When I first suggested the idea of making the Pulse Rifle, a good friend of mine expressed his concern that once I was done with the Pulse Rifle, I'd just want something else. However, I was convinced of two things: 1) The Pulse Rifle's iconic design and it's ties to my childhood would never allow me to think of wielding another weapon for laser tag or Airsoft. 2) That the Pulse Rifle would be at the center of a long line of upgrades and changes as it serves as my main weapon.

Well, I finally "completed" the M41A Pulse Rifle Laser Tag/Airsoft Build but this is only the beginning. While I was working on the Pulse Rifle and as I have been using it in combat and talking with others and gathering ideas, I have been compliling a list of upgrades and design changes that will extend my work on the Pulse Rifle until the day I'm dead. You see, the reason why I've built so many other laser tag weapons is that being active with projects keeps me engaged. I do love the Pulse Rifle's design and never wish to wield anything less. However, there are several Ideas I want to implement in order to improve it and keep me at the top of my game. To help keep tabs on all these ideas, I'll be posting those here and getting help from you and other sources to see how possible these things are.

First on my list was to continue to improve the targetting of the Pulse Rifle. While the Iron Sights that I installed earlier are good and all and retained my previous goal of trying to keep the Pulse Rifle looking as stock as possible, they are still problematic. I mounted the Adjustable one too close to where my eye sits, so it is often blurry as I focus on them. Additionally, the Ironsights are still a bit of a pain to use and, while they do help, there's more I can do. Then after browsing ColonialMarines.net I came across images and links and buildups for several different types of modifications for the Pulse Rifle. That search ultimately led me here. I was able to talk with Sgt Baldwin a bit and get an idea of how he build his weaver rail mounts on his Pulse Rifle and used that as the basis for building my own. I completed the first weaver rail mount last night. It is designed to mount my Aimpoint Micro Red/Green dot sight and, I must say, I am quite happy about the results!

1) Removed the Fiber Optic Iron Sights I had installed earlier and patched up the holes where they were with black Styrene plastic. I was originally going to try to seal up the holes and imperfections, but instead, I just decided to cover them. I'm not worried about it being "canon" at this point.


2) I cut a piece of alluminum to the exact length of the weaver rail I wanted to mount on it, then drilled holes in the bottom for mounting it to the PR. The screws that go through the weaver rail go down deep enough to make it through the bottom of the alluminum piece and into the top of the PR shroud.


3) Mounted the rail to the PR and tightened the bolts on the bottom for a snug fit. Lookin slick!


4) Test fitted the Sight, painted the piece black, and closed it up.



I'm quite happy with the results. Some scope zeroing will take place today just in time for a laser tag game planned for this evening. As far as I'm concerned, the scope mount and top weaver rail are done!


Next on my list is mounting a tactical light to it. Traditionally, I have mounted these with a weaver rail and a flashlight in a scope ring. I have been brainstorming mounting ideas for the weaver rail, but am unsure of where I want it. I have seen Sgt Baldwin's weaver rail mounts on the sides of the vents over the top barrel, but I thought up a different location as well.


Your comments, questions, and suggestions are all welcome!

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

I've skipped the Tactical Light work for now and am working on getting rid of that ugly Black/Orange tip for the laser tag lens housing. What I'm planning to do is integrate the laser tag lens housing with the original kit parts, which look much nicer and are designed to fit into the pulse rifle anyways.

The parts to be used are the original muzzle pieces for the Pulse Rifle Kit. I had intentionally left these pieces aside in case I ever wanted to change things on the lens arrangement. You'll recall that previously, the Pulse Rifle has had a Plastic orange-tipped lens arrangement hot-glued into the metal chassis for the Grenade Launcher. The new lens arrangement will be built from those pieces.



The space behind the original piece is PERFECT for fitting the diameter of the lens for the laser tag parts. What I'll need to do is modify the back piece to hold an IR LED at the proper focal length lined up with the lens. For this kind of complicated fabrication, my good friend Mike Yates of Custom Tag Dynamics (CTDYNE) will be taking these parts under his wing.

When I first got into laser tag, it was Mike's site that got me into doing custom work on guns. In fact, it was his work on his M41BP that rekindled my love for Aliens. My previous work has been USCM-themed but it wasn't until recently when I also got into Airsoft that I decided to purchase the G&P kit and put both systems under one awesome roof.

