This was a pretty sweet kit I picked up at Wonderfest. It's a hollow-cast resin prop replica of the Season 2 BSG TNS blaster.

As most fans of prop guns know, the prop masters on the show switched guns between the first and second season. During the miniseries and Season One, they dressed up a .357 magnum with a plastic shell to replicate the Colonial Blasters, but for the second season they took an automatic Belgium Herstal FN pistol and basically slapped a rocket launcher onto the bottom of the frame. This was done to make reloading easier, the shows propmasters had to remove the housing to reload the .357, with the Herstal all they have to do is slap in a new clip.

I'm guessing a real Herstal was used to master his kit; it's a big 1:1 replica with all the correct barrel stamps of the real gun. The one piece hollow-cast body is pretty nicely executed and lends itself to installing lights or electronics for sound, I didn't bother with either.

Construction was pretty easy, there was a really big mold part line that took some carefull filling and sanding, but otherwise it's a nice casting. I carefully seperated the one-piece cast trigger with side cutters. I also dremeled out the barrel of the pistol and the large bore of the rocket launcher. I also cut a small piece of 19/32 bras tubing and added that to the barrel, these simple mods made the blaster a lot more realistic looking.

Painting was pretty simple, I used Krylon "Ultra Flat Black" and Krylon CrystalClear to give it a metallic gloss. Several paint schemes are used on the grips of the shows props, I chose the two-toned look because I thought it was the most interesting looking. I used Badger Acrylic "Brown" with a dab of "Burnt Sienna". I weathered the gun's switches and safeties with silver buffable metallic wax, and hit the medallion in the grip with a little brass to make it stand out. I used a drop of MM's "Insignia Red" on the safetie indicator. Then I sealed the whole thing with light mist coats of Krylon Matte till it lost the toy-like shine.

I'm really happy with the results, this is a pretty easy hassle-free kit for anybody wanting a nice replica of the Battlestar Galactica blaster.

Scott Copeland