Nerf Nitefinder EX-3 Mod

Just a few days ago I bought my first nerf gun, the Nitefinder EX-3 pistol. My brother has a couple of them namely two Maverick REV-6s and the N-Strike Recon but I waited till I had some extra cash to pick up one for myself. I actually wanted to get the Longshot but they don’t seem to sell them anymore in Brunei. There are a lot of Longstrikes though but that’s supposed to have lousy performance even after modding. Not wanting to buy a rifle model that I would not be able to mod satisfyingly enough I decided to opt for the Nitefinder until a Longshot pops up somewhere in one of the stores here.

Now, I’ve been searching around online for good sites that would help me out in modding my new nerf pistol and boost the range but only came across very few posts about actually modding the Nitefinder to do so. Right out of stock the thing is stated to shoot 25ft-35ft (7.5-10.5m) away parallel to the ground but I found mine only shot about 15 paces away parallel which was about 18ft (5.4m). This was about two thirds of the range my brother gets with his guns so obviously I was unsatisfied with this so I chose to make adjustments.

What I write here will not exactly be a modding guide but more like my findings on how and why the mods work. I will be giving details on the mods I made to my own gun but unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures as I modded the thing so you’re going to have to settle with a textbook like explanation.

1) Air Restrictor Removal
The Air Restrictor is the first thing you’ll want to take care off before anything else. As the name implies, this part limits the amount of air that gets utilized in launching the dart. It does this in two ways. The first would be by limiting the of air flow going into the barrel when you prime it and the second would be by restricting the air that pushes out the dart when you pull the trigger. You won’t see much change until you remove this part so you really have to get rid of it. For newer models of this gun, you’re going to have to cut through the barrel along the furthest ring on the barrel with a thin but sturdy knife before you can take it out and reseal it with tape or some sort of bonding agent later on. Incidentally, you’ll want to load the bullet after priming the gun since the dart gives the same effect as the Air Restrictor by the first way. That goes especially for fully modded guns.

2) Spring Reinforcement
Obviously, the spring is the part that influences the power the most so get to it here. Think of it like a rubber band and you’ll understand that the more you pull back the stronger the recoil will be when you release it. What you need to do here is make it harder to pull back the plunger and I did that by rolling another spring in between the stock spring. For some reason, I have yet to find a hardware store in Brunei that sells springs so I made do with the spring from my brother’s broken Maverick. Problem with this is that the recoil is too strong that you won’t be able to prime the gun if you leave the cocking mechanism unmodified. To remedy this you’re going to have to either use a strong pen spring to replace the tiny spring that keeps the plunger in place after priming and/or carve out a little of the indent so that it curves slightly inwards instead of just being a straight wall.

3) Plunger Padding
The plunger isn’t really all that airtight right out of stock so you’ll want to add padding to make it so as well as to reduce the stress on the plunger when it slams back into the barrel. Not quite sure how much this improves the air pressure but having all the air push out of the barrel is better than having less. Use some soft and non-porous form of padding for this. Also, you might want to sew it onto the plunger head in addition to gluing it because I personally don’t trust the glue to remain stuck after a couple hundred shots.

4) Results
By the end of it, my Nitefinder was shooting a minimum of 30(36ft/10.8m) paces parallel to the ground and easily 50(60ft/18m) angled slightly upward. I say minimum because the gun now switches from straight shots to spinning shots almost every other pull of the trigger and that drastically reduces the travel distance. Still, a modded misfire ended up twice as far as a normal unmodified shot and that’s a plus. It can even shoot those slim cartridge darts that always misfired under normal specs. I get the best distance with vertical shots since it consistently reaches 4 stories upwards. Accuracy’s also pretty good when aimed that way as I’ve shot a friend from four floors below him in a shopping centre. Yes, I shot him with a nerf gun in the middle of a shopping centre. QLap mall for Bruneians curious as to where I did this.

As for the newfound lack of accuracy and consistency with horizontal shooting, I’m guessing the power reached its limiting factor (i.e. pressure) and now releases excessive amounts of air along with the required amount needed for compression to overcome the friction keeping the dart in place. Basically that means not all the air is utilized for the shot and the extra bit winds up messing with the accuracy of the shot. That’s the reason why I get such fantastic results shooting upwards. Gravity and air pressure act more keenly on the dart increasing the resistance of the dart allowing more pressure to build up before the dart launches out of the barrel. In my gun’s case, my optimum shooting angle would be somewhere between 50-70 degrees upwards as I have gotten the range past 40m shooting within that range.

