The Vulture - Lever Action Dart Blaster

YOU WILL NEED THE KIT TO BUILD THIS:

https://bearswares.shop/products/vulture-mk3-by-mhp-arms?variant=42951208534129

Howdy! The Vulture is a lever action dart blaster, fully emulating the classic cowboy action you expect from a lever action... but without shells. The blaster is 9+1 capacity, and capable of over 250 fps. 

Files include the .3mf for printing, the zip folder with all the individual files, and the build guide pdf. The zip file also includes the parts for making a shell version via the kit from Bear. 

Here's the hardware list (though you'll still need the custom metal parts and mag spring so I recommend just getting the dang kit):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SCp70QO8wHNcEw3InFJ5ybOEEqF5XbpUIdlsm1ziA4E/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.n55jnct11bnh

It's also worth noting that if you have a kit for the wingchester mk3 from Shellington, the lever will be compatible, but many of the other pieces of hardware will not be, and you will have to self source a number of parts including fasteners, the plunger tube, orings, and mag spring. As the lever is the most important part to have, you can still use the kits from shellington in some fashion, just not as a 1:1 for building this version. 

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To explain this one just a bit (and you can't stop me), this is the culmination of a project that I started sometime in 2019, which was the wingchester. I played games with mag fed springers and felt that it didn't suit my playstyle. I wanted something I could keep loading up as I played, with a high enough capacity to make it through an encounter. I didn't think about it that much beyond that, but I'd been working on a shell fed lever action that would become the wingchester. Now that I look back on it... it makes sense. My favorite gun in every video game is always the lever action, followed distantly by snipers and shotguns. It made sense to have a blaster that I could constantly press the reload button on, and as a springer it would be a little more ammo conservative.  I ran some version of the original for years and years, but eventually the meta of the group changed to something a bit more... powerful. I needed range I couldn't get, and I went through two other versions of the blaster before I got to this one. 

So enters the Plunger In Grip system. By moving the plunger mech out of the receiver I was able to substantially increase the draw internally, from 55mm to 110mm at it's max. Which means... twice as much. I went from being outgunned at almost every encounter to being able to competitively hold my own in any shootout. I've maxed my personal blaster out to 275 fps, up from the inconsistent 185 I was getting before. It took many years and many many iterations to get here, but I think this blaster represents the pinnacle of what you can expect from a lever action, and I don't think I've pushed it all the way to the maximum you can get out of it. But the final piece of the blaster puzzle was, sadly, the shells. They're a ton of fun, and I think have very legitimate utility, but for something that's beyond a niche or dedicated use case. It turns out solving the problem of darts in a tube mag was pretty easy, and it works very well. Me and my sister both ran these for the entirety of Ragnaroctober, and I had ZERO issues with the feed mech. It got me through 8 hours of hvz, and through all of the competitive. If you build it right, it will work, and it will work well. It's less fun without the shells, truly, but it's also a heavy hitting blaster that you can pick up with no gear, no mags, just a pocket of darts, and play all day.

Later on, I made a bolt action with the same mech, and a martini henry. The bolt action went on to be adapted by Mighty Shrub into the Smiley. If you noticed the similarities there, that's why.

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