Over the years, I got into contact with Mike Yates and after seeing my needs on this project on a laser tag board, he offered to do the work on the lens arrangement. He'll be sending me progress pictures as he works on it. It's slated to start sometime in early October. I'm very excited to have him working on part of this project. Not only will he be mounting the lens in the Pulse Rifle's Grenade Launcher assembly, but he'll be fine-tuning the focal length between the IR LED and the lens for maximum performance. I can't wait to see how it performs!

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

Got this project back on it's feet. Lens assembly is all done and installed. There's progress pictures of the buildup and the upgrades I've made so far. Added that weaver rail bit to the tip of the front barrel to mount a flashlight onto. Works pretty good!

Hoping to have a full video review of it's functions by the end of the summer. Still got some things to tweak before that, but it's near the completion point!

Pulse Rifle Construction

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

Thanks to Matsuo and Noble on this forum, I'm putting some more parts and elbow grease into my beloved Pulse Rifle! Got a new stock off of a HCG M41A from Matsuo and got around to installing it on my PR with a little help from my friends. We get together every now and then and work on our laser tag projects. The Pulse Rifle is always a focus of collective work when it shows up. I've still got a few kinks to work out of the installation to get it to work just right, but the bulk of the work is done.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RzqmohiCDtE/T ... G_0014.JPG

Next, I've got new magazine covers coming in from Noble that should help in the Airsoft side of things. My friend German is also finishing up work on an Arduino-run laser tag board that will be able to fire whatever type of signal we tell it to. This means that my Pulse Rifle, when complete, will be slinging plastic from the top barrel as well as Laser Tag from the bottom for Laser Challenge, Lazer Tag Team Ops (and LTX), Light Strike, and MILES Tag... which makes this beautiful beast VERY versatile.

It'll accomplish my goal: never have to tag with any blaster but my favorite!

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

Just caught up on this & your other thread. The guide on fitting the Picatinny rail is really useful as I may do this myself in the future.

Having used my PR for airsoft in its standard form I can't wait to get my mag covers from Noble too! I imagine they make magazine changes 100% faster!

Laser tag isn't really that big here in the UK but that's a nice addition. Is it a fairly big activity in the States?

Regards.

John.

The Picatinny install is really helpful when it comes to mounting a sight. I've found that with Airsoft, the PR's in-built ironsight isn't bad to use, but with Laser Tag, I needed more accuracy. As a laser tag blaster, this thing can reach out to 700-800 feet of range, so it's essential that I'm accurate if I want to make use of it.

The mag covers should help changing mags a LOT. I just got notification that they've shipped, so I'm psyched to try them out on my PR! The system I have now works alright, but it doesn't look as good as I would've liked.

Laser Tag isn't that big here in the US either. It's all Nerf, Airsoft, and Paintball. I've been a big laser tag fan since I was young and I run an outdoor laser tag group that see's weekly attendance between 25-30 players a game during the regular season. The Pulse Rifle always turns some heads whether I'm using it for Airsoft or Laser tag!

I'm doing some work on re-doing the laser tag portion to have Aliens sound-effects when it fires. I'll have more updates once I've got it working.

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. By UK standards 25-30 players for regular laser tag games sounds pretty good to me. Here it seems to be a bit of a sideline to the paintball scene. It seems to be largely marketed towards children who are under the minimum age for paintball.

Either way I'm liking the sound of the much longer effective range & PR sound effects would be pretty cool as well.

As I said before I really can't wait for my Noble mag bottom kits, although I imagine they take some time to produce. The existing mag system is, in my opinion, very fiddly & well... dire for actual gaming! What have you used as an interim measure out of interest?

All the best & good luck with the rest of the project.

John.

Here's what I had previously done with my mag bottom. It doesn't actually connect to the Airsoft Magazines. Instead, it essentially acts as a shell around the magazine so that you can just remove standard Thompson Mags (or the longer ones too) without having to have the bottom on there. However, it falls out of place frequently and just doesn't look that great as far as the shape goes.


Aluminum Frame


Styrene Plastic mid-frame work to smooth out the details.


Painting



Mounted

The magazine used is one of the longer types. It's all I could find for awhile, so I picked up a set of them. I do have the standard size ones too. Just got the mag bottoms from Noble today, so I hope to have 'em on there soon!!

