MGC or Marushin M16A1? (with Introduction!)

Hello there guys! Thank you very much for activating my account so quickly!


Name's Julen! I'm an international (originally from Bilbao, the Basque Country, man I miss my hometown sometimes) uni student living in the UK for many years to come (if not forever, who knows?). I've always had an interest in history and historical firearms, dabbled in airsoft for a good while and enjoy messing around with my replicas, trying to get them as close as the real thing as I could, usually involving modifications to the body of the gun or flat out replacing them with real bits.

Here's my (heavily) messed with A&K M60! Originally a second hand purchase acquired through a trade chain I did (basically got it for free), I've done a ridiculous amount of work on it not only to get it to run, but also to get it looking like the M60 it's meant to represent. Now it's a bit of a frankeinstein gun, it's got TOP, LCT and real parts on it, such as the pistol grip, the trigger assembly retaining flat spring, the rear sight, the magazine plate, and a whole lot of parts that I've modified, like the top cover (that originally was an E3 top cover), the barrel release lever, the carrying handle, refinishing the furniture for a deeper black gloss, and marking all the bits that are visible and should be marked (charging handle, trigger assembly, charging handle guide, trunnion (with Maremont markings now) and carrying handle). All in all, took upwards of a year to get everything I needed for it, but hey, I'm pretty happy with it now! May look into refinishing the whole body for a grey-er look, but for now I'll leave it as is!







There's also my ex G&P XM177E1, that I've turned into an early M16A1! Certainly not as hard to put together as the M60, but certainly a good piece of work. Put a variety of real parts on it for the sake of it being period accurate (even though it's got post 1972 A1 markings), like a pair of original handguards, modifying the front sight base as to remove the forging flash (the line in the middle, since those were machined off pre-1972), swapping the rivet that holds the front sling swivel with a rolled pin, changing the dust cover for a real one and the correct pattern, adding a real magazine release, and slapping a real D type stock on it (which is the correct pattern of stock for vietnam, not the trapdoor one, that one being the E type stock, only adopted in the end of 1971, early 72). Was a bit tricky, since I had to keep the gun front wired, I didn't want to modify the stock, but I achieved this through messing with the heatshield of one of the handguards (which are btw, beaten to crap, and the heatshield was falling off already). I manage to get the stock to tightly fit on the gun through the use of a KA full stock M16 kit, and a bit of crafting and modifying the buffer tube. Pretty happy with the results too! May look into anodizing the receivers eventually, and I got an original rear sight aperture on the way too, let's hope it all goes well!








I also enjoy fixing up old bits of gear that could have been considered too far gone. I had received a spanish M1893 Mauser bayonet that was dug out of a ditch at a local front in Spain, meaning it was used during the spanish civil war, thing was pretty rusty, but it cleaned up pretty well! Of course I didn't go crazy on it, and left most of the pitting on it, I've seen too many people make their bayonest paper thin by sanding the blade for hours, just to remove the pitting. I'd much rather leave them, as proof of where it has been, or what it could have done! Also decided to blue the blade, seeing it would not only protect it from further corrosion, but refurbed bayonets pre-war could have also been blued. This one specifically is a Simons & Co, German made bayonet for the spanish army, meaning it was made between 1893 and 1897, which is pretty neat!







I've also patched up an old M1955 flak vest, 2nd pattern, that my girlfriend gifted me for my 20th birthday! It was in pretty rough shape, webbing on the back was falling off, it had NO plates, none of the pockets to accomodate them, the lower back inside material was gone, bunch of holes everywhere, etc. Long story short, someone had shot it with a shotgun! The original plates were badly chewed up, the lower back portion was pretty much gone, and the previous ownder tried to fix the back by using material from the inside, and he also removed all the plates, to put them in another vest. It was quite a challenge to bring this thing back to life, not only because the material these jackets were made out of (a 50/50 cotton nylon twill) tends to rip remarkably easy, but also because most of it had to be done by hand, and required fairly accurate strokes, making the dumy plates and the pockets for them was also quite tricky, I studied the original patents and had some help from my buddies to get some details right. It will of course still look, as me and my buddies refer to, "rat F£^&&", but it's still usable and a perfect field beater! Could have done worse for 80 quid!

Before:











After:













These are just some examples though! I've recently been working on patching up an old ARVN pack I scored for 50 quid, and would love to work on some bayonets as well! Also refinished and refurbished a King Arms M1A1 Carbine a long while ago, was a pretty fun project !


Started with building WW2 kits, and now I'm knee deep into Nam, having a bunch of kits for it, such as M60 gunners, RTOs, riflemen, NCOs, the likes (for now I'm focusing on the 4th ID around 1967, though I'm planning on doing USMC soon, since I already got the flak jacket to do so! Just waiting for some stuff to be mailed in   ). I've been looking to join a reenactment unit for a while, but uni workload and the global pandemic going on kinda buggered up my plans to do so, would love to finally be part of one though!





I've been trying to upgrade my armory for my impressions, sure my G&P M16 looks pretty nice and could do perfectly fine, but I'd be looking for something that may look a little more convincing, and thus I started to think about plug firing rifles. Through my research I've managed to get to the pretty logical conclusion that it should either be the Marushin M16A1 (in kit version, since finances are kinda strained), or the MGC M16A1 (in used condition).



Now I'm kinda stuck between the Marushin and the MGC, I do like the durability of the metal on the Marushin guns, the weight and solidity but:

A) All the ones I find have a chromed bolt, which is something I'm trying to avoid for the sake of historical accuracy.

