Adventure Force Sportsman internals, measurements, predictions

The Sportman has caught my attention. As I've said before, it's nifty - it does something that conventional wisdom has held to be impossible, and what's more does it well - and I'm looking for ways that it could be put to good use. 

So, today I'm doing a detailed teardown of the blaster. I'm doing this to get a good look at what's in there and what it can do, but this post should also serve well as an internals reference.

Overview

Let’s start with a nice big image of the blaster’s internals, sans locks.

There’s dirt in some of these pictures because I had previously done reliability testing on this blaster with, among other test conditions, dirty darts. This is not how the blaster comes out of the box!

All of the screws in this blaster are interchangeable. There’s only one exception here, and that’s a broad-headed screw that’s out of the way and unlikely to be involved in a typical disassembly. 

The screws are also interchangeable with the screws used in the Spectrum. I hope that this trend continues. Screw standardization is one of those nice little conveniences that we’ve grown used to not having. We all have large collections of loose screws from old blasters of varying sizes and shapes - and, if your collection is large enough, you can usually find one that matches what you need. Usually. With screw standardization, that headache could be avoided.

The hopper

This blaster's feeding mechanism is, at the time of this writing, unique. We've had hopper-fed dart blasters before in the Commandfire and Destructor, but this is the first blaster ever made to feed darts from a hopper into a breech. 

Here's a close-up of that hopper. You can clearly see the mechanism that drives the agitator panels here. (One panel is visible, but the one on the other side works in the same way.) As the bolt assembly moves, those sawtooth-like nubs interface with a nub on the bottom of each panel, repeatedly throwing them inwards, while a torsion spring on the hinge of each panel pushes it back out.

Here's a view of the hopper with the bolt fully retracted. (The orange piece in the previous picture which is missing here is part of the trigger, which fell out and is unrelated to the action of the feeding mechanism.) This blaster uses a pusher breech where the breech rod, plunger tube, and connection to the foregrip are all one unit that's held together by two screws in the middle. That's a sturdy mechanism. You might notice that the pusher breech rod has fully retracted from the hopper here. This picture was taken with the spring removed, but I have confirmed that the pusher rod does barely retract out of the back of the hopper at the point where the catch engages. That's good news for people who want to make a removable hopper!

Maybe I jumped the gun a little by mentioning removable hoppers there. To clarify: yes, the hopper is a separate piece from the rest of the blaster. There's one nub at the front and another at the back that interface with the shell to hold it in place. Remove those - and find a way to deal with the fact that the lid latches into the shell and will fall open unless a replacement rest is integrated into the hopper for its latch - and deal with the fact that the barrel is normally an integral part of the hopper - and you've made yourself a Sportsman with a removable hopper. This makes carrying spare hoppers around, including ones of different sizes, a possibility.

Here's a view of the same, at the front of the blaster. These nubs are not quite the same; the hopper is not designed in a way that allows it to be inserted backwards. The hinge on the gate at the side of the hopper sticks out slightly on the front and back. This is accommodated by grooves in the left half of the shell while the right half has no such grooves. 

 

There's a missed opportunity here: this blaster could easily have been designed in such a way as to make it convertible for lefty use. Fortunately it's already fairly easy to use cross-handed, so lefties will only be at a small disadvantage.

There's a sloped piece at the back of the hopper which can come out. Other than cleaning underneath it (say, after firing several hoppers of filthy darts during testing) there's not much reason why you'd want to take it out - but if you do, it slides out like this.

Here it is again, inserted.

Here are the parts for the left-side agitator panel. Take note of the tiny torsion spring - I haven't tested how the feeding of the blaster works without it, but I don't imagine that neglecting this piece would improve reliability.

The left and right agitator panels should not be swapped. The nubs on them should be at the back of the hopper in order to be in contact with the nubs on the boltsled over the full stroke.

The aforementioned, assembled. I find that it's easier to put things in place without tension on the spring, then snap the spring over the ridge on the agitator flap in order to tension it.

Ditto for the right side, unassembled. This side includes a loading gate for inserting single darts into the hopper. I haven't tested it much, but I can report that it's hard to use when the hopper is nearly empty and just a tiny bit finicky otherwise.

Ditto for the right side, assembled. The orange piece that holds the loading gate closed is spring-loaded, with the spring being under a pannel that is glued on to the side of the hopper. It's a solid feeling mechanism that laves me with no concerns about the loading gate popping open. 

This is the inside of the lid. A small extension spring holds both latches extended and the sliding button on the top of the blaster retracts both.

