Memorial Day weekend left me with a lot of time, and a whole lot of nothing to do apart from dying of heatstroke as soon as you step outside. I decided to go ahead and revisit an old project I abandoned a few years back. The idea was simple, take a regular ol' Nerf Nite Finder and shove a massive plunger into it in hopes of building a springer pistol that could slam darts down range at over 100 feet. Basically I failed many times, but this time around I think I finally got it right.
The origins of this mod stemmed from me trying to replicate Jerm781 from Nerf Mods and Reviews who did a Super Nite Finder and had the front end infamously explode because his plunger head was unpadded, yet it still hit 126 feet. Unfortunately all traces except for one video of that pistol have been swallowed up by the internet since that blog shut down a few years ago and in that time I've found myself trying to recreate this beast from the ground up.
This was the byproduct of being way too damn ambitious back in 2013.
All the core parts for the pistol were bought at Home Depot and it uses a homemade plunger built out of 7.5 inches of 1" PVC pipe with a 1/2" CPVC coupler rammed into a reducer making up the front. The power comes from dual springs with a spacer in between put over a 3/4" wooden rod with a catch notch cut into it. The plunger head was basically a cut down neoprene washer in between two metal washers, screwed onto the rod. The Nite Finder had to be completely gutted and then the shell had to be completely mangled to fit the plunger. It's like trying to cram a tank engine into a Miata and with all kinds of things to go wrong as a result.
Oh my god, the HORROR.
I did manage to get it to shoot, surprisingly well in fact but because my version had no bracing in the front, the recoil would often just break the glue holding the bottom part of the plunger to the body of the pistol, sometimes causing the whole thing to explode when you pulled the trigger. More often than that, the wooden dowel would just snap, either at the notch or at the priming handle, the latter requiring me to use a screwdriver to prime it without rebuilding the whole blaster. Or I cut the seal badly and shit like what you see in the photo happens. This blaster was literally built on the basis of low cost and bad judgement and eventually I just threw it in the closet and called it quits, until now.
Size next to a Hammershot. It's put on a bit of weight.
My plans for the rebuild were pretty straightforward; make the whole body more rigid so the plunger wouldn't try to rattle the whole blaster apart and replace the shitty wooden rods with something far more capable for withstanding the strength of those two springs. I decided to keep the design for the plunger head the same since it worked well enough before, provided I don't cut the washer like an idiot. Replacing the rod was simple enough, I swapped it out for a piece of nylon rod of the same dimensions and this stuff is tough as hell. I had to buy a new drill bit just to be able to put holes into the stuff and cutting the new catch notch was a whole lot of carving and sanding.
It's not a Nite Finder without a wannabe laser.
I decided to take a page out of Jerm's book and integrate a Recon light into the bottom half of the blaster. Not only did this help tremendously increase the overall strength of the body, it also makes the whole blaster look a little bit more complete. Downside is that the batteries are now inaccessible thanks to the mess of glue but it's not a huge deal. I did dabble a bit with the idea of linking original battery tray in the grip to the light but decided it wasn't really worth the effort.
End result is now a pistol that feels rock solid and shoots absolute lasers now. Not to mention I no longer feel completely paranoid of breaking it when priming. The new seal I cut is surprisingly decent and while I don't have actual ranges yet but I expect it to be pretty close, if not better than my previous attempt. The coupler in the front sit a bit iffy however so I'll have to eventually pull that and re-seal it so it stops leaking air around the barrel. Other than that, I'm very happy that this pistol is back in working order since it's long been one of my favorites. It's kind of a testament to a bygone time before 3D printing when modders would just hotglue things together and pray they didn't blow up when you pull the trigger. I'm fairly confident this one should hold up in the long run though.
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