Tippmann XT800 (XM8) Flashlight Mod

[Egon Spengler]

Hey, folks. I'm new to Airsoft, but I figured I'd throw in my first mod for kicks.

Sorry about the large files, but I wanted to give you enough detail to see what I'd done.

First off, I purchased a 5 LED "tactical" flashlight from Princess Auto. This thing was under $10.

The flashlight is about 6" long. It's like the Inova X5 Tactical LED Flashlight.

I took it to my next door neighbour, who is a machinist. He reduced it to an overall length of 2" at the LED end. He put a 1/4" tapped hole in, with a machine cap screw and a lockwasher.

I drilled a 1/4" hole at the nose of my gun, a 5/16" hole for the activator button (from The Source/RadioShack), and a 7/16" hole for the power connector. I soldered a wire to the centre contact on the flashlight for positive, and used the body for negative (which is how the body of the original acted). I wired a simple switched circuit, and mounted the items.

The activator is on the left side of the gun (I'm a righty), in the pseudo-rail mount areas. The power connector is on the right side. The batteries are in a velcro-secured pack on the bottom of the nose of the gun - I can remove the pack if we are doing daylight games.

I've removed the mock scope from it, and am going to put a weaver-type rail (again, my machinist buddy will assist) on the top of the gun. He's eventually going to make a triple weaver mount where the mock scope used to be. I have a Tasco BKRD30 red dot to go on later this week. Wish me luck.

-Egon

[mujahadeen]

Looks great, now for God's sake PAINT THAT flash hider!

/excited to see how she works at the next game!

Muja

[Gadzooks]

Looks great. And leave that flash supresser alone... It'll make you easier to find

[bean]

Seth that involves you to have the chair surgically removed from your ass. Btw organize your bunch for the 24 hour game.

[mujahadeen]

I was born with it ok.

Mom says it makes me special.

Fuck off.

[mujahadeen]

Saw it in person tonight (up close and personal) Very nice work!

[stev0__]

yeah saw this to today and the wiring especially is incredibly nice work sweet setup man deffinetly surprised when i saw you were using an xm8

[Egon Spengler]

I've completed the final mod (for now, at least :-D ) - the flash hider is now a nice matte black. Krylon makes a nice paint that is specially designed to adhere to plastic without requiring that the plastic surface be "roughed" with sandpaper.

It turned out quite well, for all. I suspended the hider on a rope, using a knot in the rope to keep the hider pointing muzzle-end up. This allowed the paint to run down to the attachment point, so any "drips" would be at the part of the hider that is, well, hidden by the forestock cowl.

I did two coats; I wasn't sure if three might be needed, but two seem to have done it. I debated putting a latex sealant on it, but then it would be shiny, not matte - and the finish on the gun is pretty much matte, as is the RDS on the top. Ergo, matte it was.

I'll follow up with some photos . . . next posting (wait for it . . . wait for it)

[Egon Spengler]

Ok, so I've put the mods together into a set of three summary shots. Here's a brief commentary for each:

1. Overall shot.

In this shot, you see the front (now black) flash hider, and the red taclight peeking out (I might paint that, but I haven't decided. It's not obnoxious, the flash hider was.) Visible at the bottom of the forestock is the battery pack for the taclight. You can also see the Tasco RDS (it's a BK60RD from Canadian Tire.)

2. RDS shot.

You can also see the fact that the original mock scope is gone, and an RDS is mounted on the carry rail. This is temporary; a machinist friend of mine is attempting to make a module that will fit directly into that space, clamping by the same holes the mock did, with a triple Weaver rail; I will be able to mount an RDS, a laser projector, and a secondary focused taclight, if I so desire - or even a small scope.