There’s a set of telescoping plates on the underside of the lid that put downwards pressure on the darts while they are in the hopper. This prevents the darts from jumping out of alignment when the blaster is moved. A similar mechanism can be seen in the Commandfire and Destructor. 

The broad-headed screw in the center of these telescoping plates is the only screw in the entire blaster that does not match the rest.

The lid clips on top the top of the hopper. It requires a fair bit of force to make it go on and off, but it can be done without unscrewing the upper and lower parts of the lid.

The orange slope on the side of the lid is supposed to assist in loading darts through the side loading gate, by providing a surface that can shove the plate upwards if the side port is used while the hopper is empty (or nearly so). It can catch on the side of the hopper when opening the lid, which is mildly alloying and can be avoided by opening the lid sideways before lifting it. I imagine that some people would want to remove it and it is posiable to do so without cutting; it could be be put back in if the user changes their mind.

Here's one last look at the assemblage of the boltsled. There's two things that I'd like to point out here: first, it can come apart into two pieces. There are two screws that hold it together. This was clearly done in order to make it easier to manufacture - there's be no disadvantage to making this into a solid piece, which you might do in the unlikely event that you need to reinforce it.

Secondly, as was mentioned earlier, the nubs that actuate the agitator flaps are asymmetrical. They throw the darts from side to side as well as up and down.

Performance

The catch is a simple rainbow-style sliding block. It looks pretty sturdy and the design is a simple one that’s known to work well. I imagine that it would be relatively easy to manufacture drop-in replacements, although I'm not confident that this would be useful given the sturdiness of the stock catch and the fact that this blaster doesn't have the large plunger tube needed to take full advantage of very strong spring upgrades.

Another view of the catch.

The pieces of the catch, out of the blaster.

The plunger is interesting. The spring rests directly on the four steps in the ribs that compose the plunger - which means that the length could be increased by cutting those steps down towards the front of the plunger. That's handy for spring upgrades. 

I'm a little concerned about the plastic connection between the main body of the plunger rod and the part at the back which latches onto the catch. That's likely to be the first point of failure under a heavy spring load and it'd be a tricky part to replace. The surrounding geometry of the rest of the blaster should support the construction of a scratchbuilt sturdier catch, and the front end of this plunger should be easy enough to glue to a sturdier tail end, if need be.

The plunger is padded out of the box. That makes sense as this blaster has no air restrictor. (There’s dirt on the plunger in this picture because I had previously done reliability testing on this blaster with, among other test conditions, dirty darts.)

The plunger tube has:

• No discernible taper, judged by manually sliding the plunger up and down the tube. 
• An ID of 27.15mm.
• A length of travel of 86.40mm. This was calculated by measuring the distance between the back of the plunger tube and the front of the spring rest while the bolt was fully forwards, the same distance while it was back just far enough to catch, and subtracting the two.
• An effective volume of 50cm^3, calculated from the above.

For comparison, a Retaliator has:

• An ID of 24.75, measured in the tube itself after removing the orange ring from the back.
• A length of travel of 61mm, counting only the movement of the plunger within the tubeas the tube itself slides as part of the double-prime lock
  
• A volume of 30cm^3, calculated from the above.

A Sentinel has:

• An ID of 28.90
• A length of travel of 81.60
• A volume of 51.53cm^3
  

The Sentinel's plunger tube looks much larger, so it's a surprise to see that the volumes are so close. This can be explaned by the fact that the Sentinel's plunger tube is much longer than its length of travel - there's extra room at the back of the plunger tube that the plunger head never touches. This section is tapered and may be there to make the plunger head easier to insert during assembly. There may also be an optical illusion here, where the Sentinel's tube looks bigger in pictures becasue it's brightly coloured.

The tube inside of the pusher rod as a diameter of 6.50mm at its narrowest, point, which is just before the end. The rest of the tube I'd estimate to be about 9.5mm based on the size of a screwdriver bit holder that barely fits when dropped in from the plunger tube. 

The stock pusher rod can fit into 17/32nds brass. A full brass breech might help or hinder depending on whether the effects of increased airflow counter the effects of increased deadspace inside of the rod of the pusher breech. I'm assuming that a brass pusher rod would be an improvement - brass breeches are normally made without internal deadpsace filling and I assume that this is for a good reason.

Moving on to the spring, the stock spring has, for whatever it's worth:

• A resting length of 120.51mm.
  
• A compressed length of 30.12mm. This was measured by measuring the distance from the back of one of the steps on the plunger to the spring rest in the blaster, with the catch engaged and the spring removed.
• A length with precompression of 116.52, calculated by adding the above to the aforementioned length of travel.
  
