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Well, not completely see-through. One thing I like about drums as opposed to clips is that I can see how many darts I have left. While there's a small cutout when you hit the 18 round mark, I've found it useless. That said I prefer clips because I find them easier to carry, and reloading is easier since I can hold two 18 round clips in one hand while holding two 18 round drums is near impossible.
This'll be more of a "tips & tricks" guide, since there're probably a hundred different ways of doing this. Besides, I used my mill to get all the cuts that straight (any waviness you see is actually because of the epoxy), so describing exactly how I did it would be useless for most people. No further pictures will be provided since I'm not making any more of these, and my camera skills suck. Some of these tips will be obvious, some may not.
0) Use a rod to push the dart follower down past the bottom of where you're going to cut.
* I used a piece of 1/2" brass I had lying around and wedged it between the follower and the top of the clip.
1) Cut out an appropriate sized hole.
* First, use that cutout I mentioned before as a guide on how far to cut.
* Second, follow the ridges that run down the middle of the clip. You'll want as much surface area as possible for bonding the window to the clip.
* DON'T FORGET WHERE YOUR ROD IS! This happened on the second clip I did, the endmill clipped the rod and kicked it off to one side. The rod shot out the end of the clip and the follower was pushed into the endmill. Fortunately it only sustained a couple of scrapes.
2) Clean up the edges. Don't want to be tearing up our darts as they go through the clip.
* Note the ridge on the inside of the lower clip. This one has to be smoothed out for two reasons, first the darts, but also because as you compress the spring it gets wider. It'll rub against the window (fine), but will also catch on the ridge if it's not smoothed out. It's the reason the top clip now has windows on both sides.
3) Cut out some kind of window.
* I used 6 mm polycarb because I had that lying around. If I had the choice I'd have used 3 mm or thinner instead, but I don't have any because it's useless as a structural material.
* For me, the magic numbers were 55 x 134 mm. I expect the 55 mm would be constant, but your length will vary.
4) Glue the window in place.
* I used clear Araldite. Don't use too much & don't make a mess of everything, both for obvious reasons.
5) Load it and then unload it on someone.
* I tested these with my Stampede (BT spring, 12V SLA), no failures reported so far.
