BOOM CO. "M6 BLASTER" (M6H PDWS) Customization

[ODST Stryder]

Hey All,

Here goes my first post on the 405th, but I'm no stranger to building or customizing props. I have successfully completed a Mk.VII Helmet (H4 Master Chief), Sean Bradley ODST "Dutch" Helmet, Ur-Didact Helmet and a Reach EOD Helmet along with various weapons and Armour.

So, we've all seen Boom Co.'s take on the M6H PDWS from Halo 5 and to be honest, the detail is spot on, unlike the rest of their Halo line. Dat Covenant Carbine, for shame!
I went out and bought one today with the intent to strip it, sand, spot putty, sand, prime, paint and detail by the evening. And here it is. Unfortunately, I don't have photos of the process just the final product.

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The process of striping the pistol was a little bit tedious. For some reason, they used threaded steel guide rods in the slide which were near impossible to loosen, therefore, sacrifices had to be made and I cut the rods and replaced them with a simple non-threaded version. You can see in photo 3 there is a hole just right of the safety selector, this is where I'll need to machine a more specific rod with a flat screw type head.

The pistol features three Misriah Armory logos, one engraved on each side of the barrel underneath the slide and one printed on the right side of the grip. I liked how the one on the grip came through after paining and is only just visible. I originally didn't intend to keep this and was just going to sand it back, but the grips have a textured finish which I wasn't going to try to replicate. I also removed / sanded back the Boom Co. logo on the left side of the pistol above the trigger guard, the Halo logo on the right side above the trigger guard and the usual copyright disclaimer on the right slide.

I did have a long hard think about keeping it looking fresh out of the Armory or giving it some battle damaged character. In the end, I gave it character with some Acrylic paints. The color scheme I went for was referenced from the 343 Render on the M6H Personal Defense Weapon System Wiki Page. I can't say I used any name colors. I just got my pots of white and black and started mixing up greys. As this was a quick job, this was done with brushes.

Possible future edits could be cutting out a notch on the rear black cocking rod (not shown) so that the slide can be locked 'open' when pulled back and perhaps a thigh holster.

I hope you've enjoyed this post, I would love to hear any feedback and suggestions.

 

[kaween]

First of all, my best wishes for 2016 for you and all your loved ones.

Secondly, nice first post ! I really like your result.

Third : a little tip concerning those rods : the one in the slide (where you now are looking for a replacement) can be loosened using this trick.

1) Pull the slide and lock it with tape or whatever
2) You now can see the rod. Use electric wire cutter pliers to "grab" the rod on any arbitrary side of the black clocking rod. As the metal is pretty soft, you can simply get a grip on the rod using the pliers, and you can unscrew it from the other side that way.

At least, that's how I did it. Once done, you can use a dremel to create a flatbed screwdriver notch into the rod, by which you can screw/unscrew the rod later whenever you need.

I've not done any paintjob on it as I really stink at paintjobs and am still building up the courrage to do so.

PS : only today I saw a "how to disassemble" guide for this thing for anyone interested.

Take Care !

 

[ODST Stryder]

Hi Kaween,

Happy New Year! I may or many not have spent mine doing this ^.

I did attempt to unscrew them with pliers but I couldn't get enough grip to turn the dam things. Anyway, I have another one on it's from JINX, I plan to do the same to that one and use your advise.

Thank you!

 

[kaween]

Afaik, Only the big rod behind the "safety" is a screw-in.
I just added a YT link I just found concerning modding and disassembling the little critter where the rod was simply punched out.

By the way, as this thing weights next to nothing, this one would be a pefect candidate for a "magnetic holstering" trick using neodymium magnets wouldn't you agree ?

 

[ODST Stryder]

Afaik, Only the big rod behind the "safety" is a screw-in.
I just added a YT link I just found concerning modding and disassembling the little critter where the rod was simply punched out.

By the way, as this thing weights next to nothing, this one would be a perfect candidate for a "magnetic holstering" trick using neodymium magnets wouldn't you agree ?

Where did you say the YouTube video is?
I would probably use Hard Drive grade neodymium magnets, as I have a six stored somewhere. I would build the holster out of EVA Foam and locate one magnet behind the foam so it would need to be strong enough to reach through to a metal plate in the gun. I don't think it would work the other way around unless you where to make the thigh holster out of metal or with a metal section?

 

[Reclaimara]

Great job on your magnum!
Really like how the paintjob turned out. ^^
And about the modifications - did you make it so that you still can fire the darts or is it a prop now?

I have myself a BoomCo Magnum, but disassembled mine and removed the mechanism, so it now only has working trigger and reload-mechanism (with "lock" mechanism removed) and it doesn't shoot darts anymore.
I'm waiting with repainting the gun as I'm working on the magnet-mechanism. I plan to work that out first and only then when I got it figured out, only then repaint it as last.
I had magnets and I tried them out, but they weren't strong enough... So gotta order stronger ones and gotta figure out where to place them so that the slide can still move... and that it sticks to the thigh-piece, but I'm doing the armor in pep and then rondo it.
Also, I've ordered second Magnum, so I'll be doing same thing with both pistols. xD

 

[ODST Stryder]

Great job on your magnum!
Really like how the paintjob turned out. ^^
And about the modifications - did you make it so that you still can fire the darts or is it a prop now?

