Introduction: Insight: a Mini Tubular Magazine K'nex Pistol

About: Hello, my name is Ondrew. My main interests all lie in design: from mechanical to digital to sound to graphic to... Past me finds it important to go to www.legoblockshell.org to help prevent Shell from dama…

Insight is a tiny, compact pistol that is different from all its competitors due to one thing: it has a tubular magazine.  If you don't know what a Tubular Magazine is, then come on down to my Guide to K'nex Guns.  (It's in Step Two, for those to lazy to dig through it.) 

To my knowledge, it's the most compact tubular magazine gun to date.  These are the instructions to build and fire it.

To entice you to build, Insight also:

Can hold up to five bullets at a time.

Gets about 25 feet; this is very good for a pistol of this size.

Uses a red rod sized firing pin.

Has a comfortable handle.

Requires no cut pieces. (Nor do any of my posted guns, come to think of it.)

Shoots green rods. (A downside for some, but a pro for others).

And... Yes, the gun has a theme song: Insight by Joy Division.

Step 1: Build All the Things

This is just a picture of all the different panels and doodads that are needed.  Just build all the panels and stuff that's shown, and the next steps will tell you how to piece it all together.

Also of importance, those bands do not have to be cut and tied together; it would actually be better if you left them intact; I just ran out of full looped bands, sadly.


Step 2: The Internals: Part One

Just follow the pictures.  

If you have any questions, please send me a comment explaining your troubles.  I'll be happy to help.

Step 3: The Internals: Part Two

Just keep on doing what the crazy pictures say. They know what they're talking about.

Please leave a comment with your concerns if you need help.

Step 4: Encasing the Internals

Just follow the colorful pictures!

Step 5: Putting on the Bands

Keep in mind that none of these bands have to be cut and tied; actually, it's better if you don't.

Again, comment if you have a problem. I definitely won't will be happy to help.

Step 6: How to Load and Fire

This part tells you how to load and fire the gun.  It's pretty self-explanatory, I would think.

If you've come this far and have built this, I hope that you enjoy the gun!

-DarkOwlKnex
,     ,
 (O,O)
<(IIIII)>
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(If it's not working, see the next step.)

Step 7: What to Do If It's Not Working

If your magazine is acting funny, the best thing to do is to get a rubber band and use it to pull the bottom rail upward.  If you go back through this instructable, the bottom rail will be labeled with a note and an explanation of what to do when the mag is not working. (What I've said here.)

If your trigger is not working you can do one of two things:

1. Put less rubber bands on the firing pin.
2. Get a hot glue gun and glue the one piece of the trigger together.  A note will be placed to show where you should glue if you want maximum power.

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