Pixels to Plastic: Mass Effect M-98 Widow Anti-Material Rifle, Nerf Version

This one wasn't a terribly hard build. To be honest, the hardest part was figuring out the relative dimensions of the gun, because there aren't many clear screenshots of it being held by a human character online. I watched several YouTube videos of people playing the game to try to get a feel for how long it was, as well as examined it in-game myself, but it was hard to find a reference point for what to compare it to. As such, I examined the Wikia article on it, and realized the game developers had named it an "anti-material" rifle, which seems to be a misspelling of "anti-matériel" which is how the really big sniper rifles are described. Ie, this thing is designed to stop something big and armored in its tracks, like a fifty cal would. Thus, I felt comfortable making it somewhat longer than a normal rifle, but I don't think I'm that far off from the game version, if at all. Overall, I like how it feels at 51" long, barrel-to-stock.

The scope does have a 4x zoom, and there are actual crosshairs inside it. I'm kinda proud of that.

It started out as a Nerf Longshot I got from the thrift store, and it is fully functional. It has a six-dart magazine, and unfortunately will only accept the older Streamline darts (the orange ones with the skinny tip) and it will not fire the new blue Elite darts you can get in stores now. I think it's just something weird with the internal mechanism of the blue Longshots that keeps them from using the newer darts. All that being said, I will be including six Streamline darts.

The thermal clip on this weapon was particularly tedious because I had to arrange 31 LEDs into a 1" pipe split in half. Plus, I had never worked with that many red LEDs, so I must've burned through 60 of them trying to get my resistance right.

The switch is on the left side of the stock and the three AA batteries are stored in a battery holder on the underside of the stock. To access the batteries, you have to remove the piece of foam wedged into what used to be a spare magazine holder; you might need a flathead screwdriver or pliers to get the foam out.

I'm asking $160, which I think is more than reasonable.