Well this was somewhat of a surprise. Earlier this week I got a message from Pocket of Urban Taggers saying that he had a package from Blaster Parts. As I'm sure you all know, Pocket isn't one for modding so I gladly offered to help.
The kit is designed to be a simple, bolt in replacement breech allowing your Centurion to fire regular elite/streamline sized darts, and in that regard, it achieves everything it set out to. The install is incredibly simple and at the end of it, your Centurion will indeed fire standard darts. So let's have a look at the kit.
The kit comprises of two parts; the breech and the clip-well adapter.
The adapter is beautifully simple in both it's design and application.
Slot it into place instead of the standard mega clip and you're done. That's it.
A small spring loaded nub then holds the regular sized clip in pace.
It's held in with two screws.
Once it's removed you can see the spring loaded nub.
Once the block is back in place, it also helps to form the segment that locks the clip-well adapter in the blaster.
The other part is the breech itself. Again, the simplicity here is beautiful.
It's identical to the stock, mega sized breech, just with a smaller diameter.
The screw holes line up perfectly with the stock plunger assembly.
All in all, both parts make for a really elegant and efficient solution to the problem, but lets get to the installation itself.
If you've already put the barrel on your blaster, this will get awkward but it's still possible to remove the rest of the shell without disassembling the barrel. There are five different screw sizes holding the shell together but I'll run you throw which ones go where at the reassembly stage.
Remove all of the screws from the blaster proper shell, and the back three screws from the barrel. Open the shell from the back of the blaster, then gently pry the back of the barrel apart until you can get shell off.
This blaster seems like it has a lot going on inside, but it's still relatively straight forward. Each priming handle is attached to a rack, which is connected to the large white pinion gear you can see here. That pinion drives a gear in the centre of the gearbox which pushes the breech forward. Unlike most other blasters, the plunger tube is actually all the way back at rest, and the breech pulls forward to create tension on the main spring inside the plunger tube. As you've all heard rants about it on the internet, I'm not going to get involved in the reverse plunger design debate, but instead just present it for what it is.
As always at this point, take a couple of minutes to have a good look around inside the internals and figure out how it all works.
Here is what it looks like when the breech is closed and the blaster cocked.
This stretched spring you can see here is the breech return spring that pulls the breech back after firing.
The blaster cocked.
Immediately after firing.
OK, happy with how it all works? Let's continue with the disassembly.
Start by removing the jam door.
Then this small screw that holds the breech return spring in place.
Then you should be able to lift out the entire breech/plunger assembly. Start by sliding the breech forward, then slip the plunger tube over the catch, lift up so that the bottom nub of the breech clears its track, then lift the whole assembly backwards and it should slide out. I'm making this part sound way more complicated than it actually is. Once you're here, you'll figure it out pretty quickly.
OK, breech free. You can see here that the whole thing is in two pieces; the breech and the plunger.
It's held together with three screws.
Interestingly the stock air restrictor is housed entirely within the breech section, so if you wanted to retain the ability to shoot mega darts but wanted to lose the AR, unscrew this section and the AR will just fall out.
Like I said, three screws hold it together.
Then screw the new breech segment in it's place. Also apparently I forgot to take a photo of this step, but make sure you transfer the breech return spring to the new breech as well.
Getting the brecch/plunger assembly back int he blaster is the opposite of removal. Start from the right, get the front of the breech under the breech catch, slide the breech all the way forward until the bottom falls into it's track, then slide the whole assembly backwards, ensuring that the plunger aligns in it's track too.
Reattach the breech return spring and the jam door.
Then put the shell back together.
Like I said earlier, there's five different screw sizes. From left to right...
The two really big and long screws go here, in front of the jam door.
And at the very back of the blaster.
The next two longest screws go here (assuming you were stupid like me and removed all of the barrel screws, despite not needing to).
Two of next biggest screws go in these two holes here.
The third one goes at the bottom of the stock.
The smallest screws go in these four holes along the top of the tac rail.
And the rest of the small screws go in the barrel section. Every other screw on the outside of the blaster is the standard sized Nerf screw.
As is said earlier, the clip well adapter is beautifully simple.
Place it into the stock clip well and you're done.
Here I've removed the jam door to better show you how it sits in the blaster.
With a 6-clip.
With an 18-clip
Then pops out using the standard clip release button.
And again, the smaller clips are held in place by this little nub. To release a clip, simply pull down.
OK, enough photos, how does it actually perform? Not as well as I had hoped. I really wanted this to be at least on par with an AR'd Longshot, but it really isn't. It's a lot better than the stock Mega firing Centurion in that you'll be able to use all of your existing darts and clips, but only a metre or two increase in range.
All told, I still think this is a massive step in the right direction towards making the Centurion game relevant, but there's still quite some work to be done. My next mod on this blaster will be an attempt to improve the stock plunger tube by plugging the slits that run down the side, then I'll have a go at replacing the spring or maybe even a complete plunger replacement. I like giant blasters and I want it's performance to match it's size.
