Modelguns

Modelguns are Japanese replica or toy guns, which are usually made of zinc-alloy or plastic materials. Most modelguns are designed to highly replicate the physical outlook (some bear the authentic markings too) and in full scale of the real gun counterpart. Many are even made to highly replicate the internal mechanisms so that they are able to strip-down exactly like the real guns and operate exactly like the real ones using a tiny bit of gunpowder (the cap) to produce firing sound, spark and the cycle operation, but strictly not able to shoot any projectile. There are very strict gun control laws in Japan to restrain the mechanisms and material of modelguns so that modelguns appeared in the Japanese market are safe and cannot be converted into something that can fire any live cartridge or projectile. Their highly resemblance to the real guns and complete safeness make them very attractive to many gun enthusiasts especially in those countries with very strict real gun control. On the other hand, even the airsoft guns look very close to the real guns, their internal design are very different from the respective real ones. Therefore airsoft is generally not regarded as modelgun.

History

Modelguns were developed after the Second World War due to tight restrictions on firearm ownership by civilians in Japan. As a result, toy guns became popular to many Japanese gun enthusiast. The early toy guns were imported cap guns (mainly Mattel and Hubley) from the United States in the late 1950s. They were fairly crude approximations of actual firearms and with very few operational features. Strictly speaking they are not classified as modelguns as their design / markings and even size are very different from the real counterparts. Some Japanese companies importing the cap guns started some modifications locally to make them more realistic and attractive. These cap guns were eventually replaced with more realistic Japanese indigenous designed and elegantly produced modelguns.

The first Japanese designed modelguns were released to market in 1962. At nearly the same time in 1962, MGC (ModelGuns Corporation) produced the Walther VP-2 and Hudson Industry produced the Mauser 1896. In the next few years, MGC wholesale its modelgun products to other re-seller companies and sold under individual brand name. In 1965, MGC started to sell its products in its own shop ‘MGC Bondshop”. Meanwhile other companies notably Nakata, Tokyo CMC and Kokusai stopped buying from MGC and started their own design and production of modelguns. The modelgun business boom continued till the first major change in the law in 1971 to regulate the products. These early produced modelguns which were made with full metal are now sought-after collectibles.

The Japanese modelgun/airsoft inventor Tanio Kobayashi (小林太三) is considered by many Japanese to be the "father" of the modelgun, He joined MGC as chief engineer in 1961. Kobayashi's innovative internal modelgun design (known as Tanio action which makes the slide move when the trigger is pulled) in MGC Walther VP-2 completely revolutionized the simple cap gun design and led to the modern version of the modelgun. He also led MGC to innovate the cap blowback system and the development of safe plastic cap exclusively for modelgun.

Regulations

The various Japanese modelgun laws can be quite confusing, as the initial modelguns were made with full metal and fairly unregulated. Some models were very close to real firearms both appearance and functionally.

In 1965, the Japanese government began regulating the replica firearms industry. Changes included requiring that the barrels have internal blocks to prevent the firing of projectiles.

The model also needed to have a crown mark stamp on the body to distinguish it from real guns.

The Firearms and Swords law revision in 1971 introduced more safety changes. It requires all metal model handguns released thereafter have to be made with soft metal alloy and painted in white or yellow color. Since then, all metal model handguns produced were either painted in gold color or gold plated and ABS plastic modelguns which can still be produced in black color started to get into the market.

In 1975, most modelguns makers agreed to stamp on a "SM" mark (Safe Model) on the modelgun frame for identification purposes.

The second law revision in 1977 is even stricter. It prohibited the use of hard metal other than zinc alloy in main parts of modelguns. The barrel and frame of metal model handguns must not be separable to prevent the interchange of the barrel. Super hard steel is also needed to insert in the barrel of metal model handguns to prevent modification of structure. Front of cylinder chamber of revolvers must be blocked. The SMG (Safe Metal Gun) mark replaced the SM mark on the metal models to identify the models meeting the new regulation. SPG (Safe Plastic Gun) mark also started to appear on the plastic models thereafter. This new regulation prohibits further production of full metal modelgun with separable barrel and slide. However, the new law also stimulated the production of more ABS plastic modelguns by various manufacturers. The improved cap blowback performance on these plastic model make it even more interesting and popular.

Types

Modelguns can be found in many configurations and types. These range from small pistols/revolvers to rifles, shotguns, assault rifles and sub-machinegun, machineguns models. Among these, handgun models were and are still more popular in Japan. The modelguns frame are made with materials either in all-metal or plastic. The metal version is mainly made with zinc alloy. For plastic version, it may be made with ABS or Heavy Weight (HW) plastics. Most of the ABS plastic models are black in color but some are chrome or Nickel plated to replicate the stainless steel counterparts. The Heavy Weight plastic is the ABS resin mixed with some fine metal (usually zinc or iron) powder so that it weighs heavier and looks less plastic. In 1992, MGC released 'Super Real Heavy Weight' or SRH models which were a lot heavier than the normal HW plastic and so look and feel even more realistic. It contained high component ratio of metallic (iron) powder such that it can be attracted to a magnet. Since the SRH material is more brittle, the MGC SRH models were only made for some revolvers and a few dummy semi-auto handguns but sadly the production only last for a short period of several months. However, the idea of SRH came back after more than 10 years, Kokusai released “Mega Heavy Weight” version and Marushin also released “Giga Maxi Weight” version for their products.

