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Posted by Bazookafied
on August 26, 2009, 11:10 am
M41A Pulse Rifle Conversion
"I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle. Ten millimeter with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher."
So I've been a big Aliens and Colonial Marines fan for awhile now. I remember seeing that movie when I was a kid, seeing those marines decked out in armor and those iconic Pulse Rifles, and getting what toys I could get together to have my own USCM adventures. My searches over the web have discovered that there are Airsoft conversions to turn a Thompson M1A1 into a M41A Pulse Rifle via a conversion set. After kicking ideas around for quite some time and looking at the designs, I couldn't help but notice that there's an overwhelming potential to make this weapon more than just a laser tag gun.
Back in July of 2009, Kyle Modlin and Danny Ruchti invited me to go airsofting with them and members of the Greater Omaha Airsoft Association (GOAA). I had a blast with them and thought that it might be a fun sport to continue. Though I'm still first and foremost a Laser Tagger, I couldn't help but notice that there are Airsoft Conversion sets out there to make my favorite Sci-Fi gun of all time and... that there's a big potential I see to make that conversion work for both Airsoft and Laser Tag.
To my knowledge, no-one else has undertaken a project quite like this. It's rare to see diehard Airsoft Players take a liking to laser tag and vice versa. This project will undoubtedly be my toughest (and most expensive) project to date, but I think that building a weapon designed for both sports is a good investment to consolidate what I have into a more modular setup. Gear used for Airsoft like camouflage and storage vests are already used by Equipment geeks like me, so the interchangeability between the gear makes this even more tempting.
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The Project:
I'll need to track down a M41A Conversion Set (found several online, looking for best price) and a M1A1 Thompson Submachinegun (used as the Airsoft weapon). There's a site for airsoft called Kapowwee that sells broken/needing-repair airsoft guns. I'm thinking that'd be the cheapest way to get an Airsoft gun for this and just work on the airsoft internals to get them operating properly. I'm hoping my friends at Airsoft Nebraska can help me out on this one. The Laser Tag internals being modded into the gun should be a synch, since I've done several recasing projects since the OLCA"s founding.
Here's an overview of placement of equipment inside the weapon. Obviously the AEG (Airsoft Electronic Gun) will take up the most room, which is fine, since the conversion set doesn't have a functional grenade launcher (the lower barrel). However there IS a functional Pump-action for the grenade launcher that I can probably use for the reload for the laser tag internals.
The yellow parts are the key "dual mode" pieces in this conversion. Both the power supply (Yellow box in the front of the gun) and the Trigger (outlined in yellow) will need to work for both systems. However, there won't be a time when both systems are running at the same time. So, there's going to need to be a 3-way switch to the power of this gun. 1 for turning the weapon off, 1 to activate the Laser Tag internals and 1 to activate the AEG internals. This, I think, will be the trickiest part, as I'm unfamiliar with the power needed for Airsoft weapons.
In any case, this project will obviously take a lot of investment of time and money, so it may be awhile before it's done. As usual, I'll keep you all posted on it's progress as items come in and construction begins.
'Zook
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