Fresh from the inbox!

Word from a nice PR lady at Hasbro!

· The 5 stops for DTWC are as follows:

o June 26-27 Nike 6.0 BMX Open Chicago – Grant Park

o July 24-25 Skate Open Boston -TD Banknorth Garden

o Aug. 13-14 Wendy’s Invitational Portland, Ore. – Rose Quarter

o Sept. 17-20 Toyota Challenge Salt Lake City – EnergySolutions Arena

o Oct. 15-18 PlayStation Pro Orlando – Amway Arena

EDIT: The event is tomorrow! Here is the schedule I pulled off Hasbro.com:

The 2009 Dew Tour features more than 150 of the worlds best action sports athletes, competing in Skateboarding, BMX, and Freestyle Motocross! This year NERF has signed on as an official sponsor of the tour and the biggest new addition to Dew Tour’s award-winning Festival Village.

The 2009 Dew Tour will visit the following cities:

* Chicago, Illinois (June 26-27)
* Boston, Massachusetts (July 24-25)
* Portland, Oregon (Aug. 13-16)
* Salt Lake City, Utah (Sept. 17-20)
* Orlando, Florida (Oct. 15-18)

Nike 6.0 Open Chicago, IL

Friday 6/26 1:00pm – 5:00pm Scrimmage
4:00pm – 7:00pm Ages 13-17 Tournament

Saturday 6/27 11:00am – 12:00pm Scrimmage
12:00pm – 3:00pm Ages 8-12 Tournament
03:00pm – 7:00pm Scrimmage

So as the months roll on, keep an eye out when these stops happen in/near your area! More this week after I hit Festival Village at the BMX Open.

MOAR NEWS – NDTL – (Nerf Dart Tag League)

So there is this:

Yup. Hasbro’s gone and started a league of competitive nerf events, the Nerf Dart Tag League. It kicks off with the Mt. Dew Action Sport Tour in Chicago, IL the weekend of June 26th and 27th. That’s right, the Nike BMX 6.0 event.

There’ll be a winning team from the cities on the tour, culminating in a Championship Finale in Florida. The games will be decided using dart tag and capture the flag rules, meaning competitors wear the vests and will have scores determined by where they hit the vests on opposing players in addition to flag captures. The link contains the full rules, but it does sound like something. There’s even prize money!

Anyway, so what do I think about this? I actually really enjoy the idea. I even hope to get a glimpse of everything at Festival Village next week. I just hope my expectations of seeing the new CTF Dart Tag set are founded. I think taking stock ammo and darts is a good thing, and trying to garner attention to nerf fights with something like a league is brilliant. People will form teams, they will gather, and they will see. Not quite what the NIC is used to, but to even get the idea out there is plenty reason. I don’t care what anyone says about goobers or other elitist thinking. We run around with children’s toys, some more modified than others. Bring people in, let them figure out what more they can do. And that’s what introductory things like this mean. I look forward to checking it out and seeing what’s what, and getting out there. I invite other nerfers in/around Chicago to check it out. Hasbro needs to know that we’re in support, even if we do make such a small population of the market. Nerfers… come out to play-ayyyy…. NERFERS…. COME-OUT-TO-PLAY-AYYYYYYY.

Well hello there… Action Splat?

From Foam From Above

Say hello to the Blizzard “Paintblaster”. I got this from Tuesday Morning in Arlington Heights for around $12… totally worth it. It looks like the company Blizzard made something like a pistol splat by splatmatic http://www.amazon.com/Splatmatic-PS800-Pistol-Splat/dp/B0000TF6LY, rendering this the “Lanard” or “Buzzbee” of paintball splat thingies in my book. I can’t say anything for comparing the quality of construction, but from what I see on NH and my own experience, there’s the same ridiculous spring inside the same ridiculous plunger tube. Ridiculous success.

Informal testing tells me the range is decent… not sure if I’m getting the 100′ some folks do but it seems pretty good. It fires clear across the width of my street, for what that’s worth.

I’ve replaced the stock barrel with CPVC and that’s about it. In order to open’er up to do so, there was a ring around the barrel I had to remove and unfortunately that means the new barrel needs some sort of stabilizer, but I don’t really care enough to make it so. Hah! The new barrel has been superglued and electrical taped into oblivion, it’s not moving anywhere. It’s been said that if you don’t glue it properly the barrel will fire out, dart and all. Thankfully, that’s just hearsay on my end.

Right now I’m using stock darts, some weighted but at stock length. I think… I think I’m going to have to start cutting shorter darts in order to improve distance. I have noticed a difference from shorter stock darts right away. Between this and the ranges I’ve been getting from my XXL bazooka, I think that’s the only thing left to do to improve my ranges. I also might want to work on balancing my weights, so far the thing’s been powerful enough to make my darts flop about after being fired.

The grip is pretty ergonomic, It fits my hand pretty well, even moreso than a TTG. I found the nub near the handle is not as problematic as some others have said so I’ve left it alone.

It’s definitely too powerful for a regular pistol round, but as far as a primary goes this is something I look forward to taking with me on the field. I am a little curious as to the comparison between this near-stock and my TTG though, for sure. I have a rebarrel and extra spring in the TTG, so if it’s on par with the splatmatic I might have to reconsider using it during pistol rounds.

One thing… a ram rod is kind of a must for maximum efficacy. DO IT.

Keep reloadin’!

Gotta get this down…

Future projects-

Dartsmithing
BBB/RSCB Inline (w/cpvc barrel?)
Titan w/”special ammo”
Shotgun barrel attachment for heavy weapons

Leave it at that for now.