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Sunday, 8 July 2018

Melbourne League of Foam: High Velocity Metagame

Melbourne's Nerf scene has evolved to be quite supportive of the development of high velocity Nerfing, and today's Melbourne League of Foam event was specifically arranged to highlight this, and its place in the hobby. The photos and further writeup have been provided by James/Temstar, as I did not attend the event myself. The same post by Temstar can also be found on Reddit.
The blasters are:
1. Stryfe with 180 Hellcats, Worker wheels and OFP 42mm cage. 120 fps
2. "Paradox Rifle" - pneumatic (QEV + empty 38g CO2 cartridge tank) hopper-feed Alphahawk, 300 fps
3. Pneumatic Sledgefire, QEV + empty 25g CO2 cartridge tank, singled 27mm Artifact barrel, internal SCAR, 300 fps
4. "Pink Madness" - Longshot with pump kit, brass breech, 16kg spring. 280 fps
5. "Point Break Rotofury" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WgzYBfugj0, pump actuated floating barrel with chamber forcing cone, rebarrelled for .50" dart, 160 fps
6. Longshot, Artifact Hunter kit, low profile pump kit, 10kg spring, unique DIY SCAR barrel, 200 fps
7. Crimson Longshot, Remedy Metal kit, Xplorer pump kit, 14kg spring, 220 fps
 8. Longstrike, 4B tank, custom stock extension, 300 fps
 9. Pneumatic Longshot, XBZ based, brass breech, 250 fps
10. Stryfe, Neo-Rhino, Big Hammer wheel, 120 fps
11. Pneumatic Xzeus 2, XBZ based, brass breech, 300 fps
12. Longshot, low profile pump kit, brass breech, 16kg spring, 270 fps
13. Xzeus 2, brass breech, Roboman plunger, 14kg spring, 220 fps
14. Pneumatic Sledgefire, XBZ based, 300 fps
15. "Peak Autism" - 12V compressor powered drain blaster, 290 fps
16. Pneumatic Raptorstrike, XBZ based, brass & aluminium reverse breech, 280 fps

Note one more blaster featured in the first picture. It's a Retaliator between "Pink Madness" and "Point Break Rotofury", its stats are:
17. Retaliator, pump grip, brass breech, Worker 25N spring, 223 fps

Three weeks ago we had this thread discussing what’s HPA’s role in the hobby and why they’re not more common. Some of those responses really rub me the wrong way:
To be banned lol
HPA is a big hole that you get to intermittently dump money into. And while doing so mutter to yourself about being "totally worth it"
At our group we run a 200-225fps (full length/short) cap “Ultrastock” and 300fps “High Power” war on alternating month and we see plenty of pneumatic blasters making use of HPA (and LPA and CO2) at both of our events. I think barring legal obstacles HPA is a perfectly reasonable power source for blasters, particularly blasters designed to operate at the top end of performance range.
Our group is an outgrowth of superstock, and our experiences so far show there are no safety issues with well-built pneumatics. In order to dispel fears and misunderstanding of this still young technology in our hobby, I’ve decided to take photos and note down a section of blasters that made a showing at our High Power war today to show what a High Velocity game’s blaster metagame is like.

Out of the 17 blasters shown we have:
6 HPA powered pneumatics
1 compressor/LPA powered pneumatic
1 hand pumped pneumatic
7 springers
2 flywheels

At 300 fps muzzle velocity limit pneumatics really start to come into their own, as can be seen from their numbers. Owning to the difficulties of building semi/full-auto action, most pneumatics are still pump/bolt action, with some break action, single shot breech loader and my one hopper feed sprinkled in, with an average RoF slightly higher than high power springs and higher muzzle velocity.
High power springers still have a role here in high velocity war and are still fairly competitive with pneumatics, as they are quite capable of sitting in the 200-300 fps range, with decent RoF due to pump action and magazine feeding. All for a lower initial outlay in cost.
The two flywheels deserve special mention. Although we tend to have under representation of flywheels at high power war, the plentiful cover we play at (a paintball field) means flywheel users are quite able to hop from cover to cover and close in into range when facing blasters with superior range. At CQB range they are absolutely devastating against small groups too tunnel visioned with plinking. The owner of no. 10 Stryfe in fact used it on two different occasions today to execute huge flanking manoeuvres through heavy cover that more or less single handily won the game for his team.

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