K'nex Turret Rifle: Scarlet Devil

Hello there,

After three days of tinkering around with an idea I had, the Scarlet Devil is finished.
This will be my first, and most likely only, entry to the K'nex contest, if it gets accepted.

Now, onto the gun itself:
The Scarlet Devil got its name from a title in the Touhou series of bullet hell games.
Because I don't have enough two clip connectors, I used red ones in the turret, which is the second reason to pick this name.
It combines elements from bullpup, slingshot and, of course, turret rifles.
The elements are as follows:
- Slingshot:
You load the rubberbands on a ratchet, instead of directly on the ram.
- Bullpup
The ratchet itself is located at the end of the stock, operated by two long trigger beams.
- Turret rifles
The TR-8 style turret at the front end.

Pros and Cons

+ Bullpup, thus compact
+ Eight round turret, reliable, and easy to load
+ Slingshot mechanism, you don't need to pull back all the bands you have on it at once
+ Pretty comfortable
+ You can load as many rubberbands on it as the trigger allows.

- Hooking the rubberbands on the ratchet is awkward
- Very rear-heavy
- Very low rate of fire

As implied in the intro, the Scarlet Devil is kind of a crossover gun.

I chose for the bullpup, to give it an overal short length, while maintaining a decent to good pin pull distance.
The slingshot mechanism allows you to load about as many rubberbands as the trigger can take.
Another advantage this gives, is that you can all load them one by one, decreasing the strength needed to operate this weapon, when compared to a standard pin gun.
The turret maximizes reliability, ease-of-loading, and turret guns are some of the most powerfull weapons I've built in the past.

The large disadvantages of this weapon are the rate of fire, and loading the rubberbands.
Depending on how many bands you have on it, the rate of fire can become very low, as you have to hook the rubberbands on the ratchet, and then bring the pin backwards.
Because of the bullpup design, it's kind of awkward to hook the rubberbands on the hatchet, bringing the rate of fire down even more.

The standard sight I chose for this weapon is the red dot one I've used before.

The Scarlet Devil uses a sliding trigger.
The trigger beams are pretty long, however, not weak at all.
They have no room to bend up or down, or inwards, as they're enclosed on these sides.
Above and underneath the beams are rows of orange connectors, preventing them from moving up or down.
In the middle, there is a row of yellow connectors, with green rods in the 45 degrees slots, blocking the beams from bending inwards.

The pin itself also has its own sort of guide.
It moves between rows of orange connectors underneath, and yellow connectors above and on the side of it.
The grey rod and red connector that holds it move between the rows of yellow connectors, keeping the rod straight.

There is a blue rod in front of the ratchet, that prevents you from pulling the pin out of the barrel behind the turret.

The end of the stock is textured, so it doesn't slip off of your shoulder.
The weapon, with exception of the turret connection, is solid as a rock.

The previous version of the Scarlet Devil.
This version was perhaps even sturdier than the current one, except for the fake barrel.
It had folding back sights, that worked in the same way as the one in my Peacekeeper.
The trigger hasn't changed much, as you can see. The beams on this one were entirely straight, which made them a bit stronger.
The biggest disadvantage this version had from the current one, was the height of the pin inside the gun.
The pin was located in a rather odd place, which made attaching magazines, turrets, or even a sturdy (fake) barrel difficult.

The design of Version 1 had a less compact design, but the overall length of the body was actually exactly the same.
V.2 utilizes the full length, whereas V.1 had "lost space" in the stock.

This was the instructabe / slideshow of my Scarlet Devil.
Tell me what you think of the gun in the comments!
If you want instructions, don't be afraid to ask for them!

Since the intro

~Dr. Richtofen