B) The bolt placement within the gun is odd on the marushin guns, you can clearly tell there's a bit of a gap between the top of the bolt and the top of the ejection port, which bugs me a whole lot and I feel ruins the look of the gun.

C) What's been said about reliability.

D) Most original furniture won't necessarily fit



On the other hand, the MGC has a correctly finished bolt, seems to fire well, seems like can take some real furniture parts and is easier to find (unless I'd want to go the Marushin M16A1 kit route), however the plastic build throws me off some, unsure of how solid they are in the long run, specially if I plan on using these in events (not diving on top of the rifle of course, but some good use out of it).

What would you guys think? Has anyone got experience handling both of them?

Would really appreciate the input, and I'm thankful for any replies in advance!

Have a great weekend!

Not the easiest question to answer as both the marushin and MGC have good and bad points. First off neither are made for rough treatment, the metal on the marushin is brittle so a hard knock and it will crack, the ABS is probably a bit better to stand up to knocks as the plastic can absorb some pressure without breaking. That said these models are old and plastic also becomes brittle over time.

The marushin has the better feel as its a bit heavier and more solid a feel, the MGC is obviously lighter and the barrel feels a little loose and can have a bit of a wobble when firing. The MGC is I think the more accurate copy and a much better firer although all modelguns have firing problems at some point. The Marushin is notorious for being a bad firer and needs a lot of work to get it firing well and even then can be a pain.

If you are looking at runnning around jumping around and diving for cover I am not sure either of these is what you need, there is a good chance both will break and spare parts are ery hard to find, also if you are looking at firing outside then there is a good chance of losing rounds which again are getting harder to source.

If yoe you dont intend to fire them then to be honest the airsoft are a much better choice as they are made for skirmishing so can take more punishent and are lot more accurate, dead on in most cases.
I will leave it here for now but ask question about these models and I will do my best to answer. By the way welcome to the forum and that is somne nice kit you have there.

claymore wrote:

Not the easiest question to answer as both the marushin and MGC have good and bad points. First off neither are made for rough treatment, the metal on the marushin is brittle so a hard knock and it will crack, the ABS is probably a bit better to stand up to knocks as the plastic can absorb some pressure without breaking. That said these models are old and plastic also becomes brittle over time.

The marushin has the better feel as its a bit heavier and more solid a feel, the MGC is obviously lighter and the barrel feels a little loose and can have a bit of a wobble when firing. The MGC is I think the more accurate copy and a much better firer although all modelguns have firing problems at some point. The Marushin is notorious for being a bad firer and needs a lot of work to get it firing well and even then can be a pain.

If you are looking at runnning around jumping around and diving for cover I am not sure either of these is what you need, there is a good chance both will break and spare parts are ery hard to find, also if you are looking at firing outside then there is a good chance of losing rounds which again are getting harder to source.

If yoe you dont intend to fire them then to be honest the airsoft are a much better choice as they are made for skirmishing so can take more punishent and are lot more accurate, dead on in most cases.
I will leave it here for now but ask question about these models and I will do my best to answer. By the way welcome to the forum and that is somne nice kit you have there.

Thank you so much for your feedback!

These are all pretty valid points and will definitely keep them in mind if I choose to go forward with the idea of getting one of these. My only issue with the airsoft ones are AEGs, if you know where to look, stand out like a sore thumb, specially on the "bolt", or the very bottom of the pistol grip on the motor housing. On the other hand there's the WE one, which is notorious for also having parts break, missing markings, wrong funiture, weird color, etc, and I'm not in the position to spend more than a grand on a DNA GBBR, even though I'd surely love to own one eventually!

It all seems to be lining up to the MGC one, and as far as use goes, realistically, I'm not quite planning on using them the same way I use say, my G&P (and even then I love to be quite careful, specially after spending so much time working on my guns!), since those are surely not built to the same standard. I was mostly for something that I could sling, walk around with, and shoot every now and then, strip at a post and "clean up", that kind of thing, reckon it could serve that purpose alright, or would it be pushing it? Worst case scenario it could be used for kit pics or something along those lines!

Anyhow, thank you so much again pal!

As long as you only intend to strip by taking the bolt out then you are fine, stripping it more than that is a bit of a pain. if you look at reviews on here and other articles you will see info on both models and stripping is a bit more complex due to the way this models fire rounds. The MGC is a good choice and can be improved with a bit of tweaking, i have never bothered tweaking mine to make the barrel sturdy as never needed to but i am sure some have, thats probably the main thing on the MGC wobbly barrel. its possible that some metal airsoft parts might replace upper and lower receiver, again never looked at that, might take a bit of filing but could work and i dont think the cost would be huge.

claymore wrote:

As long as you only intend to strip by taking the bolt out then you are fine, stripping it more than that is a bit of a pain. if you look at reviews on here and other articles you will see info on both models and stripping is a bit more complex due to the way this models fire rounds. The MGC is a good choice and can be improved with a bit of tweaking, i have never bothered tweaking mine to make the barrel sturdy as never needed to but i am sure some have, thats probably the main thing on the MGC wobbly barrel. its possible that some metal airsoft parts might replace upper and lower receiver, again never looked at that, might take a bit of filing but could work and i dont think the cost would be huge.

Yep! Just split the rifle, pull the bolt out, nothing much further than that! Guys didn't completely strip down their rifles in the field so that's always good. Also a thing that throws me off the Marushin a bit is the bolt itself being a little different than a real one.

To be honest that does also sound like an interesting and fun project to work on, though I'll probably have to do a whole lot of studying before I even consider getting new bits for it, but hey, may give me something to think about for a while!