A good pal of mine named Gary Barth runs a fantastic little DVD magazine called Movie FX Magazine. You can check out their website at www.moviefxmag.com. Not coincidentally, I am the webmaster for that site. Gary and I met through a mutual friend who is also into prop making. Gary asked me if I would build up a Han Solo blaster for him. I guess Gary has some bad arthritis issues, and has troubles with the finer details. Me being a guy always on the lookout for a buck, offer to do it for him. So I do the build up, then a few months later Master Replicas announces that they will be doing a run of the blasters. Another mutual friend of both Gary and myself is a VP at Master Replicas, Steve Dymszo. Gary ended up getting one of the Master Replicas blasters, and no longer needed the one I had built up for him. He sold it back to me for less that what I charged him. What a pal!
The build up was pretty simple. I soaked the mauser in turpentine for a few hours to get the gun oil and residue off it. I then laid down the scope mount and marked holes for drilling. I used a drill press to drill the holes, and a tap to thread them. The barrel was sawed down to what I thought was an appropriate length. I painted it using Plasti-Kote Gloss Black, which looked pretty cool. I wanted to go for a "Fresh off the assembly line" look, which I think I got. Then it was just a simple matter of screwing the grips back on and attaching everything. Overall, a very simple build up, and a very recognizable weapon.
I have compared my build up to the Master Replicas version. I have also spoken at length to a couple of the people who did almost all of the research that went into the MR blaster. It is my belief that the MR blaster is pretty darn accurate, in a whole lot of ways. The build up shown here is very nice, but lacks some of the finer details. For the money, they are both very fine pieces.