Modelguns are available in display-only (or dummy version) and cap-firing versions. Most dummy versions still highly replicate the appearance and internal mechanism of real counterparts with all moving parts work such that chamber / cycling dummy shells and field striping like real ones. The cap-firing modelguns besides highly replicate the appearance and internal mechanism as real guns like the dummy version, they are also able to “fire” the cartridge to produce spark, smoke, bang sound and slide cycling action on some automatic models.

Cartridges

The modelguns cannot use any live or blank cartridges. Instead, these modelguns use special designed cartridges dedicated to each model. The design of cartridges changed along with the cap technology. The early modelgun cartridges were often extremely simple in construction, typically just one piece machined brass "tube" closed at one end with a machined extractor groove. It is known as open cartridge which uses paper caps and does not look like a real cartridge at all. The newer type of cartridges which use the plastic caps have size and shape similar to real cartridges but are made with machined brass multi-piece consisting of a simulated primer, base, piston, O-rings and the "bullet". A small flexible plastic cap that has a phosphorus composition filler is plugged into the cartridge. The "firing" of the cap inside the modelgun cartridge produces the visual effect of sparks/smoke, audible effect of bang sound and blowback action of some automatic models. After firing, these special designed cartridges can be reusable upon cleaning and refilling the cap. However different manufacturers have their own cartridge design as well as the parts count/description. Cartridges are in general not compatible among different manufacturers or different models.

MGC developed different cartridges at different times. In early days, the cartridge is open end and is called MG-Blowback. In early 80s, it developed CP-Blowback cartridge which is screwed separable and the cap is plugged inside. The design provides more blowback force. Later it further enhances the design with additional o-ring added to seal the exploded gas inside the cartridge and is called CP-HW, especially for the Heavy Weight models. Marushin also develop its own design in 1980 and it is called Plug Fire Cartridge. Later it is enhanced to New Plug Fire Cartridge which has detachable striking pin. Hudson also has the early Open System and later New Piston Fire Cartridges for the blowback. For revolvers, the cap is plugged at the front tip of the cartridge for MGC, Marui and Kokusai (early models) design. However, the cap is plugged inside the cartridge for KSC, Marushin and newer Kokusai design revolvers. The recent models of Tanaka and HWS even make their cartridge’s “bullet” portion screw separable and in silver color so that they look very close to real cartridge.

Caps

In the early days of modelguns, the caps were quite similar to the paper roll caps that were common in the United States. However, the Japanese paper caps were "printed" on flat sheets of red paper. But paper caps had safety problem. Paper caps also had problems such as clogging of the burning residue of the baseboard and high corrosive of the gunpowder itself,

In 1979, a Japanese gunpowder manufacturer Kaneko developed plastic bodied cap exclusively for modelgun in collaboration with MGC (MGC named it as M.G. Cap). With the gunpowder contained in a small plastic cup, the cap is safer to handle and easier to load. The gunpowder used is less corrosive and less residue after burning. The plastic bodied cap also enhances the blowback performance as the cap acts as a seal inside the cartridge to maintain the exploded pressure. The caps are standardized to be either 7mm or 5mm in diameter for normal size and compact size cartridge, These Kaneko produced modelgun caps eventually became universal and adopted by all modelgun manufacturers. Marushin named it as “Plug Fire Cap”. The most common type is marked as “Automatic” which uses gunpowder with lower burning speed to enhance the blowback operation for automatic models. A variant is called Kanecap of Real Flame Cap which contains a metallic content that sparks brightly as well as smoke when the cap ignites to enhance the firing effect.

Manufacturers

The MGC and Hudson Industry are the 2 most famous modelgun makers which first produced the original Japanese designed modelguns in 1962 and subsequently produced many different models in next few decades. Unfortunately, both of them were gone.

MGC went bankrupt in 1994. Most of the molds and production was taken over by Taito and Shin Nippon Mokei. The modelgun production was continued and trading as New MGC until second closing down in 2007.

In December 2009, Hudson Industry closed down and ceased all modelgun production.

Other early key makers are Tokyo CMC, Nakata and Kokusai which started modelgun production in mid 60s. Nakata and Tokyo CMC ceased modelgun business respectively in late 70s and 1985. Kokusai suffered factory fire in early 90s but still survived to continue modelgun production even after the Company taken over. However, Its modelgun production finally closed down in January 2018.

There were some other smaller makers around 70s-80s like Malugo, Matsushiro and Suzuki but they only produced just a very few models..

Before the closing down of the aforesaid manufacturers, it is fortunate that some or all of their molds and manufacturing equipment were sold to other modelgun manufacturers.

Western Arms once produced a few modelgun models in 70s-80s. Tokyo Marui also produced some plastic modelgun kits in 90s-2000s. Both Western Arms and Marui make airsoft only now,

The current modelgun manufacturers in Japan are Marushin, Tanaka, HWS (Hartford Work Shop), KSC, CAW (Craft Apple Works), Tanio Koba and Shoei. Among them, Marushin and HWS also offer modelgun kits for sale.

There are 2 other companies producing modelguns outside Japan. HwaSan (or Hawsan) (a Taiwanese Company) is the only company which produces some cap firing capable modelguns outside Japan. HwaSan is famous with cap firing full metal semi-automatic handguns and in black or silver color which are not allowed in Japan. It also produces one time use disposable cartridges with pre-installed cap. Denix (a Spanish Company) produces small amount of dummy display only full metal modelguns which are generally ignored by most modelgun collectors.