Noeland
Master Member
I know a lot has been said recently about Blade Runner Blasters (I'm sure plenty of folks are getting sick of it) and certain claims have been leveled against the hartford for being a ripoff. Well, over the last couple of years I have gotten to know Conety Kato, one of Hartford's founders, and he's become a close friend of mine.
I just wanted to clear up any confusion about this blaster being a rip off. It's not.
MIM based thier blaster very heavily on the Hartford, and the guys at Hartford do not see this, or recasting, as an issue at all. They are in fact quite flattered by MIM's work. Imagine that. I thought it was odd too :lol But they think of it as a compliment.
While they are aware of Rich' work, Conety has told me that no one there owns Rich's blaster, and it was not used to make thiers. All the custom blaster parts were laser cut, and designed from the ground up based on the real steyr and the Smith and Wesson "police" 5 shot .38 they have been making and selling for many years.
They didn't concern themselves with screen accuracy, instead they wanted to get the look of the movie gun and engineer the blaaster from there with thier own specs. The wanted the clip and bolt to work very smoothly. You will see the inside of the bolt looks nothing like Rich's, which is molded from the real deal.
These guys are some of the biggest Blade Runner fans I have ever met. For a company that creates and sells mostly western replica PFC guns, these guys love sci-fi like nobodies business.
OK, here are the pics. For those who don't know Rich's work, his is the blaster with the more reddish grips and the finger notch in the buttplate, and Rich's gun has the 5th LED as well.
Some side by side shots:
Note the Hartford blaster on the right has a smooth "notch free" bolt. It was not based on the real parts internally as Rich's was.
Note the M on the clip bottom, Hartford entirely designed this clip bottom and MIM recast the entire clip design and clip housing from Hartford. Rich's is cast directly from the real deal.
Note in this picture that the backstrap on the hartford is much thicker than Rich's.
Note theat the Hartford metal buttplate is an entirely different size that Rich's. Totally different.
To help keep the clip firmly in place, Hartford engineered a spring loaded bottom that presses on the clip.
There is also a notch in the front to help keep it in place.
A couple shots of the very nice plating work done on the blaster. Most of the frame, and many of the smaller parts are made from metal. There are also metal plates on the inside of the grips.
The "laser pointer" is made from metal as well.
Note the front notch for the clip, and that the bar under the barrel is made of metal.
Some more random pics.
Some pics of it being used in our fan film.
OK, all that posted and said, I'd like to apologize to Rich if I have been too harsh or too critical of him lately. I own two of his blasters, V3 and V4, I love them both, they areprized parts of my collection and will be forever. They are prized because they are Coyle blasters, not because they are accurate or anything.
I have the utmost respect for his work, and looking back over the last couple of weeks I feel I was out of line a time or two in the heat of blaster debate. So Rich, I would like very much to extend my public apologies.
I would also like to "announce" that Hartford is working on thier own snub nosed blaster to be released in late '07. It will be based on one of my production designs for our fan film. I designed a snubby in illustrator with the intention of bulding two of them based on my all american revolvers. Here is my internal production design, first time posting this anywhere.
![snub%20nosed%20blaster%20[Converted].jpg](http://www.propaholics.wolfchasers.com/uploader/users/Noeland/snub%20nosed%20blaster%20[Converted].jpg)
The benefit to using these is you don't have to open the cylinder to reload. They are designed to be reloaded from the side of the gun. The bad part is it's the right side of the gun.
So I was planning to accomodate for this in my build.
Hartford though will be building thier snubby on the same smith and wesson base gun again, and they will be changing my design a bit here and there I'm sure.
I just want us to be one big happy blaster family again.
I just wanted to clear up any confusion about this blaster being a rip off. It's not.
MIM based thier blaster very heavily on the Hartford, and the guys at Hartford do not see this, or recasting, as an issue at all. They are in fact quite flattered by MIM's work. Imagine that. I thought it was odd too :lol But they think of it as a compliment.
While they are aware of Rich' work, Conety has told me that no one there owns Rich's blaster, and it was not used to make thiers. All the custom blaster parts were laser cut, and designed from the ground up based on the real steyr and the Smith and Wesson "police" 5 shot .38 they have been making and selling for many years.
They didn't concern themselves with screen accuracy, instead they wanted to get the look of the movie gun and engineer the blaaster from there with thier own specs. The wanted the clip and bolt to work very smoothly. You will see the inside of the bolt looks nothing like Rich's, which is molded from the real deal.
These guys are some of the biggest Blade Runner fans I have ever met. For a company that creates and sells mostly western replica PFC guns, these guys love sci-fi like nobodies business.
OK, here are the pics. For those who don't know Rich's work, his is the blaster with the more reddish grips and the finger notch in the buttplate, and Rich's gun has the 5th LED as well.
Some side by side shots:
Note the Hartford blaster on the right has a smooth "notch free" bolt. It was not based on the real parts internally as Rich's was.
Note the M on the clip bottom, Hartford entirely designed this clip bottom and MIM recast the entire clip design and clip housing from Hartford. Rich's is cast directly from the real deal.
Note in this picture that the backstrap on the hartford is much thicker than Rich's.
Note theat the Hartford metal buttplate is an entirely different size that Rich's. Totally different.
To help keep the clip firmly in place, Hartford engineered a spring loaded bottom that presses on the clip.
There is also a notch in the front to help keep it in place.
A couple shots of the very nice plating work done on the blaster. Most of the frame, and many of the smaller parts are made from metal. There are also metal plates on the inside of the grips.
The "laser pointer" is made from metal as well.
Note the front notch for the clip, and that the bar under the barrel is made of metal.
Some more random pics.
Some pics of it being used in our fan film.
OK, all that posted and said, I'd like to apologize to Rich if I have been too harsh or too critical of him lately. I own two of his blasters, V3 and V4, I love them both, they areprized parts of my collection and will be forever. They are prized because they are Coyle blasters, not because they are accurate or anything.
I have the utmost respect for his work, and looking back over the last couple of weeks I feel I was out of line a time or two in the heat of blaster debate. So Rich, I would like very much to extend my public apologies.
I would also like to "announce" that Hartford is working on thier own snub nosed blaster to be released in late '07. It will be based on one of my production designs for our fan film. I designed a snubby in illustrator with the intention of bulding two of them based on my all american revolvers. Here is my internal production design, first time posting this anywhere.
The benefit to using these is you don't have to open the cylinder to reload. They are designed to be reloaded from the side of the gun. The bad part is it's the right side of the gun.
So I was planning to accomodate for this in my build.Hartford though will be building thier snubby on the same smith and wesson base gun again, and they will be changing my design a bit here and there I'm sure.
I just want us to be one big happy blaster family again.