I have yet to devise a method to rectify this inefficiency but I do know that I have to up the friction enough for all of the air in the barrel to build up before launching the dart into the air but not so much that it would end up reducing the speed instead. My theory is that I should increase it at the very base of the dart so that the extra friction allows more pressure to build up without increasing the overall resistance in the barrel too much. Hopefully I’ll figure out a modification that won’t need regular maintenance. Additionally, if you think that I have made errors with the physics of the entire thing then feel free to correct me on whatever you feel is wrong as my knowledge in that particular field of study is limited to O’ level standards.

Review: Figma Emiya Shirou

Now it’s time for me to review my newest figma which is the 7th one in my collection and the first male one too. As usual, I bought it at Hobbysearch for 2533 yen which is roughly B$40 and comes in the regular sized box.

Front View

Side View

Top View

Other Side

Rear View

Type-moon Holo Stamp

Berserker's Blade was placed behind Shirou

This Figma comes with:

• 1 Saber’s Dream Background
• 4 pairs of hands (Fist, Holding, Spread out and Reaching types)
• 1 Kanshou Sword
• 1 Bakuya Sword
• 1 Serious Face
• 1 Enraged Face
• 1 Archer’s Arm
• 1 Berserker’s Sword
• 1 Figma Stand
• 2 Instruction Leaflets

How to replace Shirou's arm

How to insert the Figma stand into Shirou's back. Unusually elaborate mechanism.

All eight hands

Usually figmas come with at least 5 pairs of hands but for some reason they decided not to give Shirou another set. This isn’t really too much of a drawback but it does make me wonder why they didn’t fill up the last pair. Also, the holding hands can easily fit my 1/144 Gundams’ weapons along with the other accessories I have for my figmas and Revoltech Saber.

The two faces of Shirou

This figma looks pretty good and I can’t really find much fault in its design. Wished they gave a relaxed face instead of the serious one they gave though. The enraged expression looks great but the serious face doesn’t look right in battle poses and feels out of place in funny poses.

Archer's arm

The weapons that Shirou comes with are quite remarkable. The designers did an amazing job with Kanshou and Bakuya blades. Unfortunately I was unable to get a good close up pictures of either because of how macro works in automatic cameras but just take my word for it when I say that they were made spectacularly. Berserker’s sword comes stored in its own plastic packaging separate from the other stuff due to its size. It’s not as well made since you can see seams where the different parts of the sword are connected.

Kanshou & Bakuya. Magnificent!

Berserker's Sword. It's even bigger than Shirou.

I would have liked a UBW background but maybe they're saving it for you-know-who

Battle Ready

Very nice pose here

Sword's Peg

Arm's Slot

Ghostly Arm

Shirou’s got the most stable footing out of all the figmas I have so you don’t really need the figma stand except for when he’s holding onto heavy stuff. The need for heating the back slot is also quite cumbersome so chances are I won’t ever be relying on the simple peg figma stands to hold him up (Thank god for di:stages). Articulation is decent but there is limited range for moving the arms upwards and I can’t bend either arms towards to other one fully to make a grabbing the shoulder pose which really should be in there too considering the circumstances behind Archer’s arm. The way the joints are designed make this figma optimized for battle poses so it’s not easy to make him pose for any other purpose.

Heavenly Feel Conditions!

Snug Fit

BFG! It's seriously a BFG!

Impossible to balance without a stand

The most interesting thing about this figma is the extra arm they gave to reenact Shirou performing Nine Lives Blade Works from the Heavenly Feel scenario. I didn’t realize that figma arms can pop out like Revoltechs but given my other figmas there’s no motivation for me to try that out them. The arm can also be attached to the figma stand pegs so you can have a severed arm “hanging” in the air. The left shoulder is made in such a way that when you attach Archer’s arm on, the shirt section there wraps around arm in such a way that it hides the gap between the body and the arm. This is the only arm that can hold Berserker’s sword by the way since there’s a hole made to fit the peg on the sword on the palm of this arm. Additionally, the red cloth on the arm can be rotated around for posing.

Trace...

...On!

Excalibur!

Bardiche Zanbato mode!

Bardiche...

Scythe Form!

Leek!

Leek Ver. 2

Akimbo!

Nerai Utsu!

Best pic yet!

A Truly GAR pose!

That’s it for my review on Figma Emiya Shirou and here’s hoping that I’ll be able to get that new MG GN-X that’s coming out soon and that Max Factory will come up with Archer’s or Gilgamesh’s Figmas.

Review: Lucky Star OVA EX Figure Hiiragi Kagami Cosplay Ver. & Izumi Konata Cosplay Ver.

