MadMarcus
New Member
As a big fan of the series The Expanse and being a gun guy it was just natural to build a replica prop pistol. The Star Helix / UN Navy pistols were distinctive and looked fairly cheap and easy to do. I picked up an inexpensive springer airsoft pistol to start with. I’m the kind of guy who wants to customize everything so I started with the basic Expanse format and customized it in a way that Amos could easily do on the Rocinante. After filling seams and screw holes etc I fabricated a polished 1/2” steel tubing extended “match barrel” and 1/4” steel “guide rod”, a drilled “blue anodized match trigger” and textured grip inserts (grippy truck bed liner). Before I closed up the frame I filled many of the void spaces with lead shot and epoxy to add a more realistic heft. I carved the light housing on top of the slide from basswood, fitted a working LED light. I shortened it slightly to made room for a functioning holographic red dot gunsight. I bugged me that in the show the light block the sights and makes them useless. The mount for the sight and light is made from heat formed kydex. The decals are from pics I found on Google, printed onto UPS labels, and then cut out. The paint is mostly Krylon Fusion from spray cans. It doesn’t hold a candle to many of the amazing prop pistols I’ve seen on RPF but I’m pretty happy with how it came out.
