Marushin 8mm Garand gas blowback : Good or bad ?

Hi Guys

I have been bidding on one of these for a while on a UK forum guy wants £330 .

Been looking for a px deal .

The model looks good and I,m intrigued because it is new to me . I know little about this rifle .

Could anyone advise me if these are a good buy ?

Carl.

Managed to track down a few online reviews plus You tube vids .

Still unclear if this is real wood or that fake stuff - don,t mind the fake as it can be quite realistic but at the price would imagine should be real ?

Full metal construction should make it a really good and solid model . The vendor is not easy to get info out of , and I have struggled to get a response ?? It would have been a nice Xmas gift for me too !!

Apparantly it has good power from the 8mm rds esp on RED gas :

( never seen this stuff in the UK - must have near mythical status in UK airsoft circles )

Last round ejects the magazine with a PING , and locks back the bolt - just like the real Garand - how cool is that ?

I hope they are robust enough to take repeated drops on the ground ? Most of my airsoft gas mags would NOT respond well to that type of treatment !!

Carl.

Hiya Phobus,

The last video I saw on youtube pointed out that the clip that gets slung out after the last round's fired is made of plastic not metal.
They made the point that treading on it wouldn't be a good idea

I'll try finding the link for you mate

Here you go Phobus...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWMM5M98fWU

and another

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE12jF2jjtE

Marushin have sold a limited edition Walnut stock version of the Garand too.

RedWolf's advert here has some good information plus photos. Note their warning not to use anything more powerful than H134 GAS ...

Thanks Cerwyn

Still no reply from the vendor . Maybe he,s stuck in the Tesco,s car park ?

A bit worrying how he was v specific that these were ok with Hi power gas when apparantly they are not ?

Strange also how a full metal gas gun is restricted to duster gas ?

The vendor does not seem keen to sell , so perhaps I will never know .....

Ah well , some you win .....

Carl.

Can't give you first hand experiences, but I have heard on our airsoft board from several members, that this thing is a real diva.
The mechanism jams pretty often and it seems to rely a lot on the right temperature to work flawlessly.

It certainly has a real wood stock, though I'm not sure, how much that means, having had the Marushin M1 Carbine Airsoft with it's extremely flimsy, thin real wood stock. Their 98K is better, but still far from massive or rigid.
Cerwyn is right, the Garands came with plastic clips. There were aftermarket metal ones though, I think.

As to the question about the gas: Guns that have a blowback mechanism need serious tuning to make them ready for strong gases. The parts that blow back inside the gun have similar issues to modelguns. They're often made of cheap metal (that's why the Inokatsu M4 GBB for example is extremely expensive, everything in there is made of steel. That's not the case in Marushin guns) and have to take the strain from blowing backwards, being stopped by a spring and slamming back forward, so especially japanese Guns are only safe with 134a gas.

Thanks Pydracor ,

Appreciate the advice there .

I am still not so clear how on Cerwyn,s first video on youtube , this 8mm gun was registering 415 fps ???

That is a LOT of power for a gun on low power gas ?

I would not like to get hit with an 8mm moving at that speed - would ruin your day I,m sure !!

I can only surmise that this rifle was using green or higher power stuff to get this sort of reading ??

In standard form - how could that be , given your comments above ?

Carl.

Well, just because you're not advised to use green gas in a Marushin gun doesn't mean, that the gun explodes in your hands right away when you still do it I can't explain that myself, but some japanese GBB guns survive the use of green gas without any problems, while others (of the same series) break after just a few shots.
It probably can be compared to modelguns again: Not every Hudson PPSh41 will fall apart when you fire it, still Cerwyn's has...
I have several Marushin guns and I would use green gas only in the nonblowback ones. While the GBBs might survive it, I don't want to risk it.

I'm pretty sure, that they used green gas to reach 415 fps. I had my Marushin M1887 Guard's gun officially measured to 455 fps with 0.34g BBs using green gas and that's a nonblowback gun, so no gas gets "lost" to operate the mechanism. I'm no expert but I highly doubt, that a load of 134a gas can blow the bolt back AND propel such a heavy BB to 415 fps.

