Not bad Wagon. I would have painted it metal first and then black.
Thanks Excalibur. I did the black first because I had a can of Fusion Matte Black! hehe I wanted to be safe and use a plastic safe paint as the base coat. Otherwise I might have tried the order you suggested. Actually I bought another blaster so maybe I'll try it on that one.
The scope is totally hollow. No clear plastic, just a tube.
That's true, no simulated sight or anything. On mine, in order to totally disassemble it (so I could add my metal supports inside and so I wouldn't cover the "laser light" with paint) I had to saw off the front and rear parts of the scope. They were separate pieces that were glued onto the finished model, so I was just sawing through the glue joint. I guess I could have just sawed through half of the glue joint, keeping the piece connected to the other half of the gun, but I didn't.
When I reassembled the blaster, I didn't want to just glue the two pieces back on, I figured that would now be a weak joint, subject to breaking if any shear force were applied. So I epoxied a hollow metal tube inside one half of the scope, letting it extend out enough on each side to be able to remount the cut off pieces. The metal tube I had was almost perfect sizing (1/2" hollow metal tube, metal is 1/16" thick...got it at Home Depot in the screw and nail aisle), but I did need to enlarge the hole in each piece very slightly. The fit is very tight and doesn't actually even need glue to remount.
Between that tube, and the metal supports I added inside the stock and handle of the gun, it feels a bit sturdier and heavier. I have thought about adding some kind of a clear plastic or glass inside each end of the scope to make it look better. However, the addition of the metal tube does make looking through the scope better as it has a more uniform barrel like appearance.