• An OD of 19.98mm.
• An ID of 16.94mm.
  

What's more interesting is the dimensions of replacement spring that could be used:

• Without modifying the spring rest, a maximum OD of 20.85mm - or with a modified spring rest, a hard maximum OD of 27.15mm set by the plunger tube. 
• A compressed length of, without modifying the plunger, 30.12mm. This could easily be increased by modifying the plunger, up to a maximum of 90.03mm at which point it would be pushing on the back of the plunger head.
  
• A length with precompression of 116.52mm; if the compressed length is increased then this must increase by the same amount.
  

Locks

This blaster has two locks which I'm documenting purely for the sake of completeness. 

The pieces of the trigger lock. The trigger lock prevents the trigger from being pulled unless the slide is fully forwards.

It is possible to de-prime the blaster with this lock in place. The trigger can be pulled partway while the slide is fully forwards, overstepping this lock, and then pulled the rest of the way while the slide is rearwards to disengage the catch.

Here it is, installed.

The trigger lock, not depressed by the bolt as the bolt is not fully forwards. (It's close to fully forwards, but not close enough.) The trigger would be unable to be pulled.

The trigger lock, depressed by the bolt. The trigger could be pulled. 

 

This lock only does one thing - it prevents accidental out-of-battery firings. That's not much of a reason to leave it in, as you really shouldn't have that problem in the first place. There's not much reason to take it out either, though. The priming action and trigger pull are both plenty smooth with it in place.

The parts of the front dart lock. I’m not sure what this lock is supposed to do - it causes the barrel to become obstructed when the bolt is fully forwards, but only if it does not already contain a dart. This could prevent front-loading (but not very effectively as it could be pushed aside) or prevent very loose darts from falling out of the front of the hopper through the barrel (although if your darts are so loose that this could happen you have much bigger problems).

The internal parts of the front dart lock, in position, missing the cover. The spring on the flap (leftmost piece in this picture) rotates the flap into a position where the flap obstructs the barrel. The spring on the lever (rightmost piece) is much stronger, and pushes the flap into a position where it does not obstruct the barrel. The bolt can push the lever down, in which causes it to cease to push on the flap, allowing the flap's own weak spring to rotate it into a position where it obscures the barrel unless the barrel already contains a dart, which would block the flap.

The front dart lock, assembled, shown with the bolt not fully forwards.

The front dart lock, assembled, shown with the bolt fully forwards. 

 

Theoretically, this lock should do bad things for accuracy as it presses on the side of the dart. I haven't tested how that works out in practice, but I can say that I see no benefit at all to leaving it in so the point is moot - it should come out.

Here's a quick overview of what the blaster should look like if you're just dealing with the locks and doing no other mods. There's no good reason for either lock to be in the blaster.

Shell

The shell comes apart cleanly. The orange part at the front is removable, as is the grip. There are two internal clips that hold the grip in place and require some force to overcome - but there's nothing that can't be overcome with a little pushing with a flathead screwdriver.

The foregrip can almost go on backwards, but it won’t close. Not that you’d be likely to want a backwards forgerip - it’s quite comfortable as-is. 

There's a little bit of wasted space in this blaster. Some of it is at the front - the blaster could be shortened by over 13cm without loss of functionality. The rest is filling up space surrounding the hopper in order to prevent it from looking like a weird lump jutting out of the top of the blaster. Removing that would reduce the blaster's bulk within its footprint but not reduce its footprint. 

The pannel on each side which says "Adventure Force" can come off. They're held in place with internal clips that are pretty easy to push out once the shell is open.

So, what can we do with this?

In short, a lot. This is going to be a text-heavy section in an otherwise image-heavy post, so I've included pictures from Steph Smith's pictures of the 2014 Waterloo invitational,  /u/SearingPheonix, and /u/h3rps.

Velocity

I'm more of a flywheel guy and I don't have as much experience with springers, so take while I'm saying here with a grain of salt - but I do think that this has potential. 

This blaster can reach 140fps with a brass barrel and no other mods, and should have potential to reach higher velocities. The limiting factor on this blaster's performance ceiling is likely to be the size of the plunger tube. The stock catch seems pretty sturdy and the internal geometry should accommodate a sturdier homemade catch and plunger rod if that's the way that you want to take this blaster. In terms of both ID and overall volume, the plunger tube is somewhere between a Retaliator and a Sentinel, so "somewhere between a Retaliator and a Sentinel" is where I'm calling this blaster's performance ceiling.

The Sportsman should be easy to modify. You can get decent superstock velocities with just a barrel upgrade. A full brass breech should be relatively easy as the pusher breech is not a load-bearing part. The stock catch should support at least a mild spring upgrade.

