Tanaka M29 .44 Magnum Review

The "Western Arms" of Revolvers... The Tanaka revolvers work on the PEGASUS system (Progress, Effective Gas Universal System). Basically, this is just a catchy acronym to explain the unique mechanism Tanaka has created. Instead of storing gas inside the handle, gas is stored in the cylinder. (A)

The hammer hits a strike pin which will depress the valve (B) releasing gas to fire a bb. Because the BB sits right in front of the release, (and because it is a non-blowback) the Tanaka revolvers kick out plenty of power. As a matter of fact, Tanaka revolvers will put out more power than any GBB on the market with similar inner barrel length.

The cylinder also holds 14 bb's that are loaded from the front. Included is a "speed-loader" (more like a slow-loader) that I dont particularly find useful.

Its kind of difficult to describe clearly the loading process, but basically you first hand load 5 shots in each individual slot. The empty slot remaining has to be aligned with an opening that holds the remaining 9 shots.

You can try use the loading tool, but it is quite awkward to line up since its a bit thick to have perfectly vertical to the opening. If you load at an angle, you will end up spilling bb's all over the floor. My suggestion is to either use a thinner loading tube that will line up straight, or just hand load the remaining 9 shots.

You cannot charge the cylinder without an adaptor. As you can see, the first picture shows the can sitting at an angle.

Try it like this, half the gas will end up freezing your hand, not to mention a good chance to damage the fill valve. Tanaka includes the adaptor which will enable the can to align well with the cylinder.

However, I found the adaptor to be quite longer than really neccessary.

Instead, I chose to use my Digicon Target gas adaptor. Not only is it the perfect size, but the tip is hard plastic which means no chance to damage the fill valve.

Since the gas is stored in the cylinder, the grip is empty. This means you can swap the factory grips to real steel ones without having to do any modifications. This is a really good thing because the original grips may look OK, but they feel just like the ones found on a $5.00 cap gun revolver... Ugh!

A fitted Hogue 'Monogrip'

Performance So how is the performance? Tanaka revolvers tend to be inconsistent in accuracy. I believed at first this had something to do with the PEGASUS cylinder not being stable and off center to the bb. Not at all true. As a matter of fact, the cylinder will hardly move at all. The whole gun is rock solid, nothing will rattle no matter how hard you shake the gun.

I also thought the problem had something to do with the hop-up notch being poorly cut. Also not true. The hop-up notch is very thick, nicely trimmed and sits very tightly in the barrel. So what is it?

Its the inner barrel, and how it is secured inside the outer barrel. The inner barrel can twist, not very easily, but it can. What this means is if the barrel twists to one side more than the other, so will the hop-up, hence, "hooking" shots.

You can remedy this in two ways:

First, you can stuff a cleaning rod with a little bit extra cloth to grab the inner barrel tightly. When in place, twist carefully in the direction you want the hop-up to align. You can somewhat eyeball the hop-up alignment simply by looking into the barrel from the front when the cylinder is open. If you prefer a more stable/permanent solution, simply remove the inner barrel and either add a mild adhesive or wrap the inner barrel with a bit of teflon tape.

After doing this and a few guess and checks, my shot consisteny is dead on accurate. No more hooking at all, the shots go right where I want them to. This simple fix-it saved me from buying an aftermarket inner barrel that I probably didnt need.

Miscellaneous Compared to any revolver I have ever sampled, including the real steel M29, the trigger and hammer movement is by far the smoothest I have ever used. However, one problem I encounter with this revolver is misfeeding if rapid fired. I havent found a remedy for this other than to manually cock the hammer every time I shoot. This doesnt really bother me at all because I actually prefer to do so since the function is so crisp. Besides, I only have 14 shots so I might as well take my time...

Most of the weight comes from the cylinder, which gives the gun a very nice center balance. Aiming and shooting the .44 magnum is very comfortable, more so since I put on a Houge mono-grip.

Being a NBB, I prefer to use green gas & .30g bb's. Anything lighter will cause the shots to arc straight up into the sky. If you want to use .25g bb's, then I recommended to stick with 134a gas. 415 FPS with green gas & .30g bb's is no joke. I used both a laser and light chronometer to get these results on may different occasions. Gas consumption is aproximately 45-50 shots.

Final thought:

The combination of high power, good consistency, excellent durability, and comfort has quickly made this gun my personal favorite. As a matter of fact, I even use it as my PRIMARY weapon from time to time. Since quite a few players have no idea of this guns capability, it makes for a very interesting game ^_^

Appearance	3/5 (Due to the cheap grip & sticky cylinder function)
Build Quality	5/5 (minimal moving parts ensures a solid piece, and simple design enable easy full maintenance)
Performance	2.5/5 (accuracy was very poor at first, and is limited to heavyweight bb's)
Value for Money	4/5
Overall Potential	5/5 (with a bit of tinkering, and you'll have the bottom result)

After a bit of simple work:

Appearance	5/5 (Non-flute cylinder and a houge grip makes this a unique & comfortable piece. The cylinder now can easily be spun when half cocked to about 8-12 rotations on its own w/o any effort)
Build Quality	5/5 (still good)
Performance	5/5 (after fine tuning the inner barrel, adjusting the plunger springs, cranking up the leaf spring tension, and a few other bits and pieces, I got an extraordinary 415 FPS w/ .30g bb's with dead accurate shooting)
Value for Money	5/5 (springs for valve & plunger cost about $1.00, Houge grip costs about $20 and non flute cylinder was just a swap from the NATO green. I have yet to experience any problems so far) Overall potential: 5 (enough said ^_^ )
Overall Potential	5/5

by Ken/888

External Links:
http://www.smith-wesson.com/
http://www.impactguns.com/store/smith_m629.html
888's review page - full of Tanaka goodness, including fine tuning and some useful power-up tweaks!
RedWolf's Magnum 44 8inch review - As ever it's a wonderful review from RedWolf, putting the true Dirty Harry spin on it!