Bazookafied over at Tactical Tag recently posted on the improvements he noted to the priming action of his Longstike now that Orange Mod Works has shipped him a 5kg spring and new bolt sled. This got me to thinking about my own OMW woes. I've been fighting the Unleashed kit for my Alpha Trooper recently, trying to get the catch to engage on account of the metal priming rod being generally lame. My own stupidity shares the blame here, but all the trial and error has put some seriously unnecessary wear on this ordinarily wonderful blaster. Now that priming bar is likely ruined; weakened and warped from all of my violent pleas demanding that the stupid thing go ahead and catch (+swear words). The original spring is now a no-go as well, leaving me with little more than plastic garbage and some rarely useful spare parts. Wonderful that this would happen to my only Alpha Trooper just as soon as they have all but vanished from our consumer universe.
It would be nice, I think, if every OMW product was made to work out-of-the-box in otherwise unmodified blasters. In the case of the Alpha Trooper, all these problems would never have existed at all if the catch block on the plunger tube was molded even 1/4" back from its original position- all without sacrificing the use of their blessed 6kg springs. This seems like a pretty natural adaptation to solve a problem they already knew existed. I'm sure there are nuances to the manufacturing process that I am unaware of that would make this sort of alteration to the original dimensions of the Nerf molds troublesome. Overcoming these kinds of engineering issues with design is, however, exactly what bringing this sort of product to market is all about. Whatever extra effort that would be required of them is absolutely warranted. It's not as though they would be making some unforgivable concession that would leave them buried under the competition. Bazookafied's observations on the relative maintenance of firing power in his Longstrike despite the downgraded spring is proof enough of that- just look at that grin.
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