Mod: Elite-ified Longstrike

The Longstrike is a fantastic looking blaster, so it's a real shame that internally it's awful. Though a more traditional Longstrike internal overhaul is to just throw an airtank in there, the release of the Elite blasters with their conveniently sized direct plunger systems provided an alternative. This is my take on putting Retaliator internals in my Longstrike.

First, a few bits added into both sides of the shell to support the new internals. If you're at all familiar with reverse plunger systems and/or the Longstrike, you can probably spot the extra bits.

The breech is spliced together from a Longstrike front and a Retal rear, with a piece of 17/32" brass bridging the two, making for a pretty solid construction. Some slight boltsled modification is required due to replacing the catch.
Since my Longstrike breech got broken some time back, I got a new one from a fellow Nerfer at the MLF game.

This is the spring rest/plunger guide, using various bits from my pipe/tube box, e-tape and hot glue.

The plunger fits through without a problem.

The spring rests nicely on the pipe piece.

All assembled. There's no way of knowing that this Longstrike has Retal internals without taking a close look.

The priming indicator still works, though is much less clear.

If you've done even basic internal modding, an Elite-ified Longstrike is actually not very complicated. Adding in the support pieces and fabricating the spring rest/plunger guide are extremely easy provided you have the parts on hand (and said parts are easy to obtain/replace anyway). The only potential spot of bother is fabrication of the breech because of how tight the margins are, however with a joining piece of brass as I've done, it's easy to mock-up and test the breech length without any adhesive, then glue it together once everything is in a good place.

Performance is solid, though not quite Retal level. The length of the Longstrike bolt introduces extra dead space which cuts down power a little, but it's still more than usable. Overall the mod was quite a success - the Longstrike is now working, easily usable and also better than before.