fake snail drum?

Gibcity · 06-28-2009, 06:36 PM

George is correct!

This was made for a "toy" cap cartridge gun.
MGC stands for Model Gun Corporation.

alvin · 06-28-2009, 10:15 PM

Toy is very popular in Japan. Well made, especially when it's Imperial Japanese stuffs.

First glance on this Type 99 rifle .... what? 100% NIB

PhilOhio · 06-29-2009, 11:39 AM

As Gibcity notes, these were made by the Model Gun Corporation of Japan. But by no means were any of their many products "toys", or marketed as such. Their customers were almost all adults, and most of them Japanese collectors who were unable to buy the real thing at home.

MGC's practice was to disassemble a real firearm, measure all parts (to the thousandth), and duplicate most of the non-critical parts exactly, or almost so. I'm sure they did the same thing with the snail drum, although they would have used a weak spring to feed their inert solid brass high-powered cap firing 9mm cartridges. These would actually function a replica gun in blowback mode. Their SMGs functrioned on full auto.

MGC was about the best manufacturer of these replicas, which had their hay day in the '60s and '70. All their guns were metal, most zinc alloy but some steel. They were built to exact dimensions. Some of the magazines are interchangeable with the real thing. Numrich's marketed their 39-round Thompson drums to be used in real Thompsons here. I have one of the MGC 1921 Thompson replicas which I bought in Tokyo around 1970, along with a few other MGC replicas.

Lay any of these beside the real thing and you may be unable to tell which is which; they are that good; not "toys".

If you think the MGC replicas are toys, price them on the Internet sometime, and try competing with collector bidders.

Although I believe MGC is no longer in business, other Japanese manufacturers make some extremely good replicas of just about every kind of firearm as airsoft guns, but all are plastic and the quality and durability is just not the same as what came out of Japan 40 years ago.

Xfactor9169, hold onto that snail drum replica. It is worth significant money, cannot be replaced, few were made, and MGC is out of business. There are dedicated MGC collectors. Keep it clean and oiled/preserved; ain't no "toy".

Matter of fact, many years ago ATF decided some of their replica submachineguns were so easily converted to the real thing that they were banned from further importation...because some had been converted in California, as I recall.

06-28-2009, 10:15 PM	#2
alvin User Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: US Posts: 3,843 Thanks: 132 Thanked 729 Times in 438 Posts	Toy is very popular in Japan. Well made, especially when it's Imperial Japanese stuffs. First glance on this Type 99 rifle .... what? 100% NIB Attached Thumbnails

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06-28-2009, 06:36 PM	#1
Gibcity User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: New Jersey Posts: 29 Thanks: 9 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	George is correct! This was made for a "toy" cap cartridge gun. MGC stands for Model Gun Corporation.

06-29-2009, 11:39 AM	#3
PhilOhio User Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Ohio Posts: 145 Thanks: 5 Thanked 17 Times in 14 Posts	As Gibcity notes, these were made by the Model Gun Corporation of Japan. But by no means were any of their many products "toys", or marketed as such. Their customers were almost all adults, and most of them Japanese collectors who were unable to buy the real thing at home. MGC's practice was to disassemble a real firearm, measure all parts (to the thousandth), and duplicate most of the non-critical parts exactly, or almost so. I'm sure they did the same thing with the snail drum, although they would have used a weak spring to feed their inert solid brass high-powered cap firing 9mm cartridges. These would actually function a replica gun in blowback mode. Their SMGs functrioned on full auto. MGC was about the best manufacturer of these replicas, which had their hay day in the '60s and '70. All their guns were metal, most zinc alloy but some steel. They were built to exact dimensions. Some of the magazines are interchangeable with the real thing. Numrich's marketed their 39-round Thompson drums to be used in real Thompsons here. I have one of the MGC 1921 Thompson replicas which I bought in Tokyo around 1970, along with a few other MGC replicas. Lay any of these beside the real thing and you may be unable to tell which is which; they are that good; not "toys". If you think the MGC replicas are toys, price them on the Internet sometime, and try competing with collector bidders. Although I believe MGC is no longer in business, other Japanese manufacturers make some extremely good replicas of just about every kind of firearm as airsoft guns, but all are plastic and the quality and durability is just not the same as what came out of Japan 40 years ago. Xfactor9169, hold onto that snail drum replica. It is worth significant money, cannot be replaced, few were made, and MGC is out of business. There are dedicated MGC collectors. Keep it clean and oiled/preserved; ain't no "toy". Matter of fact, many years ago ATF decided some of their replica submachineguns were so easily converted to the real thing that they were banned from further importation...because some had been converted in California, as I recall.