My Tag Guns
Here are a few pictures of my Tag guns, which I have built myself. My 'big gun' is made from sheet aluminium, screwed together. It was quite easy to make, but then I do have access to an engineering workshop! One bit on the gun was turned from solid aluminium on a lathe by a friend who is a top notch engineer (it's the man who also has made various special bits for my airguns). The big gun contains one of Mr Dave Bodger's (see the links page) 'Smartgun' circuits. These I can wholeheartedly recommend. The build quality on these gun circuits is excellent, and the facilities that the circuit offers are very good too, it even has an 'ALIENS' style LED ammo counter! We hear rumours that Dave is working on a sound board for the circuit that will let the user download .wav files to the gun for sound effects.... Dave, I'm begging you, please?
On my gun, I have implemented all the features that the smartgun board can provide. It's a simulated HMG (heavy machine gun), it has a grenade launcher function, and can simulate a shotgun too. The little sight on top is just a cheapo airgun red-dot, though it is modified for adjustable brightness. The lens assembly is one supplied by Dave Bodger, but mounted on to the turned aluminium disc I mentioned earlier. Thanks to Dave Bodger for the technical support he provided while I was making this gun. Range on this is upwards of a hundred and thirty metres. Show me a paintball or airsoft gun that can do that!
This gun is my tag pistol. It often does help to have two guns, while the big gun is reloading itself, you can keep on the fire with the pistol. Sometimes, depending on the game, you might be some character who would be toting a sidearm, but not a machine gun, so it is useful.
This pistol is made from a cheap Beretta P92 airsoft gun. As the smartgun board is too big for most pistols, and there was nothing else around, I started making my own pistol circuits. These circuits have evolved to be one of the smallest full-powered gun circuits available. They suit small pistol style guns very well. The Beretta you see here, has a long range barrel, short range wider spread barrel, which the user selects with a switch. One feature I'm quite proud of is that the sound the gun makes changes depending on which barrel is selected. Range on this gun is about eighty metres.
The Lens assembly under the barrel is a very high quality unit from 'Anchor Surplus', Nottingham. These are actually periscope eyepieces (or something), and were very popular with taggers. Sadly, the army surplus place which supplied us seems to have run out.
If anyone who happens to see these pages finds an alternative supplier of these things, any info would be appreciated (mail to mortrob@hotmail.com). I might even pay a finder's fee!
Finally, here's the gun that started it all: An original 'Worlds of Wonder Starlyte' pistol. This one is probably fifteen years old now, but still works perfectly and is in almost mint nick. Verree nice. Pete and I bought a kit each back in 1986 (ish) and had a lot of fun with them. Pete's is broken, but we still have the sensors, and I still have this starlyte. It has not been modified (apart from painting the inside of the bulb chamber with tippex to make the muzzle flash brighter!). Range on these is pretty low compared to modern tag guns.
