Better yet, the folks here at BSUK and over at BlasterTECH are teaming up to feed into some pretty exciting new projects for electrical blasters in the coming months.

It's an exciting time for the hobby, keep your eyes open for more stuff as it develops.