Hwa Shan's Disposable Rounds

Found these pics online - consider it as a feast for the eyes...

Great! at last I know what those look like in more details than usual :-)

It would be great to have cheaper disposable caps available in Europe. GM7 from Tanio Koba uses plastic shells. Maybe this is a possible path for single-shots? Bag of 60 costs 2650JPY, about 0.5USD per shell. Even adding cap cost this is not too bad.

Interesting to note that one box of caps (starting pistol caps) is marked with information:
"Contains 0.07g x 100 = 7g"
"Not liable to explode in bulk"

This is because law in some countries (EU?) permits possession of red phosphorus but in certain forms only.
You can legally produce "toy" caps up to a certain per-cap limit (0.08g in Poland) and with protection that all caps in the box will not explode at the same time.

Marking on the box, in English, suggests that manufacturer wants to make sure they can export caps.

Caps for PFC modelguns (MGC, Kanecap, Marushin) are marked 0.01g, they are much weaker (and they are not for starter pistols that have to be heard ).

As things stand at the moment, only one supplier outside of Taiwan, to my knowledge, sells disposable rounds, Modelguns-Worldwide.
At £0.40 each though, they're just way to expensive to even consider.

My attempts at buying in bulk from Haw San's retailer in Taipei almost succeeded, £0.15 each is the going rate there, but the shop keeper, unfortunately, started applying some strange and suspicious conditions

With any luck, Modelguns-Worldwide will soon start buying more and bring his prices down At least then customers that bought their Wa Shan or Haw San modelguns from him might get to try out these

These will basically be only available in the Hwa San Pro Shops (2 in Taipei "Taiwan's Capital" and more scattered around Taiwan) because not many guns can now use these disposable rounds (after the new gun laws enforced, the owners have to registered their guns with the police or to get rid of them immediately - from what I've learnt less than 100 pcs registered so far ).

Just like deacts in the UK - I wondered who will surrender their priceless & unregistered pre-95 MP5 for welding...?

Cerwyn,
What kind of curious conditions was the Taiwanese retailer imposing? I would be interested in possibly buying disposable rounds in bulk, too.

Hello ljerr

First off he imposed Minimum Orders of 100 of each size of cartridge (no problem that)
I ordered various parts, magazines, barrels, etc.

He quoted in both Taiwanese Dollars and Sterling... now I got a bit nervous when his conversion rates differed substantialy to everbody else's.
He calculated my total order to be approx £390 Sterling (or thereabouts)
When I double checked his totals, his Taiwanese Dollar total came to £650 Sterling (or thereabouts) which didn't correspond to ANY on-line currency converter I checked.

He then insisted on payment in Taiwanese Dollars, and further insisted on Credit Card payment to HIM PERSONALLY

He flatly refused Bank Transfer, Paypal, or any payment to the Shop... only by Credit Card to him personally.

Despite being shown his conversions were way out, in his favour, he refused to lower his Invoice prices to what they should've been.

At the risk of offending the guy, I believe he was out to skin me out of £650 Sterling and I'd never have recieved my order. Needless to say, I didn't order off him.

Reading through Jim's articles about exporting caps from Taiwan, it seems likely tht IF my order had ever left the shop Taiwanese Customs would've siezed it.
Where would tht leave me £650 poorer and NO comebck on the shop as the payment would've gone to him...

What type of round do you recommend for my Marushin Uzi?

Cerwyn wrote:

Reading through Jim's articles about exporting caps from Taiwan, it seems likely that IF my order had ever left the shop Taiwanese Customs would've seized it.

I should rephrase that if the Customs found out then they'll have every right to seize it...so it really depends if Cerwyn wants to take the risk of losing some money for a chance to fire these rounds (but again, £650 is enough for me to live at least for a month "without shopping")...

More on this - nobody I've known of have ever tried these disposable rounds...and from what I've gathered, they're simply a normal cap fitted inside the shell with the tip covered with white wax (therefore shouldn't be more powerful than the reusable rounds - without mentioning the blanks)...and if these are legal in HK then I'm sure I can help you guys out...

For using these disposable rounds on Marushin UZI - I think the M84s should be the closest thing in terms of length (the one with green box), but I think the best way is to rechamber the UZI...

Dollanganger wrote:

What type of round do you recommend for my Marushin Uzi?

To be honest I would try Marushin's own 9mm MP40/UZI cartridge first. If these perform well you'll be ok.

The most common conversion for them though is to use MGC P220 cartridges with a modified Detonator Pin. These work very well in the UZI as the MGC cartridge seals better giving stronger blowback and better performance.

jim wrote:

Cerwyn wrote:

Reading through Jim's articles about exporting caps from Taiwan, it seems likely that IF my order had ever left the shop Taiwanese Customs would've seized it.

