909 Fun But Scary.
I’m not sure Carol really knows what semi automatic means. She might have meant “sort of” rather than semi, but it hardly matters. I’ve never been clear on why dart guns don’t just have a mechanism that fires when you pull a trigger. It seems like science could have made that a reality by now, even without batteries. Maybe it’s because kids don’t have strong enough fingers? As far as I know any Nerf gun that is just point and shoot requires batteries. I also have heard that the yellow one that Carol has jams catastrophically. Oh, and on the previous page the blue one she’s holding is modeled after one called the Buzzsaw, or something like that. I think it’s no longer in production. The ones that shoot balls aren’t as popular as the dart ones, I guess.
I’m not sure who owned Super Soaker originally, but Nerf does now. When those first appeared they were the best water guns you could get. I had one of the second wave ones that lasted for many years. When that one finally fell apart I got some others. By that time Nerf owned the license for sure because the new ones were branded, but they were terrible. They didn’t work very well and fell apart quickly. Somewhere along the line quality control was lost. I haven’t bought one since then, not that I really need a squirt gun these days. I’ve seen the new little ones in stores though and wonder if they are any good now. They’re pretty cheap and look better made than those ones from a few years ago. I’ve always wanted to make a squirt gun out of steel. At least parts of it. So that it would be the best one ever and also unique. It’s a lot of hassle for a toy that I wouldn’t use very much though. I suppose a person could make them and sell them, but I’m doing enough crafts as it is. I guess a person could just take an existing one and replace the insides, or modify them in such a way that the quality would be improved significantly. Pretty much what people do with the Nerf guns…
I bet there’s clubs for modifying water guns now that I think about it. Ever striving to find better ways to moisten things…
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Why is Carol wearing an undershirt or Camo-Top now, after all this time she has let her enormous chest freeball in one polo? It’s simply an observation, possibly of her trying to appear professional, and maybe because she’s exhibiting her wonderful self at Thomas’s place more often. Either way that works, I love it!
The real life reason is I get tired of drawing the same clothes all the time. Also I think it’s a cute look.
As for her internal reasoning, probably just to look nice and have a change of pace.
Pretty much the same reasons now that I think about it. XD
That’s not an undershirt, it’s a boob apron.
Watch out, it’ll steal your dreams!
Boobs usually wipe my mind clean.
Boobs stealing my dreams wasn’t a threat that I had considered!
:D
All I’m noticing is the title of the chapter seems to be a reversal from MLP’s Scary, But Fun. Very nice.
Scary, but Fun didn’t come from MLP
It’s in MLP and unless you can find a better example of it’s use it will be a MLP reference.
Man… ALL my childhood toys should be remade with metal. Metal Legos, Metal squirt Guns, Metal water ballons, Metal play-doh. How about those old GameBoys? It’d have a nice solid heft to it if the casing were made of steel.
The old Gameboys were already damn near indestructible. I think being made of metal would be a decrease of quality.
Also, ouch. Don’t want to get hit with metal water balloons.
No, I have an automatic Nerf gun. It requires pumping, though, and something in the pump mechanism is broken – I’d have to take the whole gun apart to fix whatever’s broken.
So maybe that’s why.
I have one too. You pump it a bajillion times and it fires 6 shots before reloading and pumping again. The semi-auto part of mine is broken though, but the button that fires all of the darts at once works.
The reasons the haven made a “double action” nerf gun is un like and actual guni dont think they dont to waste the time or moeny to develope a true double action dartgun also plastic is really structrualy sound enough to make it a gun the fires relaibly enough to mark it also rather complicated to make a double action air powered weapon system, tho if i were to make such areaptable double action dart gun I think the best way to do that is model it after the henry rifle only way i see that actialy happening you also elliminate the need for batteries in that design as well
As to the your super soaker quandry I am proud to say i have an original super soaker 100 that works great, my supersoaker 250XLs and the 550 XL are still servisable weapons but not really as good as the 100, the years and neices and nephews have not beeen kind to them
Man, you have really been knocking on the door of my expertise these last few comics… With today’s Nerf guns, the reason behind the manual cocking is two fold. The first is that it’s just how Nerf darts work. Cocking them back causes a compression of air. When you squeeze the trigger, that air is forced into the hollow back of the dart, propelling it forward. Some battery powered ones, like the fully automatic and mess-inducing Vulcan are able to compress that air automatically, letting you just point and shoot. I’ve seen ways to mess with the amount of air compression, giving you a much longer range shot. The second reason is for guns like the Long Strike, which uses bolt action to reload the barrel from the Clip system, while simultaneously compressing the air. It also simulates an actual bolt reloading, which adds an adult flair to a child’s toy, which is kinda weird.
As for the new Super Soakers, I can honestly say that they seem to have brought back a level of quality with the Soaker Wars line. I have the Shot Blast, which replaces the five minutes worth of pumping with a single pull, firing a jet of water a good 15-20 feet if you aim it right. Then comes the surprisingly safe battery powered line, of which I own the Thunderstorm. Battery powered as it is, it manages to fire a consistent stream of water just about anywhere you fire it within ten feet. The primary concern I have about today’s Nerf and Super Soaker lines are their accurate attempts to mimic actual guns.
it’s that time of the month…..
Heh heh. :)
Ok… I know this just HAS to be coincidence… And I know I haven’t read much more then a handful of these comics (Honestly, I SHOULD read the whole thing at some point)… And I DEFINITELY Know it’s because I’M a brony… So it should come as no surprise when I say that the title reminds me of MLP:FiM. A character in one of the episodes says “Scary… But fun!”
