"What is an Air Restrictor?"
Many people who are new to Nerf may ask themselves or others that question. I'm writing this little article to tell you what it is.
First off an air restrictor is anything that slows or stops the flow of air out of a nerf gun. And, really, that's about it.
But now that you know what it is, you probably want to know what it looks like. Well, they all look different depending upon the nerf gun. They may just, basically, be part of the nerf gun that gets in the way of the air flow. Recently, however, Hasbro (the company that makes Nerf brand guns) has come up with a structure that is specifically meant for this purpose. It can be found, in slightly varied forms, in the Nightfinder, Maverick, LongShot, and Big Bad Bow. (Note, they may be in others, but I know that they are in these guns because I've actually seen them. Here is a diagram of the basic structure of the common air restrictor:
Now, the part in this assembly that blocks the most air is "the" air restrictor. It is a solid circle of plastic with three prongs sticking up. A spring forces it against the peg base, which is riddled with holes. The three pegs fit into the holes in the peg base. The peg pretty much just makes you use stock darts.
There are two concerns when removing air restrictors:1. "Dry firing" (firing when the gun does not have a dart in it) a spring type nerf gun after air restrictor (AR) removal allows the plunger head to slam against the front of the plunger chamber with greater force than usual. Once you remove the AR, try to avoid dry firing the gun.
2. Removing too much of the AR can sometimes ruin the air seal between your plunger chamber (or air tank, in the case of compressed air guns). Most notably this happens with the Maverick and also the (original, 10 shot) Dart Tag Blaster. In these cases,
leave the peg base in the gun. You can still get rid of the spring, "the" air restrictor, and break the peg off of the peg base. If you really want to, you can also clear out the peg base a little to make it look like this:
(from
http://nerfhaven.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3633&hl=)
So, there you have it: Air restrictors explained, and a little bit of a mod explanation for the Dart Tag Blaster and Maverick.
If you have any questions or comments, post them here or PM me.