I have myself a BoomCo Magnum, but disassembled mine and removed the mechanism, so it now only has working trigger and reload-mechanism (with "lock" mechanism removed) and it doesn't shoot darts anymore.
I'm waiting with repainting the gun as I'm working on the magnet-mechanism. I plan to work that out first and only then when I got it figured out, only then repaint it as last.
I had magnets and I tried them out, but they weren't strong enough... So gotta order stronger ones and gotta figure out where to place them so that the slide can still move... and that it sticks to the thigh-piece, but I'm doing the armor in pep and then rondo it.
Also, I've ordered second Magnum, so I'll be doing same thing with both pistols. xD

Hello again Marawuff,

I wanted to keep all its functions as the workings provided weight - I like my props to have their correct weight or at least some weight to them.
With mine, I completely disassembled everything apart from the mechanism housing (AKA barrel) and sanded it with a 280 grit block and water to limit the dust. I didn't see it required anything more coarse. I kept the mechanism housing intact as I knew it would all be the same colour in the end and, from experience, opening those things is a death sentence if you don't know how it all goes back together. I then masked off the areas of the housing that exposed the inside, I didn't want primer in there to seize up the springs etc. Everything was coated in three layers of a standard automotive grey primer and lightly sanded between each coat. As it's about 39°C (102°F) here in Australia, so I didn't have to wait long between each coat which lead to a fast turn around time.

I've worked on some Nerf conversions in the past and can't stress enough to look out for parts that rub against each other. You need to be careful with the thickness of paint that is applied here. I have attached a photo below of where the slide rubs against the frame which has removed the paint on this pistol. in short, it could make the slide jam up and not work so smoothly.

I mentioned above, Hard Drive Magnets are your best bet. These are neodymium's and are very very powerful - the type that you could get a pretty bad injury with or crushed bones if they're large enough. You can buy damaged hard drives on eBay for a few dollars / euros and pull the magnets out (plenty of YouTube videos on this). I have attached a photo below of one of these in it's frame. I took a brief look inside the frame work when I had it apart. I'd say if you locate some metal strips or blocks in the grip and perhaps the front slide, this should be enough to warrant a good magnetic hold. (And place the magnets in or behind the thigh piece)

I should be getting my second one tomorrow in the post, I can do a few tests with that one.

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[kaween]

I agree on the neodymiums, they can be had in all kinds of shapes and strenghts from "mild 1kg or less" to "200kg+" in pulling strength.

While I was converting my sons' Boomco and still had the electrical mod needed for the CB88 AEG in the back of my head, it occured to me it would be cool to have a working tactical light instead of a painted one (in best case) and how the dart holder in handle might act as battery holder.


The Boomco more or less screams for this mod and it's very easy to do.

On the first picture the electrical part of the mod : a simple microswitch hotglued into position so the switch closes when the trigger is pressed. I've left the batteries to illustrate just how neat they fit : you don't need to modify anything in terms of size, 2 AAA batteries will simply slide into the grip of the gun once it's closed. I've simply bend 2 wires to make contact with the + side of the left battery and the - side with the right one.

The second picture shows the bottom view of the grip : I took away some material from one part of the shell. Reason is ..;

That combined with the mod I did on the bottom part of the gun seen in picture 3, you can simply twist the this part to open/close the repurposed ex-dart-holder, and easy battery replacement is possible.

To "close" the battery circuit and connect the + and - of the 2 batteries, I used a little piece of eva foam and stuck a piece of alu-tape on the topside of it.

So you simply put in the piece of eva foam with the alu tape facing the batteries, and you twist on the bottom of the grip by first hooking the "rear hook" in the gun's grip and then simply slide the bottom to the straight position. Ready, and it's a good fit without any further need of a retention mechansim.

I'm using a 3Watt Cree led in the front. Normally these things need a heatsink but I've tested this setup regarding overheating issues, and after 1 minute solid "on" the Cree led hadn't build up any noticable heat.
Also, as the LED will only work when the trigger is pressed, I made no extra safety measures as the typical "on" time won't exceed a couple of seconds at a time.

In terms of amount of light ... well the room lit up when I tested this. I don't advise looking directly in the led at close distance, as it's a lot more powerful than you'd expect.
A very powerful smartphone Flashlight would be a good comparisson, although I'm quite sure the 3Watt version far outperforms any smartphone flash by a substantial degree.

 

[ODST Stryder]

I agree on the neodymiums, they can be had in all kinds of shapes and strenghts from "mild 1kg or less" to "200kg+" in pulling strength...

Very impressive, Kaween. I haven't finished reading yet but this light mod is a sure contender to the second pistol of mine.

 

[ODST Stryder]

I agree on the neodymiums, they can be had in all kinds of shapes and strenghts from "mild 1kg or less" to "200kg+" in pulling strength...

All finished. I strongly suggest making a post of your own about this for others. I have considered installing some 3mm LED's as seen in game and in live action trailers / movies.


Halo: Nightfall, Agent Locke.

 

[kaween]

Pfft. 3mm leds are for wussies.

No honestly, that was my first intention too. Turned out I was out of normal white leds, but I had a load of defective led-chandelier lights with bad electronics and the leds in those bulbs (3x3watt) were in perfect shape so ....
It snowballed a bit in terms of scope :

It began with a non-posted question about "have you tried getting a light in there" to "let's see if can't do it myself" to "can I trigger it" to "can I get a decent battery solution in there" and before I knew it I had a nice reproducable mod on my hands.

But you're probably right in terms of creating another post, I've seen several Boomco mod threads around but I haven't seen this specific mod yet and this little piece of info will probably stay under the radar otherwise.

I'll investigate the heat dissipation of these crees a bit more in constant-on state, as their power makes them a good candidate for other uses (helmet lights, shield power lights ect).