*Shrug* Just thought I’d let that little coincidence just sit there…
Well, Nerf guns are still constrained by the laws of physics. In a semiautomatic double action firearm, the energy released by the propellant when a bullet is fired is recovered by a mechanism in the gun to cycle the action (through reciprocating the bolt directly in smaller blowback designs or by diverting combustion gases to a gas tube-piston assembly) so the next round just requires the user to pull the trigger (the first one requires manual racking of the slide in pistols or working the bolt in long arms).
Since Nerf darts don’t carry their own energy supply, much like paintballs or airsoft guns, that energy must be drawn from an another source, like an internal gas reservoir pressurized by manual pumping, by storing energy in a spring, or a battery to charge capacitors. A pre-pressurized detachable gas reservoir might also work, but that could be too heavy, expensive and kind of dangerous for a toy.
TL;DR Science says you can’t get energy out of nowhere.
Pre-pressurized detachable gas reservoirs or internal refillable gas tanks are actually what is used in many semi-automatic airsoft guns, especially pistols. It’s usually batteries for automatics.
Now a semi-automatic nerf gun that only works on pulling the trigger alone would theoretically be possible. But the dart would be shot with only as much power as your digit can produce on those few centimetres of pulling.
Which pretty much means a range of probably around a half to a full metre. If at all. And the necessary strength even for that would make it unsuitable for kids.
I meant a gas cartdrige for a Nerf gun. The parts would have to withstand the pressure so it’d be bulkier and heavier, plus I figure it might be dangerous if the system fails.
Didn’t know about the airsoft thing. I’ve never owned a Nerf or airsoft or water gun, parents would have objected to the possible property damage. I just own a Commander in .380 ACP.
http://www.sscentral.org/homemade/
reminds me of something the grandmothers and old aunts would sometimes say – “and it’s all great fun ’til somebody loses an eye…”, but then there were no nerf guns back then.
(off topic) ping Crave – is your server 12 hours ahead?
Yeah. It’s always been that way.
Kind of like the old Red Ryder B guns. They’re a blast to shoot, but if you ever try to cock one like a regular lever action, you might break your fingers. Some of the new cordless finish nailers have their own built in air compressor. I don’t know how long they run between shots, or how many shots you get per minute or per charge, but it would be kind of like letting the capacitors charge in your laser blaster. Some rifles are available now with electronic primers. No moving parts in the firing mechanism besides the trigger. Imagine being helpless because the battery’s dead in your gun. Also the new electronic cigarettes recharge via usb port. Imagine not being able to get your fix without a charge. “Hey, buddy, could you spare 5 volts?”
I’m fun? Who says I’m not fun?! I’m TOTALLY FUN! I’LL SHOW YOU JUST HOW FUN I CAN BE? I’M SO FUN, IT’S CRAZY! IT’S CRAZY HOW FUN I AM! I’LL HAVE SO MUCH FUN, YOU’D THINK I’M CRAZY!
Yeah. You can get toy guns which just operate buy pulling the trigger… but they’re terrible.
There has been a number of semi auto or automatic nerf guns.
We got three catagories:
Mechanical Electronic: The big ass machine guns with a load of battries, they work like normal nerf guns with the whole spring loaded air piston deal except they cock the gun for you… isn’t that nice of them.
Flyweel Electronic: The small guns which make alot of noise and all you have to do is pull the trigger to fire. Ever used on of those hot wheels sets with the pair spining wheels that lanch the car forward? just like that.
Air Bladder: The user pumps up an internal air bladder which is then used to power a system that cocks the whole spring and plunger deal. Bladder guns require alot of work to use but they have a stupidly fast rate of fire. see Magstrike
Also
Scary but fun
To answer the question, Larami is the company that first produced the Super Soaker line, as well as “air bladder” style dart guns (Nerf’s used a one-shot, cock-and-shoot type of compression). When Nerf bought out Larami, they intentionally dialed down the power of the weapons they imported in; supposedly it was for safety reasons, but that’s pretty much BS, it was more so that the newly branded weapons would be on par with the old ones, thus not making their existing product line obsolete. Larami darts were also head-and-shoulders better than Nerf, being thicker, stiffer, and tougher, meaning they flew farther than a Nerf dart out of the same weapon.
I haven’t been into Nerf arms for many years, but there was a time there following the Larami acquisition that everything they produced was utter crap; even the really cool 30 dart, fully automatic Gatling gun would have bleed problems after less than a dozen uses. I have to admit tho, that their recent designs look really awesome; are they worth a damn?
I’ve never been clear on why dart guns don’t just have a mechanism that fires when you pull a trigger. It seems like science could have made that a reality by now, even without batteries. Maybe it’s because kids don’t have strong enough fingers? As far as I know any Nerf gun that is just point and shoot requires batteries.
Not “now,” but “soon,” you will have your desire. The Snapfire 8 is an upcoming semi-auto pistol that cocks and fires all with the trigger pull.
I have never seen any use for a super-soaker, I’ve never been hit by one in several water fights.
“Shoomp, shoomp, shoomp” for 5 minutes, while I wonder in, shoot 5 times, and wonder away.
I used to have a battery powered water gun that shot further too, which let me augment my ninja style with the ability to range the folks using super-soakers.
At the end of the day the folks who had the “super soak,” ability were soaked, and I wasn’t…