Hacking a Nerf Gun

At the office we’ve taken to having Nerf dart gun wars. The stock Nerf guns are fun, but some simple modifications can make them much more effective and/or dangerous.

We all have these cheap Nerf guns that have have a plunger that you pull, then release with the trigger. A simple and effective mod is to wrap it with rubber bands to make it snap back with more power. The only downside is that it looks ugly.

These guns also have useless LED “laser sights.” Fortunately, we discovered some $2.50 laser pointer pens at Walgreen’s. They make excellent replacement sights.

Here’s what I did to my gun: Spray painted it black, replaced the LED sight with an actual laser, and added a more powerful spring.

Here are the cheap laser pens from Walgreen’s:

They require 3 * 1.5 volt batteries. Positive is applied to the outside of the metal case, negative to the spring terminal inside. I just applied power and taped the laser button down. I fried two other lasers trying to bypass the switches. They’re very fragile and don’t take kindly to soldering heat.

The spring in this photo is a replacement I found at Ace. It’s the same size as the factory spring, but stronger. Also shown are the innards of some laser pens.

Here is the wiring inside the gun. The laser pen is inserted in place of the factory LED and wired to the factory trigger switch. I added a toggle switch so I could disable the laser if I wanted. Power is supplied by the original 3 button cells in place of the two factory AA’s.