Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Iron sights and more by SlyDev

Not too long ago I reviewed a 3D printed part from SlyDev that allowed you to attach your Nerf Jolt to any Nerf tactical rail, and I thought it was pretty good, so when Joey announced that the iron sights that he'd been working on for a while were now available in the SlyDev store, I went straight on over and ordered a set. Joey also threw in some other parts to review with my order, so I'll cover those in this post as well.

In the package, I received a full iron sight kit, which includes one back piece and three front pieces for different ranges, a glue on 4cm Nerf style rail, a glue on double dart holder, a glue on an 8cm picatinny rail and a second back piece for my iron sights (I liked the idea of a black rear sight and orange front sight). All of these parts of of great quality, especially for the low price you can get them for on the store, but I'll start with the glue on rails.

Both rails can be attached to any flat surface (or rounded, if you've got some skill in glueing things) and have fantastic tolerances. The 4cm Nerf rail is ideal for tight places and holds attachments very well. I stuck mine on to the side of my rampage at an angle that the supersoaker shield would sit nicely. I tried shaking the blaster as hard as I could and neither the shield nor tactical light would fall off, so I'd say that it actually holds on to attachments better than a lot of Nerf rails. The 4cm Nerf is available for $3 +$2 shipping and an 8cm version is available for $6 +$2 postage. I haven't mounted the picatinny rail to anything yet but I did mount my red dot sight to it and it fits on there perfectly. In the past, I've played around with designing BMX parts and I know that getting tolerances right requires lots of careful measurements, and seeing this rail fit picatinny parts so well impresses me. Perhaps it might look good on my Xplorer grip Longshot... These sell for $5 +$2 postage, or a 4cm version is $3 +$2postage.

Wish the Rampage had a shield? Problem solved.
Next, the double dart holder. I think this would go right at home on any manually loaded pistol type blaster or perhaps a double barrel shotgun blaster. As with the rails, the quality is great and darts hold firmly without being crushed. This can be glued to any flt surface, just like the rails and is available for $2 +$2 postage.


Top: Rear sights.
Bottom: Front sights.
Finally, one of the sweetest aftermarket attachments available is the iron sights. Available separately or as a set, there are 3 front pieces and one back piece to chose from currently. Each of the pieces attach to a Nerf rail via a side screw. The front pieces are all a different height, no drop for high powered air blasters, medium drop for modified blasters, and high drop for stock and lightly modded blasters. The different drops mean that you automatically angle your blaster up to compensate for the fall of the dart as it travels, but you can also mount the pieces closer together to get more angle or further apart to get less, depending on what you prefer. Mine found their home on my Rampage and they look pretty mean. Individual iron sight pieces are $3 +$1 postage, or $10 for the set with $2 postage.

I can't lie, I love these sights!
These little parts are starting to shape up as some of the most innovative small parts that the scene has been needing for some time, and at prices that won't destroy your wallet too. Good news is, SlyDev now ships to the U.S for a flat rate of $13 too, so our northern buddies can get a hold of these as well. I'll bet that a few HvZ players will snap up iron sight sets and at $10 + postage, I can't see why not. For more info or to purchase any of these products and others, head to the SlyDev Store. Thanks again to Joey and SlyDev for sending my these parts for review!

7 comments:

  1. Definetely gonna pick up an iron sight pack and a Jolt tac rail adaptor.
    Nice review!
    Just a random question, which colour of iron sights would suit an AT or W/O Longstrike?

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    1. I think the orange would suit pretty much any Nerf blaster, it's pretty much an identical match for the Nerf orange.

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  2. Great! Double Hydro Cannon shields on the Rampage+ a Stampede shield=AWESOMENESS!!
    Also Rolley, what dart code does the Elite darts have?

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    1. I'm assuming you mean the little letter on the dart heads? All of mine have "K." without the quotes.

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  3. Good to know that the iron sights are actually functional for a nerf blaster. :)

    I was wondering how durable the picatinny rail is, I might purchase an 8cm rail to mount a flashlight and adapter (weighs about 6oz total) onto the side of the Retaliator's magwell (where it says "Nerf" on the right side.) Since it's going to be sideways, do you think the rail would warp over time?

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    1. The picatinny rail is all one solid piece and quite stiff, so as long as you used a decent type of glue to attach it (like epoxy) I would say it will last the life of the blaster.

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  4. Awesome. I was just daydreaming about making a set of ghost ring sights for a Nerf rail a few days ago. Now I see somebody already made them and I'm dying to buy a set. Thanks for making this info available!

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