I should rephrase that if the Customs found out then they'll have every right to seize it...so it really depends if Cerwyn wants to take the risk of losing some money for a chance to fire these rounds (but again, £650 is enough for me to live at least for a month "without shopping")...

More on this - nobody I've known of have ever tried these disposable rounds...and from what I've gathered, they're simply a normal cap fitted inside the shell with the tip covered with white wax (therefore shouldn't be more powerful than the reusable rounds - without mentioning the blanks)...and if these are legal in HK then I'm sure I can help you guys out...

For using these disposable rounds on Marushin UZI - I think the M84s should be the closest thing in terms of length (the one with green box), but I think the best way is to rechamber the UZI...

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the correction re Taiwan Customs

As regards my order from WaShan's retailer, £650 was WAY OVER charging for the items I wanted. It appears that the guy processing my order had added nearly £300 to the real total for reasons best known to himself

Well (last post was long time ago, sorry for digging this threat out of the swamp of threats in the world wide web^^)

I ordered 50 disposable rounds from modelguns-worldwide

I wanted to fire them with my washan metal M9.

The reason I need disposable ones is, we filmed a trailer project for university in some house ruins in the woods (theme was post-apocalypse)
And if those cartridges fly out of the gun, into the woods, gras, dirt... it would be a pain to search them...

So I brought the Washan M9, and 50 rounds disposable cartridges.

We only wanted to film the hero empty a mag into the camera.



First shot didnt work, second didnt, third...

We tried the old ones again. No work. I pushed the wax thing inside more deep into the cartridge, so the detonator pins could reach for them.

Nothing. Then angrily just kept on pulling the trigger and after like 7 times pressing the trigger: BÄM

I tried to imagine what the problem was... Half of the cartridges worked. The other half not, or only after pulling the trigger several times (always about 10) very bad for the camera, as the gun has to WORK in that scene
but I suppose over 15 just didnt work

We could empty a mag, but filmed 2 shots in a row YES ONLY 2 SHOTS WORKED FINE

Very sad






So my review of those disposables would be very good... unless I left out an important fact

Anyone with disposable rounds too? Anyone who could tell me what I did wrong?



(my Washan M9 works fine, with the ordinary rounds it work just loverly - I love my M9 ^^ )

This makes for very dissapointing reading ... the WaShan Disposable cartridges are very expensive to buy at nearly £0.40 each so such poor performance is all the more dissappointing.

Your M9 works perfectly with standard PFC re-useable cartridges, so it would seem your modelgun is in good condition.
My own model fires MGC P220 PFC cartridges without any modification, and it fires them flawlessly.

The only source of WaShan / Hwa Shan / Y.T.Corp modelguns and cartridges I've seen outside Taiwan is Modelguns-Worldwide. Knowing it's practically impossible to buy anything from Taiwan direct, would I be correct assuming you bought both the modelgun and disposable cartridges from Modelguns-Worldwide?
Their website lists the Disposable rounds as available for this modelgun and doesn't mention any need to modify the gun at all to use them.
You would expect them to work well, especially as they're from the gun's manufacturer and at £0.38 each.

Have you contacted the seller? I know from experience that as long as the modelgun was supplied by them, they'll happily sell you accessories and consumables. After-Sales service was usually excellent.
Modelguns don't tend to carry any form of Warranty or Guarantee unfortnately, it's very unlikely disposable rounds will.
Modelguns-Worldwide may be aware of a problem with a particular batch or consignment of these cartridges by now so an e-mail to them might be worth a try.

Through contact with a few modelgun owners posting videos on youtube, I'm led to believe that there is a potential problem with the thickness of the plastic waxy seal on the cartridge. This has an integral firing pin which is pushed into the pre-loaded cap.
It's possibly way too thick and won't allow the internal cap to be struck hard enough at the first attempt to ignite it.

As we well know with standard re-useable c.p. and Plug Fire cartridges, any friction in the cartridge that causes the piston or cap to drag will either cause a complete miss fire or not give adequate blow back to cycle the modelgun.
If the plastic waxy seal is dragging or sticking in the disposable rounds casing then it's not likely to reach the cap, or will be so slow getting to it it won't strike it hard enough to ignite.
Repeated pulls of the trigger may eventually fire it but it obviously needs to fire first time every time.

It would be interesting to hear of anyone else's experiences with these cartridges.

Yeah, of course I contacted modelgun-Worldwide.
And they gave me some hints.

I stretched the hammer spring of the M9, and oiled the disposable rouds in the inside and bottom.

After that I had more sucessfull firing than before, but still to many blinds.

As I said: After pressing the trigger a second, third, fourth time then they fired...

I had sucessfully firing ones, and not firing at all ones. But never had the case that I didnt have an adequate blow back to cycle the modelgun.


They ARE very expensive but would be very useful fot filming outside.

But seems like in the future I have to collect my cartridges from the ground after filming, and I am sure some of them will be lost.