The RDS is mounted on a piece of aluminum left over from a Radio Shack (now The Source by Circuit City) project box. The boxes come with plastic and aluminum covers; the project I was doing needed the plastic ones, so I saved the aluminum covers in my junk box. It's a bit crude, because I used a nibbling tool to cut out the rail, but it works, and that's all that ultimately matters. You can see how I drilled two holes to match the ones in the carry rail (simple measurement) and used nuts as spacers. Yes, it's secure.

The RDS itself is a $50 1x scope with an 11-level red dot projection. It's not as fancy as the ones that can project red or green, and can project dots and crosshairs, but it works - meh. It's infinitely better than the mock scope, which was essentially a semiaccurate (at best) peephole sight. I was overjoyed when I was able to sight it in, despite my crude "Weaver", and hit targets consistently.

3. Muzzle shot.

The taclight, as described in a previous post, is a Princess Auto special, $8.99 plus tax, which has been cut off so that there's about 1" of barrel remaining before you get to the light head. That was tapped for a 1/4" machine screw. Two wires were soldered into the light head, and a pushbutton on the left side of the rifle (facing) controls it - momentary contact; it's where my left thumb is. The wires go up and over the barrel assembly.

The light is bright, but not well-focused, typical of LED lights. I use it more like a flashbang, to blind my opponent before I introduce a whole world of hurt.

What you can't see is the coaxial socket on the right-hand side of the rifle, nearer the front. There are four "holes" which, on a real XM8, are a mount point for rails or other accessories. The thumbbutton is in the one proximal to the shooter, the power jack is in the distal position. The jack allows me to remove the battery pack completely for daytime scenarios (and makes it easy to replace batteries!)

The flash hider is removable (mine pulls straight off; it is "keyed" with a flat part on the bottom, which mates with a flattened area on the plastic barrel sleeve - so DO NOT try to twist it off, or you'll break the sleeve!) I don't know if it is supposed to be removable, or if it should have been glued, but mine pulled right off. As I said above, I used a piece of nylon cord to suspend the hider, with a knot holding the hider vertically in place, and a paper clip stablizing the top. It was suspended muzzle-end up. A "tail" of cord hung down to let me stabilize the whole thing during spraying. I put two complete coats on. I put the butt end down because I figured that any drips would be hidden behind the forestock cowl (which they are). I made sure to clear any excess paint from the exit path the BBs will be taking; it's good-to-go. It slid back into place (a little more firmly, with the slight bit of paint at that end giving a tad more friction.) I haven't test-fired it, but the path is visually clear, so that should suffice.

All in all, easy mods. I'll post again when I have that Weaver module installed.

[swatt13]

whats the box you have attatched to the bottom of the foregrip? a battery?

[Egon Spengler]

Yep, it's the battery pack for the taclight. When the light's barrel was chopped down, the battery compartment was lost, so I simply wired the box to supply it via a coaxial connection. The power is switched by the pushbutton on the left hand side.

The battery pack is a 2AA box from The Source; I attached a coax plug to it after putting shrink tubing on the wires. There's a corresponding jack on the right side of the rifle (which you can't see in the final photos.)

Originally Posted by swatt13

whats the box you have attatched to the bottom of the foregrip? a battery?

[CSR]

Do you still have the fake scope? If so, do you want to get ride of it?

[CDN_Stalker]

Originally Posted by Droc

This is not the for sale section

He's asking if he wants to get a ride out of it, he just missed a few words.

[CSR]

I was just seeing if he still had it and wasn't using it. I'd have taken it off thread if it was up 4 grabz. I've got a BE XM8 with metal gear box and I was thinking of mounting a lazer in the fake scope and wanted a 2nd scope incase I screwed up. Since I couldn't come up with a way to make it adjustable, I'm cutting off the scope, mounting a flat top, and adding a rail so I can mount a Red Dot or lazer if I want. I've been searching the web on scope modz and found this thread.

[roughshadow]

Now I ask you why did you put that ugly box on the bottom of your rifle when you could have put it inside? Its not hard to make a 2 aa rechargeable much like aeg batteries. And a switch at the trigger.