Ultimate Berserker

I saw this blaster sitting on the shelf at Target and new immediately what I wanted to do with it. We have indoor wars at family gatherings all the time and this is what I needed.

1. To be able to use all kinds of darts.
2. Arrowstorms or Big Bad Bows are usually present so I wanted to able to fire arrows.
3. Something that is strong and accurate, but could still be used with the kids.
4. And for everyone else to be intimidated! :-)

Check, check, check and definitely check!

Easy to open.

The spring is strong and doesn't need changing.

The air seal is great. Again, no change needed.

The way the airflow is designed on this blaster is weird. Instead of the airflow being forced out of the front of the barrel, the barrel end is plugged. There are holes on the sides of the barrel/air restrictors so the air flows out of the sides and somehow still manages to get decent ranges while stock with the original missiles and darts provided. Changed that! Marker barrels are quickly becoming my favorite barrel material for what I like to do with the blasters. They are so easy and cheap. I used to use Rose art markers until I found new ones at the 99 cent store.

The tricky part was finding a barrel material for inner pump barrel. I knew I wanted to be able to shoot the old Nerf arrows/toysrus air zone arrows and be able to fire streamlines/suction cup and whistle darts, but I couldn't find any mods that did this. Yeah I basically wanted it all from one blaster. Even an e-mail to one of my favorite modders didn't help. So I made my way down to Ace Hardware and a really cool employee helped me go through all the materials they had. We found a 3/4" Outer Diameter aluminum tube that worked almost perfectly. The shell wasn't as thin as I would have liked because it didn't fit onto the existing barrel. I had to sand down the old barrel with my dremel to get the new aluminum barrel to fit. Although this aluminum works I plan on doing this mod a couple more times and dealing with the sanding of the inner barrel is more time consuming than I want. Any suggestions? Is there a thin walled 3/4" OD petg out there somewhere?

This was the result.

Nerf Arrowstorm Mod

This gun is simply awesome! It's the gun that started my family Nerf wars and my current Nerf obsession. Back in the day I had no idea that you could modify guns to make them shoot other darts. We didn't really need to. It seems to be meant for older kids. To fire it you have to be able to pull it back and younger kids just don't have the strength.

They are hard to find now. Most of the people that have them don't let go of them. You can sometimes get lucky and find them on E-bay, but not very often. Airzone (Toys R Us) re-released a very close knock off to this gun (also called it Arrow Storm) a few years ago but that one has also disappeared.

I really like this gun, as is, so I didn't want to do too much to it. I did want to see if I could get it to shoot regular darts though so I decided to see if marker barrels would fit and they did, almost perfectly. Marker barrels are just Crayola or Rose Art markers that you hallow out and use as a barrel to shoot almost every form of Nerf dart. I like them. They are cheap, easy to find, easy to use and serve my needs well.

Here's a video of what I did....



I now get 70ft+ with streamline darts shooting level. It's a beast of a gun! I recently went to Toys R Us and bought some of the Air Zone arrows to see if they would work. They do very well! I get better ranges with those arrows than I do with the old school ones or the ones that come with the big bad bow.

Nerf Raider Mod

Once modded, this is one of my favorite guns! I think I have three of them now. I bought one from Target with the extra darts (70 total) and then started finding them on Craigslist. I really like the way it feels, reloads and the range I'm getting is right around 50ft. That's perfect for our family wars since I don't want to use something too powerful with the kids. The 35 dart drum is awesome! Not only do I have 35 shots before I have to reload, but since I'm right handed the drum offers me pretty good head protection from guys like my Dad and DarthWill who are usually aimed at my head whenever it pops out of our fort.

The mods are easy. I removed the air restrictor, plugged the air hole with electrical tape and added a little tape around the tube where the spring is to make sure the spring is fully compressed when ready to fire.

Here's a video that shows what I did and a before and after firing test. I think I need some more light when I'm doing the firing tests. I'm not sold on the way I'm doing it or the snake stuffed animal I'm using as a target... I was thinking a poster of a bikini model would look more interesting? Or maybe just a bikini model? Any suggestions?

Nightfinder Mod

The term modding or mod refers to changing a Nerf gun from it's stock or original form somehow. Usually it's in reference to making the gun shoot farther, but can also mean a new paint job, changing the barrel to shoot different types of darts, etc...

There are lots of things you can do to make a gun stronger and for that reason you want to figure out why you want to do this? With some of these guns the changes you can make range from just having a few more feet of power to being able to shoot stefans (homemade darts) that can break the skin. I've been doing a little bit of everything, but most of the changes I make are for use in family wars. There are young kids, we are usually at pretty close range and all different kinds of darts being used. I don't need much more power for most guns, but stock the guns just don't seem to be as powerful as they were when I was a kid.

Two major mods for improving power:

1. Air restrictor removal--All the new nerf guns have an air restrictor that inhibits air flow, lessens the impact of the plunger (acting like a silencer) and sometimes inhibits the use of streamlines and stefan darts (homemade darts). I recommend doing this for all stock guns. For my general use this is usually all I need to do.

2. Spring Replacement or addition--Buying a stronger spring or adding another second spring. This will get you the most drastic change in power. I have two nightfinders that I modded and used a spring purchased at Ace Hardware. They are close to the strongest guns I have modded. They scare adults. Spring replacement can be tricky. You need to find a spring that fits, (compressed and uncompressed) will provide you with more power, but also still work. With more power may come the need to strengthen other parts of the gun.

Some other things that may help are lubing the plunger tube, maximizing spring compression, plugging air holes, changing barrels, etc... Not all the guns are the same, but they are very similar. Once you get a few mods under your belt it just gets easier and easier.

If you want an easy starter gun a Nerf Nightfinder would be a great place to start. It's an inexpensive gun (can be found for $5.00 or less), easily modded and is strong and accurate. If you mess it up (i would argue that would be harder to do than modding it) then you are only out $5.00 bucks. Shoot, this gun has been around so long your niece, nephew, brother, sister, etc... probably already has one that you can work with.

Here's a quick explanation of how to mod a Nightfinder.



Here's a before and after video, as well as, some other modded Nightfinders.