Hi BadBean,

It sounds like the gun's firing pin isn't able to push the white plastic "primer" into the base of the cartridge so that it can strike the cap.

Looking at my own model, the hammer forces the firing pin into the re-useable cartridges hard enough to leave small dents in the brass "primer" so it's striking with a good amount of force.

Pushing the white "primer" deeper into the cartridge before firing might be taking the primer further away from the gun's firing pin This could be making things worse.

If the one's that fire produce enough blowback to cycle the gun, then it suggests that the cap is able to move freely enough within the cartridge body to push hard against the Detonator Pin in the barrel. If you're able to put a small amount of oil into the front of the cartridge this could well help the cap to slide freely.

Your problem sounds as if it's with that white plastic primer. If that is stuck fast to the cartridge rim, perhaps the gun's firing pin cannot push it hard enough into the cap. Perhaps several hits by the hammer and firing pin break it's seal eventually.

You said earlier that pushing the white primer by hand into the cartridge is possible. How easily does it move Does it slide inwards with little effort or a great deal

I'm "thinking aloud" now but if a push inwards by hand is enough to break the seal between plastic primer and cartridge case, if you were then able to very carefully ease the primer back until it is flush with the cartridge base, after placing a little oil in the base, then an attempt at firing it could well work.

*Great care would have to be taken to ensure the live cap isn't pushed hard enough by hand to ignite it, there could be a risk of injury if that cap fires, enough power is produced within cartridges to cycle full metal modelguns, both pistols and large models like Thompson sub machine guns so you wouldn't want a loose cartridge hitting you in the face or eyes*

There are many attractive reasons for single use disposable cartridges, not having to go about looking for them after firing is one for sure, not having to clean and re-load them is another.
At approx. £0.15 each in Taiwan, they're all the more attractive as long as they work. £0.38 each to have them fail is not on.

Well, to what I wrote before: I pushed the white plastic part inside with the stick thats usually for loading the normal caps.
I pushed it inside to have the white plastic primer nearer to the detonator pin.

With some disposable ones that worked, with some not because the plastic already sits deep enough.

Its not totally easy to push them inside, a little efford is needed but no great deal. Holding the cartridge in one hand, the stick in the other and then giving it a little but strongly push.

My english skills are somehow confused what you mean exactly by:

[quote]"I'm "thinking aloud" now but if a push inwards by hand is enough to break the seal between plastic primer and cartridge case, if you were then able to very carefully ease the primer back until it is flush with the cartridge base, after placing a little oil in the base, then an attempt at firing it could well work."

Do you mean oiling it, then pushing the plastic in one way, then in the other?

Yes, you've read and understood my thoughts correctly.

If you can push the white primer in, enough to break the seal, oil it lightly, them push it back out again, you may get these to fire first time.

The risky part is when you push the primer back out, you'll have to use the loading tool and gently push from the front of the cartridge. This means you're moving the cap inwards until it contacts the primer, then pushing both back until the primer is back level with the base of the cartridge. Pushing too hard could make the cap ignite.

When you load a cartridge into the gun, pulling the trigger should, hopefully, strike the firing pin hard enough to push the white primer AND cap until it hits the detonator pin in the barrel.
This should strike the cap hard enough to fire it.

A little oil in each end should help everything slide freely inside the cartridge.

Forgive me BadBean, "thinking aloud" means that as I'm trying to imagine and work things out, I'm speaking as I think, or in this case, writing down my ideas and thoughts. Hopefully we can work things out together this way.
I do have a bad habit of talking too much sometimes

Well it might be helpful sharing his own thoughts with each other^^

So ill try your idea^^

Lets see how it works...

If those disposables finally work well... they are worth its price (if we can get good shots (camera) with it!

Let's hope they work for you, hopefully we might see your video too

I would be interested to see how a fired disposable cap looks once it's been ejected from the gun.
Of particular interest would be how far into the base the primer has been pushed by the gun's firing pin and how close to the bullet's tip have the internals travelled.

If you can, perhaps it would be useful to see inside a fired one, do you think you could cut one in half somehow

Your idea was brilliant!

Pushing the plstic in, oiliing, pushing again, oiling...
And it didnt detonate in my hand xD

I tried it with 5 cartridges, all of them detonated, one jam but thats another story...

Well seems like I need to order more disposable cartridges until the next shooting.

The video was a trailer to a none existing movie, set up in a post apocalypstic world.
The scene in wich the actor fires the gun is already shot, with non working disposable ones.
We were able to film 2 shots in a row.
I surely will post the link to the video here.
But it will take some time until its ready. The future of this project is very unsure. Due to the extremely cold weather we needed to cancel two shootings...

Fantastic

I'm really pleased we resolved your problem BadBean, excellent

Videos of modelguns are always welcome here, I'll certainly look forwards to seeing yours now.