Mod: Flat Top Cam ECS with Artifact Cage

A continuation of my Cam mods. I didn't like the bulky top section that was vacated as I removed the camera system, and I don't like stock flywheel cages.

First step was to acquire and install a red Artifact cage. The Cam has flywheel cage bosses in the same place as the Stryfe and Rapidstrike, so can use the same cages.

An unexpected problem with this was the dart-flywheel alignment. An inserted mag holds darts slightly above centre of the hole in the flywheel cage. This causes the darts to consistently be pushed into the top of the hole chamfer, rather than being fed in smoothly. I don't know if the same problem is present with the stock flywheel cage.

I fixed this by constructing a dart guide out of spare bits of plastic from other Nerf blasters. This prevents darts from rising too high, and holds them in roughly the right height for optimal feeding.

The Artifact cage also seems to stick out further back than the stock flywheel cage, causing a tight fit for most mags. This does not appear to impede feeding, but does make inserting mags slightly more difficult.

With the Artifact cage installed, I moved on to the shell mods.

As mentioned before, I didn't like the large top section of the stock shell, so I started by slicing off the relevant parts of the shell.

Test fit of the top section cut down. I would have liked it to be lower and flatter, but the size of the flywheel cage is prohibitive. I could have lowered the rail slightly more, but I'm lazy.

Internals with the rail attached. Pretty standard, bonds made with 5-minute epoxy and epoxy putty. If it were a more load bearing peice, I would reinforce it with 3-day epoxy but I'm lazy and impatient, and the rail isn't going to be subjected to much force anyway.

Close ups of the rail. I couldn't quite cleanly fill the gap at the rear, simply opting to mostly fill it with other cutoffs. There are still a number of small gaps around the rail, many of which could likely be filled with epoxy putty or other plastic cutoffs. For now, I'm just happy that it's pretty much complete and functional. I might get around to patching those holes at a later date.

I'm quite happy with how the Cam turned out. It's much more sleek than its stock form, and it performs well enough for HvZ purposes. I would have liked the rail to be lower, but as mentioned before the flywheel cage is the limiting factor. I'm looking forward to giving it a combat test at some point.