Breaking news! Tanaka was arrested
 

Breaking news!
Today, Japanese Anti Crime Group has arrested aka Tanaka of Tanaka Works for making an airsoft revolver gun which is convertible into a real gun.
According to the police official the new Tanaka 500 S&W magnum Cassiopeia is capable to fire a real bullet.

Here is the link in Japanese:
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20...00002-yom-soci


Picture of Tanaka 500 S&W magnum Cassiopeia :
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/l...07624197_1.jpg

The new Tanaka 500 S&W magnum Cassiopeia was mass produced last august 2008. 1000 guns were sold and 800 guns were confiscated by the government.

Japanese Police is now investigating the ASGK for the reason of approving Tanaka Works to manufacture this kind of airsoft gun.

More info to come Stay tuned.

That's ashame, it seemed like a nice gun.

The design is certainly close to a real revolver, but firing a real round with its plastic frame would be a rather dramatic and final event, I'd imagine.

wow the value of those models will go up for sure, but damn!

i have one of this in my collection.
the gun is made of plastic.
however it can be loaded with a real bullet.

it is called here a disposable real gun.. once you fire it and it is over. The barrel will explode but at least the bullet is fired and with any luck you will hit your target.

Wow, that's rough. Kind of an old way to get in trouble for making airsoft guns. Gun replicas that load compressed gas shells and fire with a firing pin are a mistake as old as that Remington replica that shot blade bullets. You'd have thought that ASGK would have required that the carousel holes were slightly smaller than the diameter of the real shell to prevent the loading of real bullets. When I visited Japan, I kept hearing that ASGK had become an old boys club that lacked significant engineering to do much testing. I'm wondering if it has atrophied to a point of uselessness.

I'm guessing that the modification to shoot live rounds isn't to rebore the barrel, but to remove it entirely. You gotta wonder what happens to the frame after shooting S&W 500 though.

does this mean that tanaka and its products will cease to be made? or what? cause i just ordered a Tanaka kar98k. the last thing i want is for them to stop making parts or products for it.

All we need to do is hurry up China to make a Full Metal clone of this and we are set to go.

Yeah ! right then our sport will be end right away.

No, it really doesn't impact us all that much. Besides, we have plenty of real revolvers lying around. It'd be harder and more expensive to blow up a Tanaka by comparison.

Maybe once he's inside the pen I can send him my DOA Tanaka USP to fix up.

You can just make a zipgun, and its just as efficient and deadly to use as these Tanakas I would immagine.

But:
You can modify those older "starter pistols" that shoot a .22 blank to fire a real .22 and they are made of full metal. You can find them at garage sales for dirt cheap...

But its just plain stupid to try.

...shitty buzz...

Anyone here who even THINKS of modifying an airsoft TOY to fire real ammunition is putting our sport in this country at risk. You want to play with real guns, then go get your PAL (and R-PAL for handguns, semi-only assault rifles, etc) and do it right.

its really more of a concern to japan. Over there anyone can just walk into a shop, buy the airsoft revolver and use it as a "one time pistol". It's not that expensive over there and its readily available.

If anyone in Canada were to want to do that i'd just laugh at them. They're gonna spend easily 4-500 for this revolver, wait about a month or two to get it here, then use it once. At that point they'd be better off getting a real gun.

Edit: This doesn't mean i'm telling anyone to do this, I'm just saying it's a dumb idea.

Wow. Exact same thing happened over a decade ago with the Asahi M24 - full metal airsoft rifle that could be converted to fire real ammo. Japanese police seized almost all of them, although a few got into the hands of offshore collectors.

You'd think Tanaka would have known that.

I guess just like the Asahi, the M500 will become the "holy grail" for airsoft collectors.