Board Thread:General Nerf discussion/@comment-27306930-20190109040030/@comment-27306930-20190119235721

Many thanks Mojo. Your intuition was right on the mark. It was the magazine.

There was a ridge where the clear part of the tube met the orange cap on the end of the mag. It was bumping against a bulkhead at the bottom of the magwell. (see red arrows)  The clear part of the tube was only 1/32nd inch larger than the orange end cap, but just enough to stop the mag dead in its tracks when inserting.

I took an Xacto knife and shaved the clear part of the mag tube so that it's beveled smoothly with the end cap. Slides in beautifully now.

On a side note, butterflying the Helios isn't for the faint of heart. Not only is there an outer shell, but the grip and most of the plunger mech is a separate subassembly that needed to be taken apart. When I opened the outer shell, it went sproing ! Two springs flew out, the mag release button and clip fell out, the plunger catch assembly fell out, and the tail end of the trigger mech popped out. It was a proper mess. It took a few minutes to figure out where all the parts belonged.

Plus, the reassembly was a challenge, especially the mag release. It took multiple attempts to figure out a method for holding all the parts in place while I got the shell back together. Whew ! If you can avoid it, don't disassemble your Helios.

Muchas gracias mi amigo !