As far as I'm concerned, I think, that Marushin guns are not made for actual airsoft games. They're collector's pieces, which especially shows in the wide range of shell ejecting guns in their product line (compared to other manufacturers). Many Marushin guns have technical issues and most of them have a far too high power with their 8mm BBs to be used in games. Additionally, it's proven, that the aerodynamical properties of 8mm BBs are worse than those of 6mm BBs, so even though the BB is heavier and thus has a more steady "flight", it won't go as far as 6mm BBs.

There's a guy here in Germany who has converted an M1 Garand to external air source. The downside is of course, that you have a tube coming out of the magazin going to a tank in your backback or somewhere else. The upsides are, that you can use High Pressure Air, which is more or less temperature independent, that you have a much better, more consistent amount of gas/air coming out of the valve and that you can set the regulator exactly to the pressure at which the gun works best.
Should you be interested in something like that, I could try to find and contact him.

Thanks Pydracor ,

Yep not too keen on nasty HPA cables trailing from my guns but each to their own I guess .

Realism is everything to me , heck thats why I am a member / collector on here .

I agree about the gasses used in the Garand . I reckon they used hot gas for thr review to impress the punters - like me !!

I would use green in my KSC G18 all the time , and THAT was fun fun fun !! ......until it decided to jettison the slide across the room in a shower of plastic and metal anyway

The videos have only made me want one even more but alas , my contact has decided he does not want to talk to me so I will have to console myself with my other models .

No matter I just bought the most beautiful airsoft GBB I have EVER seen . It is a one off KSC full metal fish - scale slide with Carom real wood grips . It is a replica of the Smith and Wesson 945 .45 acp full race pistol .

Will post some pics and a mini review next few days .

CARL. :afro:

OK some brainstorming from me regarding this M1 Garand...

1) Clips made with Magnesium had been released before (don't know if it's still available now) but it seems the performance isn't so impressive and that's why not too many comments about it...

2) I reckon walnut stock was a norm for modelguns before early 90s but when Japan's economy started to go downhill the makers start to reduce production cost while squeezing out as many variants on a same model as much as possible in order to cash-in...that's why there're the standard version/walnut stock version/etc...it's more significant on their recent release PPK - ABS slide with HW frame dummy version/full HW firing version/"Lost Stainless Silver" version/"Deluxe" version (i.e. with spare barrel for the extra silencer and spare mag with flat magazine floorplate);

3) Basically it's OK to use RED gas (16kg - while 134a = 8kg & "Top Gas" = 12kg) for several shots - just like you can use a S&W M36 snubby for the .38 Spl +P with 148gm lead jacket hollow point...only it won't survive for too long...

4) The factory M1 Garand will definitely not too powerful because of Japan's 0.98 Joule power restriction - some holes were drilled somewhere inside the mechanism to release some of the gas therefore reducing its power...

5) For recent Marushin's blowback longarms (i.e. MP40/M1) the 134a can only perform well in std room temp (25C) - we in HK once it gets cold we'll charge half of 134a & Top Gas each in order to have smoother blowback (otherwise 134a alone won't be adequate)...

6) Pydracor's correct - Marushin guns are strictly collector's item (apart from non-blowback series) and due to the nature of the 8mm BB pellets the Japanese authorities allow the maximum power for it as 1.96 Joules (doubled) to compensate its limits...

So that's about it at the moment...will add more once it comes to my head...

Thanks Jim

Appreciate the information .

The Garand is a great looking model and I really like it . Maybe even more so if it used cartridges !!

Would have been nice to see the carts flying out the ejection port prior to the clip !!

The mere mention of the word " cartridges " seems to upset airsofters !! These are not good for skirmishing of course , but to us who care more for realism it is the opposite !!

Carl.

Earlier in the year Marushin planned to release some shell-ejecting "hybrid" guns - using both the caps and the gas for the flame and the BB pellets (and the realism - needed under these economic woe in order to boost sales)...but after some "strong recommendations" from the STGA (one of the the toy gun self-governing bodies in Japan in which Marushin belongs to) the plan had dropped...

At first I was excited to see that all M1 Garand/M1 Carbine as well as other pistols were all on the list...even though I cannot use caps I'm still happy to get at least one of these...

Another option could be Hudson's dummy cartridge Garand If it's realism first and foremost your after, but this doesn't simulate firing so although you can load it with a full clip of realistic rounds, all the cycling is done by hand.

Mind you, this was never an inexpensive model and with Hudson's demise it'll get even more collectable and expensive I suppose