The stuff I ordered for last month arrived last week but I had to delay my reviews until now since the camera was with my brother who at my grandpa’s at the time of arrival. Once I got my hands on the camera and some time to myself, I spent two hours taking pictures of my new merchandise while arranging all the stuff I brought to the funfair back on the tables.

I’m splitting my new loot into two posts for neatness otherwise there’ll be 88 pictures in one post alone which will kill the page the loading speed. I’ve scheduled my review on my new Figma Emiya Shirou for this Sunday at 2100 hours so please look forward to that.

In this post I’ll be reviewing my new Kagami and Konata Cosplay PVC Statues by SEGA. Before I saw these things up for pre-order at Hobbylink, I honestly had no clue that SEGA actually diversified into making anime merchandise. I saw these at Hobbylink but ordered them from Hobbysearch as a 2-piece set for 2375 yen. These prices are all the Hobbysearch prices which are usually 5% cheaper than Hobbylink’s but buying them at Hobbylink would have cost me 625 yen extra.

Front View

Kagami's Box

Konata's Box

Right Side

Left Side

Rear View

Top View

Bottom View

Not sure what these openings are for.

Both of the statues come in boxes with the same exact same design so the only way to know which item you’re getting is by looking at the contents inside. Both say “Konata Izumi” on the right side and “Hiiragi Kagami” on the left side and both have Crypton Future Media Trademarks on them even though that only applies to Kagami’s statue. I detect some corner cutting here since I figured they could have at least added the respective characters’ names on the under the transparent window for their boxes. The way they tape the box lids is also rather telling here.

The first thing I noticed when I opened Konata’s box was the smell. Unlike Figmas or Revoltechs, these PVC statues smell quite strongly of their material i.e. PVC. I suppose that has something to do with how much more of this particular material is used in these statues. Konata more so than Kagami since Kagami uses shiny plastic to make parts of her costume reflective while Konata seems to be completely made of the stuff. The texture feels smooth and slightly rubbery so they’ll probably be able to endure quite a few accidents should I be unfortunate enough for that to happen.

Konata Witch Cosplay

The Base. Very Bland.

Looks pretty good

As for the design, I wasn’t really expecting anything amazing considering how cheap these are compared to other PVC statues but I have to say that the level of detail is quite satisfactory. Both figures look great when you look at them from the side, especially in Kagami’s case since her face looks kinda off since the eyebrows don’t really match each other. I even had a gripe about the way the front part of her hair doesn’t really stick out but a few days after taking out the box seems to have fixed it somehow. At first it looked way too flat for my taste but that part of the head seems to have expanded made things look more natural. All in all, both figures retain the charm of their characters in terms of appearance quite well but I have to wonder about the pose Kagami takes as that leaning forward pose from the hips does not look very comfortable.

The figures come with their own bases but I really feel disappointed at the design here. The bases are round, completely white and unmarked on the top with two holes to insert the pegs in. Seriously, it would have nice if they had given some attention to base design since the all white thing is rather lackluster. On the upside however is that the pegs fit the holes in my di:stages quite nicely so I can put them there. I really need to buy more of these things but Gunpla is on my agenda for my next order so I’ll have to put that off for a couple of months.

The Concept Art

The Reality

Had to see which way was the best way to put them side by side

Naturally I had to undo the tower design I had to make a display with a lower center of gravity considering the extra weight these two bring but it was a good time to do so anyway since the parts were already unassembled due to the funfair. I went for something that looked like a concert stage and placed the two together on the middle platform. This also gave me the idea to make miniature flags for the longer poles but my printer lacks color ink T-T. Oh well…

The mess after the funfair box unpacking

di:stage holes are bigger than the base's

Still holds up perfectly though.

Concert Stage Configuration!

So what did I do with bland bases they gave me? I used them to display the weapons that came with my Figma Fate T. Harlaown and Revoltech Saber Alter. I suspect it had something to do with the fact that my newest figma was a character with Unlimited Blade Works as an attack. I wonder what else I’ll be able to do with these other than painting them to look better. I’ll have to thank G.A. Geijutsuka Art Design should I feel the need to recolor those things for the techniques the show’s taught me. Just wished their Irodorunjaa BGM was a bit longer.

GET SET!


Exclaiburs!

These items were really worth the money I spent on them even though I don’t usually buy static figures because of their high prices and immobility. I’m actually surprised at how these are meant to be prizes for arcade machines considering how nicely made they are and at such low costs too. I look forward to any future EX statues that SEGA makes. Hopefully they’ll be of characters in series that I like.