Board Thread:General Nerf discussion/@comment-26431461-20180125011445/@comment-27923854-20180127005918

FLATtheFISH wrote: Elliottw wrote: Well, you let us know when you find someone ready to start printing. I got a few hunderd other ideas too. Some good ones even. Gonna make somebody rich, I tell ya. Hmmm, maybe Hogan is up for the task?  Now, Are you asking if I could 3d print some improved mags? Possibly. There are some magazine designs (complete with a neat plastic spring) I’ve found that could be modified like what you’re saying, but it would be tricky. And actually, there’s a little more to talk about before any printing. First off, the “Clip Lips” are not the main problem when it comes to wet reloads (I've heard them called tactical reloads). Take a Retaliator or Recon and an Alpha Trooper (assuming the locks are removed) and try to put mags in them without pulling the slide. It can be done, it’s easy on the Retaliator, but very difficult on the AT. The explanation is the bolt sled. If you open the jam door on the AT and look inside as you try to put a mag in, you’ll see that the clip lips hit the bolt sled (btw, none of this works if you haven’t removed the locks). Now of course you can’t open the jam door on a Retal with the slide forward, but looking in the magwell you’ll see that the bolt sled is different than the AT. Specifically, it’s positioned lower.



So if you were to make the “lips” hinged, it might work, but not very well on blasters like the AT. The other problem with the hinged lip idea is that it would be really hard. Even with a 3d printer. I do like the hard rubber lip idea, but I don’t think I could print that.



And my main point:  You don’t need to mod the mags. You can do tactical reloads with regular mags and you don’t need to feel bad. They’re made of ABS, and that stuff is pretty strong. It’s not gonna get worn out, it’ll flex. I do it all the time with my Recon. Now of course it really doesn’t work on the AT (sadly), or the Longstrike (who cares), and the LS is harder cause the “bolt” is bigger, but you could sand it down. You could also sand down the outside of the mag lips, and I think that would work well too.



The best solution though is to have a blaster with a thin bolt. Like those sealed breech Retal kits I’ve seen, or a brassed LS. Or even better, get a flywheeler or a Rival.

 No, seriously, you do have a really good idea. I’m just not sure how to do it. I think the trick would be to just make the plastic lips a little more flexible, but I don’t know that I can do that with the 3d printer. It might still be worth a shot though. 