Home Reviews M1 Carbine Marushin Gas Type Super Sonic Barrel U.S. M1 Carbine “MAXI”

Marushin Gas Type Super Sonic Barrel U.S. M1 Carbine “MAXI”

by Arnie

(click
for a larger image)

Marushin
Gas Type SSB
U.S. M1 Carbine “MAXI”

by
Jason Harris

(aka
Meh-Lindi)
edited by Arnie

Stock
Specifications
Model Marushin
Gas Type SSB U.S. M1 Carbine “MAXI”
FPS
1.4J
(hfc134a) 2.1J(hfc22)
Length: 905mm
Weight: ???g

Ammo
capacity:

15 BBs

MARUSHIN

DolphiN#1’s
M1 Carbine review

| Meh-Lindi’s M1 Carbine Review | Images page


An M1 carbine – in fact
Meh-Lindi’s M1 Carbine – a fine beasty of an AirSoft gun. Or to give
its full and illustrious title: The Marushin Gas Type Super Sonic Barrel
U.S. M1 Carbine “MAXI”.
S’what it says on the box – no really.

The important bits in
the box are: An M1 carbine, A magazine, and a wee allen key – which is for
adjusting the hop up.

So
why the M1?
So I was happily pootling along, with my AEG
in one hand, pistol in the other, and dragging a 90kg sled loaded down entirely
with batteries and bags of ammo behind me, and was thinking surely there’s
a better way?

Actually I was looking
around the web, and thinking about one too many films with romanticised
images of snipers in them…

No. Sorry. I must admit
the truth. Actually I was just chatting with my work colleague who sits
alongside, and we were discussing finer aspects of the Airsoft pastime,
and we agreed that it would be marvelous to have a sniper rifle of some
description, that we could share between us when we played.

Browsed internet – found
lots of info about APS’, and what you needed to do to upgrade them. Saw
a few second hand on the forums – usually the OR versions which I didn’t
think would even remotely fit in the car. Usually expensive. (which is why
I didn’t even mention M40’s M24’s etc)

Then remembered my first
‘real’ skirmish, and how in a couple of games, I was tagging along behind
a chap using entirely WW2 US equipment – including olive fatigues, sometimes
an M1A1 thomson, and sometimes an M1 carbine – and how he was picking people
off in a bridge assault.

And lo and behold, an
advert for an M1 on the forums popped into view. Being rediculously impulsive,
I put an offer in immediately.

The
Feel
When you first pick up the M1 carbine – you immediately
notice how light it is, and how nice the wood feels. Despite the full wooden
stock, it seems almost haf the weight of an average AEG.

Putting the magazine
in does bring some weight to it as, since it’s a gas powered gun, the magazine
is a gas reservoir and heavy – much like any GBB magazine.

But still, you start
to feel that you can hold this up to your shoulder for quite a while without
tiring, and taking standing shots with this is very possible, since you
don’t have to strain to keep it up – it’s not at all like holding an air-rifle
for instance.

It’s a very short gun,
and you can reach the end of the barrel with your fingers whilst holding
it in position in your shoulder.

Where
is everything?
In a right handed hold,
your left hand naturally wraps around the foreward part of the stock, and
slots into a grooved slide cocking lever. You can either use this to cock
it, or the more normal ‘bolt’ style lever nearer the action.

Left
handed, you can only easily use the bolt to cock it.
The
safety is on the right hand side of the trigger guard, which is
a small rotary affair, “down” is safe, “back”
is live.
The
magazine release is the push button in front of the safety
You
can still do this with an allen key (not my screwdriver type)
with a scope on.

Clicky?
As you start to use it, you being to realise it’s quite ‘clicky’
sounding. When you cock it for action, the bolt goes backwards and
there are three clicks

– the first is
as the slide cover spins in place
– at the second click, it will be far enough back to pick up a BB
when it returns
– at the third click its actually cocked and will fire gas

Do make sure you
get the last click – otherwise it won’t fire! You then get your reassuring
‘Phut!’ when you pull the trigger.

Hop
Up
This has variable hopup, and the adjustment
is done with the tiny 1/16th allen key through a small hole in the
wooden cover just in front of the bolt. It can be seen being adjusted
here:

Sight
So, the iron sights are good (show in the image to
the left), but I’ve never been any good with them, so I want to fit
a telescopic sight on – easy right? Well, yes and no.

There
are a good number of original real-steel M1 parts around, which almost
but don’t quite fit this gun (available from http://www.gunpartscorp.com).

So here you can
see the scope mount, the iron sight has already been removed, and
the fitting plate with a bolt through it.
The
purpose of the two sliver bits will be discussed in a moment.

In theory, where
you have taken the iron sight off, you should then take a little ‘double
figure of 8’ piece out which is what the sight screwed into with two
short screws.

To do this you
have to take the gun completely out of the stock, as the screw to
this 88 piece (that’s what it looks like two 8’s at right angles –
the part number is part 17) is underneath.

You
are then left with a big notch – which is where the sight was – and
where you should be able to slide in the sight mount’s mounting plate
– which is a little bevelled bit of metal measuring 10mm by 15mm.

Unfortunately,
although the instructions say you may need to file the plate a little
bit – the notch in the gun itself isn’t actually bevelled – so by
the time you file it to fit, it will just fall out of the notch! If
it didn’t, then you would tighten against it with the bolt pictured.

