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Tokyo Marui Model 19 Combat Magnum 4"


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Introduction

As a brief historical brush up to the replica, the S&W Model 19 aka Combat Magnum came into service in the late 50s and remained a staple sidearm for law enforcement around the world for decades. Even though its popularity has waned since the dawn of the Wonder Nines, many police officers both retired and still in service continue to use them as a backup weapon and has recently had a resurgence for their collectible value. Tokyo Marui first made their Model 19 replicas some time in the early 2000s where they were shortly discontinued for what I believe were licensing issues. In 2012 they reintroduced the gun together with the stainless Model 66 variant, fully licensed and both sporting the upgrades that their Colt Python had previously undergone mostly with the hop up. It is a gas operated, non blowback, double action/single action revolver holding 24 bbs with a fixed hop up. They are available in three barrel lengths (2.5", 4", and 6") each with different grips for both finishes.

 

Inside the box

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First Impression

The first thing you'll notice in picking up this replica, other than the beautiful velvet lined box is how light it is. It tips the scale at 550g but as most of the weight is in the grip it feels a lot lighter than it is. Many will see this as a big turn off as revolvers usually have the impression of something large and clunky, but the Model 19 is a very slim gun, almost sexy even so the light weight sort of fits the character. It's designed as service .357 magnum after all and not something to take down large, dangerous game. While light, it is solidly built with no creaking parts or the slightest bit of flex on the barrel. One particular thing to note is that in direct sunlight it has somewhat of a greenish tinge, like parkerized 1911s but not. I don't know if it's just the high gloss reflecting against the trees around, but in the shade, indoors or when it's cloudy it starts to take on the deep black gloss as they appear in photographs.

 

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Technical Information

It is a replica of early production Model 19s with a non pinned barrel and square butt. The cylinder is faithfully replicated to lock in two places: in front of the ejector rod and at the back of the cylinder. This however makes it rather stiff to close the cylinder, requiring practice and is advised that you push against the cylinder arm when you do. Mostly made of ABS plastic, the metal parts include the trigger and hammer assemblies, cylinder swing arm, cylinder ratchet, bolt, hand, locking latches, ejector rod, and rear sight assembly.

 

As mentioned earlier it takes 24 rounds. The cartridges at the back are non removable where each chamber, loaded from the front holds 4 bbs. Upon firing, the gas router on the frame pushes the dummy cartridges which both pushes the front most bb into the barrel and locks the remaining bbs behind it in place. The downside to this is that it's low powered from all the bottle necks in the gas system doing about 210-240fps using green gas and .20g bbs depending on barrel length. This also makes for a fairly stiff trigger pull in double action as your finger is doing more than just pulling the hammer and rotating the cylinder. The odd bit too is that in single action, the trigger pull is made only slightly less heavy as the gas router is only partly pushed forward. You still need to push forward the rest of the way but makes for a less jerky and more accurate motion.

 

The grip frame has a deeply serrated back strap and the replica Hogue grips fit extremely well in the hands. They are also made of ABS but with a rubberized outer layer like TMs VSR-10. It features a fixed ramp front sight with a bright red insert and fully adjustable, high blade rear sight with a white outline. A particular thing to note, and one which I only discovered after disassembling the gun is that it has a lot of metallic reinforcements inside. The hammer and trigger group sits in a metal inner frame much like Tanaka revolvers. There is a metal bar serving as a spine running from most the barrel to the frame. The gas router is a separate copper tube.

 

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Against dark targets the red insert and white outline pops out. On light targets the white outline disappears leaving a crisp front post.

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Performance

To be honest it was sort of malfunctioning when I got it. I pumped it full of propane only to find out that the slightly higher pressure (and temperature), combined with a relatively soft valve o-ring had made double action inoperable. Only the slightly increased inertia of single action could fully open the valve and make it shoot normally. I then switched to commercial green gas, some 15psi lower and it worked perfectly fine afterwards. It chronos at an average of 220fps but really likes .25g and .30g ammo as it's able to go up to .75J (equivalent to 280fps with .20g bbs) which makes hits more effectively felt despite the slow velocity. The hop is only tuned to .20-.25g though making bbs fly flat a good 20m before dipping. On .30g they start to go down after 15m, but I was still able to make good clean kills up to 20m with only a little bit of hold over.

For accuracy testing I shot benched groups at 10m. I was also using .30g bbs and green gas. On single action it sent 6-shot strings consistently into a 3" circle with the best group measuring 2". Point of impact is right around the center of the red insert of the front sight making it behave like a red dot of sorts. On double action, because of the jerky motion of pushing bbs out of the cylinder's bb packings, the groups veer slightly to the right (left if you're shooting left handed) just about at the edge of the front sight. Best groups are also slightly enlarged to 3". I didn't do a formal test on gas capacity, but from paced single action shooting to more rapid double action and even a few rounds of fast, standing shots it was doing over 50 full powered rounds all in one fill. It still has gas left, but I stopped to bother counting as that's well over the amount I'd be bothered to reload mid game. I'll make a proper test in the future though and put it in here along with whatever development may arise.

