Toruk's armory: Guardian PDW

This is a Stampede build done a few months ago.

I had an old, earlier generation Stampede receiver and a bunch of other parts (yet not a complete internals kit) and figured I ought to have at least one shorty. I liked the idea of a pocket-sized yet full-powered and full-auto HVZ assault rifle.

That led to my own unique take on the Krinkov style 'pede.

Immediately I decided I didn't want a typical SGnerf SMG. For me, there is absolutely no point in compromising the Stampede's already excellent ergonomics and handling with a minimization like this if the resulting gun isn't small and short enough to fit somewhere the full-size counterpart cannot. A SGnerf SMG is still quite long.

I settled on being as aggressive as possible with both barrel and stock lengths, and keeping the thumbhole stock for comfort (I like them) and the battery box for cleanliness so there aren't packs and wiring hanging out. After all, this is a streamlined little thing meant to be a concealed carry HVZ weapon that stows in a regular civvy backpack without attracting undead attention.

The receiver was reconstructed with scrap ABS. Nowadays, I would use my homemade PVC sheet.

One more funny little thing, the gun will stand vertically on the buttplate like this.

That buttplate is made from a Vulcan ammo can lid.

Painted.

With Rayven.

I initially planned this one to be a testbed for some more advanced stuff like MOSFETs, but I ended up just doing an ordinary build with it when I got my donor gun. It got the Everbilt 11.20kg spring and a basic stock bolt, stock 360 motor, stock cycle switch, all new 16gauge harness, Deans and all the usual electrical. Power is packs, per my standard.

Right now it is using two smaller 8 cell 1600mah Ni-MH packs (at 19.2v, though voltage is only one of many battery parameters to consider), but I have been trying to move away from this setup for Everbilt 'pedes. Those smaller packs are great for flywheel guns, but with springers and 300 series motors it's like RC or airsoft and you want as much discharge rate as possible. I switched the Swarmpede to two big beefy 6 cell Ni-cd packs and its reliability has picked up immensely from the lower motor top speed without too much of a loss in cyclic rate for either the Swarmfire or the Stampede. That is all about current right there - when you do springers, remember that you can never have too much battery behind that thing.

As to performance, it's usual for this build, 360-400RPM (400 and squirrelly as hell with fully charged packs!) and chrono'd at 90-105fps with 1.3s.