Ok, so forget
the mounting plate and bolt. Leave the 88 piece on – as well as two
small screw holes for the iron sigts, theres a slightly bigger one
in the middle which is a standard M3 thread.

So the long silver
bolt is a carefully cut M3 bolt, which with a washer holds the mount
on to the 88 piece.
There’s another problem. The curve of the two edges of the mount isn’t
the same as the curve on the top of the gun.

Photo showing
the gap between the new scope mount and the replica’s receiver

Thus you get a
gap which you may be able to see in the image to the right. What this
means is that it can wobble up and down at the front. As you can see
I’ve filed my edges down a bit which helps.

Note
the shaped piece of metal underneath the sight rail to improve
stability and fixing.

However the best
solution is just to wedge the sight. A dead helpful chap at Combat
South (Mike Brennan aka Borris the Blade) noticed my
M1 t’other day, and supplied me with a bit of shaped metal – the tiny
curved bit in the original parts picture. It’s slightly longer than
the gap between the mount and the gun, so presses, and causes a wedge
effect. That way the scope mount’s stable.

The scope mount
itself is 14mm Weaver – however, although the Tokyo Marui rings
are 14mm as well, they don’t actually come close enough to tighten
on! Whilst testing, I padded the gap (less than 1mm) to make a tight
bind. I now have a ‘proper’ set of rings, which fit this (as well
as the TM claw mount) beautifully.

Now about that
stock…

I find that the scope actually mounts a little far back for me to easily
use it without craning my neck backwards.

So I also invested in
the extended butt stock plate – which is the thin black rubber at the end
of the butt, but thicker – about 20mm thick instead of 5mm.

With the extended butt
plate, and with the mag pouch slipped on the butt, it gives me an extra
25mm of eye relief – which is about right for my combination of scope, shoulder
and eye!

Magazines
The
magazines, are gas, and take 15 BB’s, and enough gas to last for about
70 BB’s. They’re very heavy, and are 20mm thick by 50mm wide by 117mm
tall..

You can get “(real)
M1 15 round magazine butt pouches (also for belt)”
which
can either be put over the butt of the gun or on a belt but be warned
– that these are two small for the gas magazines!

I
altered mine by removing the strip that the button was attached to,
folding it and re-sewing it on to the pouch, to give an extra inch
of room. They’re still tight to close, and aren’t easy to put on the
butt at all – fine for attaching to my belt though!

The M1’s magazines
are going to be too wide to fit in many pistol magazine pouches which
expect mags of about 35mm x 25mm I would think – so think carefully
about where you’re going to store them – that’s why I got the pouches,
and then persevered with sewing the necessary adjustment.

Power
On hfc134a gas, the gun fires at about 1.4J, e.g. 265fps @ 0.43g,
315fps @ 0.30g, 385fps @ 0.20g. Which you’ve got to admit is quite
nice.

On green gas you
get half again as much power, and could get about 475fps @ 0.20g.
I’ve heard people say that Green gas is bad for the seals – I honestly
don’t know. I’ve only used one mag with green gas, and inadvertently
left it fully charged for a week and a half (yes I know, I’m stupid,
and don’t care enough for my guns) – there was a slow leak, but still
had more than half charge at that time.

What about an
original sling?

I do have a real M1 sling – there is a little Oil bottle you can get – i
mean quite tiny little thing.

The way it works is
you put the sling through the hole – put the oil bottle through the loop
in the sling, and then pull it back through – the oil bottle wedges into
it’s little slot – holding the sling in place inside the butt stock – and
it should all stay there. The front just clips on fairly normally.

I don’t have the oil
bottle though, and couldn’t be bothered to knock up the right shaped bar
– so I just ran a normal shoulder strap all the way around the butt plate
and through one of those “slide though grips”, and then at the
front end, put a snap lock (like you get on all modern rucksacks and things)
and sewed the strap back through the front sling point around the other
side of the snap lock. This gives me and adjustable length, with an extra
length I can click in or out, not quite a 3 point sling but good enough
for me.

I further converted
one of my 2 magazine pouches, so that it slips over the end of the butt
(along the length, rather then across it, which is how the pouch was originally
designed) and then tightens around the stock – the sling is then trapped
under the pouch and can’t slip.

To
recap then:
So to recap – how did I end up with this combo?

  • The
    M1 Carbine itself was second hand from the forums (http://forums.kechara.net),
    and provided me with no less than 5 extra magazines.

  • Scope
    mount, scope rings, Magazine pouches: www.gunpartscorp.com

  • Scope
    mount ‘widget’: off of some block who I don’t know, what wandered up to
    me one day at a skirmish.

  • Scope
    : recommend: 3-9×40 – Mine’s a Zieler bought 10 years ago when I was Air
    rifling. Would also recommend a compact scope, e.g. I have a 1.5-5×20
    which looks excellent on it, as it is small – like the gun.

External
Links:

History
of the M1 Carbine
– from David L. Velleux’s World

Numrich
Gun Parts Corp
– A handy source for original M1 parts

Comment
about this review in the forums


Last modified:
Wednesday, May 9, 2001 9:37 AM copyright 2001 ArniesAirsoft




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