Someone who is using this blaster as the basis for a high-velocity build may want to convert it to fire from magazines and/or short darts. Short darts in a hopper are probably a bad idea, but a magazine conversion (for full or half length) should be very easy. An upwards vertical or angled magwell would be unconventional but still usable. With a horizontal magwell, the magazine would only barely clear the grip. I think it could be made to work with a little trimming. A vertical magwell would require rebuilding the pump-grip area. This may seem like a silly approach given the large number of blasters which come with a vertical magwell by default - but considering the amount of work required to reinforce the priming mechanisms of those blasters, the Sportsman may still offer a more attractive starting platform. It should certainly offer at least a competitive starting platform. Conversion to magazine feed isn't the direction that I imagined that this blaster would go in when I first started looking into it - I was more interested in the feeding mechanism - but that is nonetheless that does look like something that this blaster could do well. 

Lightweight

This blaster is lightweight and has a small enough footprint to be serviceable as a 'runner' high-mobility build. The lack of reliance on magazines is useful for a lightweight loadout. Compared to other such blasters, with tend to be front-loaders, the Sportsman has greater ammo capacity and faster bulk loading. While the rate of fire of this blaster is low due to the fact that reliability tanks when the grip is pumped rapidly, it is nonetheless still much better than that of the single-shot pistols that high-mobility players often favor. 

 

Backup primary

The same characteristics that make this blaster suitiable for a lightweight loadout make it suitiable for use as a backup primary. I anticipate that most people who are looking for a dedicated backup primary carry magazines and will want to put a magwell in this blaster - and, with a magwell, this blaster's profile should be smallenough to comfirtiably fit into a backpack or custom drop-leg hoster (the latter of which would be pretty easy to make with duck tape and epoxy).

Casual play

Magazines are a bit of a bother. In order to make full use of a magfed blaster you'll need both extra magazines and an way to carry them, which presents an obstacle for casual players. This blaster avoids that while, unlike most non-magfed blasters, offering a similar capacity. The closest competitor blasters that I see in this role are the Swarmfire, Light Command, and Savage Spin. Compared to these, the main advantages of the Sportsman are lack of batteries and avaliability while the main disadvantage is reliability - sometimes it just plain fails to load and dryfires - and those are advantages that casual players favor and a disadvantage that casual players are more likely to forgive.

Integration

From a HvZ player's perspective, this blaster's unique feature and main draw is the hopper, which allows for easy loading on the fly. Its main drawback is less-than-perfect reliability - and the decrease in reliability when fired rapidly is a (literally) killer problem!

This weakness could be covered over and this strength capitalized on by combining this blaster with another that is suitable for defensive use. The Sportman could provide ranged deterrent fire while retaining full ammo in the defensive component of the integration. This method of usage is reminiscent of certain early military repeating firearms, which had a magazine cutoff in order to allow the use of single cartridges and preserve a full magazine. 

While I'm primarily thinking of HvZ here, this sort of build could be useful in a wide range of other games.

Shenanigans

This hopper's blaster feeds darts into a firing chamber, but it could just as easily be adapted to fed darts into some other firing mechanism. I'm imagining a belt-fed blaster that automatically reloads its own belt, or a standalone device for loading magazines. 

This blaster uses a pusher breech, and the pusher retracts back far enough to come clean of the feeding mechanism. That means that a blaster could be made with multiple feeding mechanisms and the ability to swap between them on the fly. I'm imagining a blaster with a vertical magwell underneath the hopper, with the whole unit stepping vertically to expose either the hopper or the magazine to the pusher and barrel. 

Since this blaster could easily be modified to have a removable hopper or a magwell . . . why not both? If you have a removable hopper, you can make a unit that puts a magwell in its place. This could be good for making a single blaster with multiple feeding mechanisms for use in different games. 

OK, some of these suggested mods are a bit wacky - but they're wacky because nothing like them has been done before, because nothing like them has been possible before.

Final thoughts

I see potential here. Aside from the unconventional feeding mechanism, this is a basically solid springer which seems to have good modification potential, leaning more towards ease of modification than ultimate perfromance potential. The hopper-based feeding mechanism opens up a range of possiabilities. Most of these are unconventional in one way or another and time will tell whether and where each is practical. I expect that this blaster will mainly see use with magazine-feed conversions, for casual play, and in narrow niche roles.

This blaster's potential for one of those narrow niche roles - as part of an integration for HvZ - was what initially caught my attention. That's still where my primary interest lies, but it is nice to see that this blaster has a broader range of potential uses.