 

Width comparison against a KJW P226

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Length comparison against... a S&W .500

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Conclusion

Despite the low velocity and light weight, I couldn't recommend this revolver any higher. If the weight issue bothers you that much you could swap out the internal weights with lead and there are a few crevices left still to cram in even more material to weigh it down. For power, as said above using heavy bbs takes good advantage of Joule creep putting it at par with most full sized TM GBBs. You also have the option of using power up shells which replace the 24-shot system with removable individual cartridges that both increases weight and muzzle output having gotten rid of the gas bottle necks. It costs around mid range, looks pretty damn good, shoots straight and plenty reliable with the amount of plastic it can dish out. It's also perfectly sized, right in the Goldilocks zone I'd say. Scoring high points in skirmish practicality, it come out well deserving of the Combat Magnum moniker and the Tokyo Marui brand name.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thought I'd update this as having had this for over a week I've discovered some interesting things.

Firstly, the cylinder latches have smoothed out after applying a bit of grease on them. It will now close easily with pressure anywhere from the ejector rod to the back of the cylinder, but out of habit I still push it at the crane where it's the smoothest. Also, by smearing a small amount of silicone oil on the chamber packings, the bb and the plunger that pushes it move much more smoothly making for a lot less jerking motion even on double action.

 

You can see one of the four probes on the top most chamber which pushes the forward most bb into the barrel. Just a thin film of oil here makes everything run smoother.

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Lastly, and most importantly, I've found a way to make double action more reliable even when using the slightly higher pressurized propane. As I don't have the right size replacement o-ring in harder durometer (which I'm sure will also work in addressing the issue) I started looking at the hammer spring. It's 1.18mm thick and plenty stiff having a small radius, but I found that it only sits by a hair's width of pre tension on the hammer. That is to say, it's practically untensioned on the hammer when uncocked. I didn't want to replace the hammer spring entirely so what I did instead was bend the spring's arms in by about 10 degrees to increase the pre loaded tension. Unlike putting in a harder spring altogether, it doesn't greatly increase the overall strain on the hammer and the rest of the internals, just increase it a bit from the start. Suffice to say the results were dramatic. Not only is double action fully operational, it also shoots at just about the same fps as in single action whereas before it does some 10-15fps lower due to the slightly shorter displacement/momentum. The overall muzzle velocity also increased a little bit from 240fps originally to 250fps but I personally like to use .25g giving me a slight increase in net energy at .67J at 240fps while still having a good flat trajectory unlike on .30g.

One thing to note however is to make sure that the o-rings on the gas router's ends are aligned properly. Opening the side plate and getting at the internals can nudge them out of alignment and the recess where they go in are very shallow making it easy to become misaligned without noticing. After reassembling the gun for routine inspection I noticed a good 30fps drop and a significant amount of blowby coming out of the hammer despite being seemingly assembled correctly. It was only after close inspection that I found out that the o-rings were indeed slightly out of place and were corrected easily under good light.

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Good review,

 

I can never really make my mind up on these. I like revolvers, but as I used to shoot RS (when the nanny state still allowed us....) I really struggle to get on with anything light weight. I think I would have to actually handle one before buying. How is the pawl on TM revolvers? Seems a weak point on many rep revolvers unfortunately.

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Maybe fill the voids in the grip with wax/clay and recast it in lead? At a guess that's a good 200g extra you can squeeze in, but even at a theoretical 750g that's still very light for a revolver. I know what you mean about wanting the solid, reassuring feel of a revolver, but that can only come through a heavyweight Marushin I'm afraid which go upwards of 1kg. I just wish TM did heavyweight abs.

The pawl or at least the protrusion that interfaces with the ratchet takes little abuse as it takes very little pressure to turn the cylinder. Most of the tension goes to the bb loading mechanism which is transfered by the top most part of the pawl pushing straight up and the tension of the hammer.

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###### me off, five seconds after a new GBB comes out there's MBK available, so why not for revolvers?

I'd guess no blowback (in theory) reduces demand for metal kits, people tend to like metal GBB pistols because they think the slide will crack if it's plastic and they use green gas/propane.

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Only Marushin makes L frames and been meaning to get their Model 586 for some time now. They're heavy enough on their own, but sport an obscure custom grip from the 80s (can't remember the exact name of the real thing) and no hop up like their SAA though easy enough to bodge one in.

Edited by renegadecow
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So I was in the mood for some monkeying around and took apart the cylinder assembly because science. I don't have Angs or Carom power up shells, but Win Gun shells seem to fit as well as real .38 special casings which would also mean real .357 magnum casings will too.

 

Cylinder taken apart. And revolvers are supposed to be simpler than automatics.

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Win Gun left (power down insert removed), .38 special middle, and original Marui at right

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The only problem was that the Win Gun cartridge was too long by about 1mm blocking the way of the gas router so it can't be fired at all while loaded. You can also use real .38/357 casings by drilling out the primer pocket and fabricating custom bb holding bullets for them. I wasn't in the mood to go modifying anything (if you do you just have to trim the top of the Win Gun case, not the slug) or mess with making new slugs so I just put everything back together and got one of my Marushin SAA cartridges and put it between the barrel and gas router like so to chrono.

