Stalker Pattern Bolter Conversion

So a shorter post today. I'm going to be conducting a short series on the conversions I've been performing on my units to give them that Spec Ops look. First up is how i've been creating the designated marksman's rifle, AKA the stalker pattern bolter. If you've ever played the Relic space marine game you'll know that the chaos version of the stalker is referred to as the daemon eye bolter. I'm being purely semantic at this point.

So there's a few things you're going to need to make this work. Most obviously is a bolter. I prefer the chaos model, theres more character to it.

The other things you're going to need is a scope from the normal tactical squad box and a guardsman's rifle.

Alternately, and this is preferable (although requires a harder to find part) a spare sniper rifle from the space marine scout sprue will supply all our required parts.

Now before we start any sawing it's critically important that we drill the holes for the barrel of our gun and the flash holes on the muzzle. you could do this stop later with the completed conversion, but its harder than doing it now.

Once the holes are drilled carefully saw the silencer off the sniper rifle. If you do this with care and preserve the small attachment detail on the other side you will need to shave it down slightly to have it fit on the bolters barrel neatly. If you don't have access to the sniper rifle then evergreen plasticard produces tubes in 1/8" sizing that is close in scale.

The next step is the scope. the tactical marine sprues scope is smaller in size than the one on the sniper rifle but is easier to attatch. Since i want that bigger look ive careffuly sawn off the scope from the sniper sprue and then using a very sharp X-Acto blade removed any additional plastic and attatched the scope to the top of the bolter.

As a final addition i have attatched the but of the rifle/lasgun to the bolter to help balance it out. If you decide to do this i would highly recommend atttatching it upside down as pictured below so that it fits on your marines properly.

Telion will be jealous

Here is the finished model. Please forgive the poor lighting, it's a little late right now. You should be able to clearly see however how the two pieces have been used together.