The only airsoft claymores that you can find are over $100. So, unless you’re willing to shell out big bucks for a simple claymore, you’re stuck making one yourself. Making it yourself isn’t all bad, though. You can construct a decent airsoft claymore with some around-the-house items pretty easily. Plus, you know how it works if it ever needs maintenance.

This is what you need:

• A cardboard box (it doesn’t need to be huge, but don’t make it too small)
• Fishing line (or invisible thread)
• Duct-tape
• Some bendable wire (the wire needs to be manipulable, but sturdy enough so it won’t bend under some light weight; wire from a old clothing rack is perfect) (if you don’t have wire, then you can use a couple skinny sticks)
• A mousetrap
• Spray paint (OD Green or some type of Camouflage is best, but it’s to try to make it blend in with the environment, so if you live in the desert use brown and khaki, or for winter/snow use white or gray)
• Cutting tools (to cut cardboard, string, and wire)

Step 1 – The first step is to prep your box. As stated above, you want a medium sized box, it also needs to be pretty deep. Take your box and cut the flaps off, so it looks like this:

Step 2 – After you’ve cut off the flaps, you can discard them. The next thing you want to do is take four pieces of wire (about 2 feet long) and poke them through the bottom of your box near each of the corners:

Step 3 – Now bend a little part of the wire that is poking up inside the box down and then pull it out the bottom of the box. Then bend the wire so it won’t come back up. Basically you want to make a hook-shaped thing, then pull the hook back through the bottom, leaving about a inch of cardboard left between where the wire initially went in and where the hook comes out (if you’re using sticks, you can skip this step):

Step 4 – So now you have the legs almost done. Now just put some Duct-tape over the inch of cardboard, ensuring it won’t tear causing the leg to come out (if you’re using sticks, then you’ll want to find some way to glue or tape your sticks to get them to stay in place. But, you want them to be able to swing back and forth) :

Step 5 – Now cut two vertical slits in the middle of the bottom of the box, about three inches long and four inches apart:

Step 6 – Take your mouse trap and tie multiple strands of fishing line/invisible thread and tie it to the part of the mouse trap that snaps down and would normally hit the mouse. Tape the other end of the string to bottom of the mouse trap. Make it long enough so if the mouse trap went off it would stop half way, like this (in this case I used yarn so you can see it. It really doesn’t matter what kind of string you use for this step, as long as it’s strong enough, because you’ll spray paint it anyway):

Step 7 – Now take your duct tape and cover the mouse-hitting thing, making a little sort of pocket:

Step 8 – Place the mouse trap (mouse-hitting side facing out of the box) between the slits you made in step 5. Tape the mouse trap down by threading a long piece of tape up through one slit, over part of the mouse trap, and back out the second slit. Make sure that the mouse trap will still fire half way, and that you didn’t accidentally tape the mouse-hitter thing down:

Step 9 – Next, take two pieces of wire (the size of the length between the front left to front right/back left to back right legs) and then bring both of the back legs forward past the front legs and connect a wire between them. Then connect the front legs. Use tape and string to lash the wire between the legs. So now the legs are crisscrossed, just like a real claymore:

Step 10 – Tie a 10ft piece of fishing line/invisible thread to the trigger part of the mouse trap (by “trigger” I mean the part the mouse steps on to set off the trap; sometimes it’s a cheese shaped piece of plastic, or sometimes it’s just a little piece of metal). Tie the other end to a 2ft tall piece of wire/stick. Then you can go ahead and spray paint the whole thing. As stated in the directions, you want a color that will blend into the environment that you’re going to use it in; the point isn’t to make it invisible, just not appear so obvious. This is what the finished product should look like (I made mine OD Green because I live in a sort of woody area with lots of Evergreen trees and bushes. The wire that has the string attached to the mouse trap is black. The image came out a little blurry, but the legs on the claymore are also OD Green):

How your claymore works is you stick it in the ground and stick the 2ft tall wire/stick that’s attached to the mouse trap about 9ft away, giving the line in between the wire and the mouse trap just enough slack that the claymore won’t go off on accident. Now set the mouse trap just like you normally would. Put 10 or so airsoft BBs on top of the duct tape pocket that you made on the mouse-hitter thing. Now your claymore is set. If someone bumps into the fishing line, the mouse trap will go off and stop abruptly half way, which will send the BBs sitting on top of the mouse trap flying into whoever hit the fishing line. If the BBs hit bare skin it’ll sting just a little bit, and if they hit fabric, you’ll feel them but they won’t hurt too bad.

The best way to use your claymore is in airsoft matches; put it around a corner where it’s hidden and when someone comes running past they’ll hit the fishing line and the claymore will get them. Your paint job camouflage will come in handy if you plant the claymore in high grass or brush.

Please give all credit for this project to SirBuffaloSushi and AirsofterUnited.wordpress.com