The kit is designed to be a simple, bolt in replacement breech allowing your Centurion to fire regular elite/streamline sized darts, and in that regard, it achieves everything it set out to. The install is incredibly simple and at the end of it, your Centurion will indeed fire standard darts. So let's have a look at the kit.
The kit comprises of two parts; the breech and the clip-well adapter.
The adapter is beautifully simple in both it's design and application.
Slot it into place instead of the standard mega clip and you're done. That's it.
A small spring loaded nub then holds the regular sized clip in pace.
It's held in with two screws.
Once it's removed you can see the spring loaded nub.
Once the block is back in place, it also helps to form the segment that locks the clip-well adapter in the blaster.
The other part is the breech itself. Again, the simplicity here is beautiful.
It's identical to the stock, mega sized breech, just with a smaller diameter.
The screw holes line up perfectly with the stock plunger assembly.
All in all, both parts make for a really elegant and efficient solution to the problem, but lets get to the installation itself.
If you've already put the barrel on your blaster, this will get awkward but it's still possible to remove the rest of the shell without disassembling the barrel. There are five different screw sizes holding the shell together but I'll run you throw which ones go where at the reassembly stage.
Remove all of the screws from the blaster proper shell, and the back three screws from the barrel. Open the shell from the back of the blaster, then gently pry the back of the barrel apart until you can get shell off.
This blaster seems like it has a lot going on inside, but it's still relatively straight forward. Each priming handle is attached to a rack, which is connected to the large white pinion gear you can see here. That pinion drives a gear in the centre of the gearbox which pushes the breech forward. Unlike most other blasters, the plunger tube is actually all the way back at rest, and the breech pulls forward to create tension on the main spring inside the plunger tube. As you've all heard rants about it on the internet, I'm not going to get involved in the reverse plunger design debate, but instead just present it for what it is.
As always at this point, take a couple of minutes to have a good look around inside the internals and figure out how it all works.
Here is what it looks like when the breech is closed and the blaster cocked.
This stretched spring you can see here is the breech return spring that pulls the breech back after firing.
The blaster cocked.
Immediately after firing.
OK, happy with how it all works? Let's continue with the disassembly.
Start by removing the jam door.
Then this small screw that holds the breech return spring in place.
Then you should be able to lift out the entire breech/plunger assembly. Start by sliding the breech forward, then slip the plunger tube over the catch, lift up so that the bottom nub of the breech clears its track, then lift the whole assembly backwards and it should slide out. I'm making this part sound way more complicated than it actually is. Once you're here, you'll figure it out pretty quickly.
OK, breech free. You can see here that the whole thing is in two pieces; the breech and the plunger.
It's held together with three screws.
Interestingly the stock air restrictor is housed entirely within the breech section, so if you wanted to retain the ability to shoot mega darts but wanted to lose the AR, unscrew this section and the AR will just fall out.
Like I said, three screws hold it together.
Then screw the new breech segment in it's place. Also apparently I forgot to take a photo of this step, but make sure you transfer the breech return spring to the new breech as well.
Getting the brecch/plunger assembly back int he blaster is the opposite of removal. Start from the right, get the front of the breech under the breech catch, slide the breech all the way forward until the bottom falls into it's track, then slide the whole assembly backwards, ensuring that the plunger aligns in it's track too.
Reattach the breech return spring and the jam door.
Then put the shell back together.
Like I said earlier, there's five different screw sizes. From left to right...
The two really big and long screws go here, in front of the jam door.
And at the very back of the blaster.
The next two longest screws go here (assuming you were stupid like me and removed all of the barrel screws, despite not needing to).
Two of next biggest screws go in these two holes here.
The third one goes at the bottom of the stock.
The smallest screws go in these four holes along the top of the tac rail.
And the rest of the small screws go in the barrel section. Every other screw on the outside of the blaster is the standard sized Nerf screw.
As is said earlier, the clip well adapter is beautifully simple.
Place it into the stock clip well and you're done.
Here I've removed the jam door to better show you how it sits in the blaster.
With a 6-clip.
With an 18-clip
Then pops out using the standard clip release button.
And again, the smaller clips are held in place by this little nub. To release a clip, simply pull down.
OK, enough photos, how does it actually perform? Not as well as I had hoped. I really wanted this to be at least on par with an AR'd Longshot, but it really isn't. It's a lot better than the stock Mega firing Centurion in that you'll be able to use all of your existing darts and clips, but only a metre or two increase in range.
All told, I still think this is a massive step in the right direction towards making the Centurion game relevant, but there's still quite some work to be done. My next mod on this blaster will be an attempt to improve the stock plunger tube by plugging the slits that run down the side, then I'll have a go at replacing the spring or maybe even a complete plunger replacement. I like giant blasters and I want it's performance to match it's size.