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

Hi

It looks very impressive,it's ace
I have been enjoying reading this,it's interesting and formative,the pictures are awesome.

Helen

Thanks, Helen!

I just got the Mag Bottoms from Noble today! MAN they look even better than I had hoped! I'll probably keep my old mag bottom solution (shown in the post above) as a backup for when I want to use my longer magazines, but I am really impressed with how accurate these look and how they fit like a glove onto the Tokyo Marui Thompson Hi-Cap mags! I really couldn't be happier with how awesome they look.

So now thanks to Matsuo's HCG stock and Noble's mag bottoms, this Pulse Rifle is gonna be better than ever! I hope to have it completed this spring after major work is done on it's internals, both for the Airsoft Side and the Laser Tag side. My friend German has been developing the OS for the laser tag side with an Arduino. This Pulse Rifle will be able to work with ANY laser tag system we can program it for. As long as we know what the signals are for that certain system, we can program the Arduino to be compatible with them! I'll have more updates once I get around to them! I also have a Blog that has updates on this project, as well as the other Nerf and Laser Tag Projects I work on.

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

Yeah, great thread as Helen says. Thanks for all the info. & pic's.

Those Noble mag bottom kits look fantastic. I bet they'll transform mag changes during games.

Gotta say your solution wasn't bad though, especially as it gave you the versatility of using both types of mag. I'm currently having to remove the stock mag base before changing the mag itself then refitting the mag base! Very fiddly & slow compared to my other AEG's!

I'll keep an eye on yout blog in the coming month's too.

Cheers.

John.

Bit of an update. Used my Pulse Rifle in a laser tag game yesterday. While the board for this with all the Movie sound effects and counter aren't installed yet, I did manage to try out the new Stock from Matsuo and get the Mag Bottoms from Noble on there. Looks great and, more importantly, worked great!

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

Do you have a vid on youtube?

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SSgt Kris "Bloodsucker" Kobus, VAS.
A09/TQ2.0.12136E1

Yeah, nocternus. I've got several on a channel that I use with my blog. Here's links to both.
YouTube Channel
Tactical Tag Blog

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

thought id seen you on a vid nice job

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SSgt Kris "Bloodsucker" Kobus, VAS.
A09/TQ2.0.12136E1

Thanks for those

Helen

Yeah. Just watched a couple. Nice vid's & if I may say so, very well presented.

Glad your PR worked well at the tag game too.

Cheers.

John.

I agree with John

Haven't seen you around for a few days John I hope your ok?

Helen

Hi Helen,

I'm fine thanks. just been busy at work & at home so didn't log on for a few days. Many thanks for asking though.

On the vids I've seen loads of similar stuff promoting airsoft & firearms products over the years but hardly any as well put together as those!

All the best.

John.

Thanks, everyone! I try not to add to the plethora of awful videos out there and try to make my channel worth watching. As I get more progress made on my Pulse Rifle, it's likely you'll see a video on that show up.

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

Yeah I look forward to that. it'll be good to see those Noble magazine bases featured as part of it too.

Keep up the good work mate.

John.

It's been awhile, but I've finally got a good step of progress on this fella. There's been a LOT of work going into getting this functional for laser tag while still retaining the look of the Pulse Rifle. The main challenge was mounting sensors on this thing without having a God-awful red dome or anything like that on there. I've integrated the side and front sensors into the design and it's coming along pretty well. Also, a lot of ground has been broken in the way of getting the electronics running the laser tag board and sound effects down. This video should detail the work pretty clearly.

http://youtu.be/1iwC-AdK8qA

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A01/TQ0.0.32154E1 MSgt Lovejoy, MA 'Reverend' Nebraska-USA

Just caught up with this. Another nicely presented, easy to follow video. You're a natural at this IMHO.

There's more to a laser tag system than I thought though! Ingenious use of stock components like the MP3 player & speaker & I really like how you've built the hit sensors into the PR whilst still keeping them unobtrusive... Damned useful that you have a friend who has his own 3D printer too!!

Keep us posted on future developments. It'll be nice to see a demo of the fully assembled & working item.

All the best.

John.

P.S: I received my Noble mag base parts this week. Outstanding quality & value for money! I'm massively pleased with them!