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The result was 250fps using .30g bbs. That's .87 Joules or roughly 300fps with .20g. By doing a proper mod providing a better gas seal at the cylinder gap I imagine it could even go a little higher. Not too shabby for a 4" barrel though for the interest of simply upping the power you could drill out the back of the original 24 shot cartridges to allow more gas through and load single bbs only per chamber as there's a good chance it would ruin the whole hicap system. But reloads would be a chore without the convenience of cartridges in a speed loader plus using them also adds some more weight to the gun by around 15-17g more per cartridge.

Edited by renegadecow
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Very good info RC. The Carom kit can be hard to get, so modified wingun shells might be cheaper and easier to get a hold of. I have wanted to get one of these for a long time. Already have upgrade barrel+valve and a rail mount. Now I just need some money. Please keep on updating if any news RC . :)

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They're made by Carom Shot and Angs. Meant to replace the 24 shot system with something the likes of Marushins's X-Cartridge. 1 bb per cartridge and no fiddly bits to block gas so fps goes up. They're made of thick brass so add some heft to the gun. Not really easy to find, I think I saw them last at DenTrinity or Rakuten. At any rate, you can find other cartridges that might fit too like Win Gun power down shells. The regular shells also work but aren't as heavy. Power down shells are brass and all you have to do is punch out the restrictor at the back and file the case as mentioned earlier. Marushin .38/357 cartridges might fit too.

Edited by renegadecow
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  • 2 weeks later...

Did a proper capacity test today as promised. At first I wasn't thinking much of procedure and did mor than a few rapid fire shots which resulted in the gun going dry only after around 40 or so shots. Doing a proper test, gun filled with Guarder green gas, .25g JER bbs at a cozy 25°C and minimum 3 second pause between shots it did a respectable 72 full power shots or three reloads worth of the cylinder. The power started to go down after the 74th and was empty on the 78th. I noticed the gun had a rather steep cool down, unsure if caused by my modifying the hammer spring for better consistency though it probably does even if just by a bit as my output is slightly higher than normal. With that in mind I gave the gun a good 3-5 minute pause between 24 shot reloads to allow it to warm up a bit. For those not content with that capacity, I've observed part of the gas tank to be modifyable as I did with my two Marushin SAAs.

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The fill valve itself is fairly short, but the part it screws into, M19-68 has an extension that acts as a liquid fill limiter. By cutting it down to the base it would allow more liquid to be injected into the reservoir which ultimately increases shot capacity. However, this means that filling the gun to the brim with gas will have some liquid come out the first one or two shots. I haven't done it on my Model 19, but on my SAAs (which aren't the most gas efficient of guns) they gave me a good 10-12 more effective shots. With TMs efficiency I'd estimate that to be more like an added 18-24.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Because I clearly have too much time on my hands, I happened upon another way to improve on fps although this time it's by accident. I was cleaning the barrel when I unknowingly unseated the hop rubber by using a cleaning patch a little too thick which resulted in a good 20fps drop. I managed to correct it by prodding it with the cleaning rod and thought how loose the hop rubber must be to have done it so easily. I took apart the hop chamber to investigate only to find what appears to be a deliberate air leakleak on TM's part. The hop rubber is exactly as long as the barrel window itself and on the hop chamber there's a step providing a gap over the hop rubber even though the hop rubber sits flush against the inner barrel. The result of this combination causes significant blow-by out the cylinder gap. I hurriedly fashioned an anti blow-by ring, although admittedly not the best I could make but just wanted to test it as best I could for the moment. The results were:

 

Propane, .30g bb, single action

-242fps or .81J

 

Green gas, .30g bb, single action

-233fps or .76J

 

Green gas, .30g bb, double action

-222fps or .69J

 

Green gas, .20g bb, single action

-266fps or .65J

 

And when I tried using a Marushin SAA cartridge again I got:

Propane, .30g bb, single action

-255fps or .91J

 

The last figure was most promising of all as that equates to 312fps on .20g. Also mind that those numbers taken with propane are from a nearly depleted can. I'm only able to inject vapor in those cases so may be even higher with a proper fill. I'll be testing this further in the next couple days when I make a better fitting anti blow-by ring as well as see if it's affected hop too much with added material directly bracing against the hop rubber whereas before it was loosely fitted. In any event, it may provide more adequate hop for .30g bbs but can't tell right now being dark out.

Edited by renegadecow
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Only Marushin makes L frames and been meaning to get their Model 586 for some time now. They're heavy enough on their own, but sport an obscure custom grip from the 80s (can't remember the exact name of the real thing).

 

 

If I remember right they would be Davis Windjammer PPC Grips.

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Ugh. So much for that endeavor. I hypothesized that the anti blow-by ring would increase hop and I was right, unfortunately so to unusable levels. I got the fps up but was sending .30g to the moon. I could fine tune the hop by removing material, but quite frankly I'm really happy with it's performance as it is so took out the accursed ring. Maybe later on I'll revisit this should I get a 6" model 19/66 and try to make an open class PPC out of it, Aristocrat sight rib and all. But at least the information is there for whoever else might find it interesting.

Edited by renegadecow
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