Opinions On Tanaka M870 Series?

[Jin15]

What's going on here is that I've got about $600 USD that I'm looking to spend on a nice airsoft shotgun to be my primary skirmishing weapon (woodland and CQB) for the foreseeable future. My current plan is to take a Maruzen CA870 springer and convert it into a tactical assault beast with a bunch of G&P and Angs parts, but I do want to fully explore my options before dropping this kind of money on a new gun.

 

So the first thing I'm interested in is the Tanaka M870 series. I've searched long and hard but I've yet to find a whole lot of information about these shotguns. It seems a whole lot of people have been buying them but reviews and general info on them are pretty scarce.

What little info I have found has told me that there seems to be some pins and screws in the forend assembly that need better securing and that they tend to like to spit shells out the loading port if not cocked perfectly. I've also heard that past the trigger group, stock, and foregrip they are not built in a manner that would allow them to be disassembled. Replacement parts seem to be non-existent as well.

 

So generally what little I've heard about the Tanaka M870 series has been negative and led me to believe that they likely will not be a reliable skirmishing weapon (even with the addition of a brass catcher to prevent lost shells). But I do really fancy the style of them so I'd like to get some more opinions from people who have bought them. Anyone care to shed some light on these beauties/beasts?

 

 

 

The other thing I'm wondering about is the G&P M4 style retractable stock/pistol grip and gas tank set for the Maruzen M870. It replaces the full stock and has a large gas tank in the buffer tube of the M4 style retractable stock. What I'm wondering is if this makes any substantial difference in the FPS?

From what I understand in stock form the Maruzen M870 (shell ejector) has far too low of an FPS to be useful for anything other than room clearing but it seems that is likely caused by the large distance of tubing between the gas tank and the firing system, basically decompressing the gas to a very low power level as it travels down the 12" or so length of tubing. The release valve in the gas tank seem to be bit of a culprit as well, not staying open long enough to give reasonable power.

 

So what I'm wondering is if switching to the G&P M4 stock/gas tank set will up the FPS at all? It has a much shorter length of tubing between the gas tank and the firing system and it's possible that the valve on the G&P buffer tube gas tank might be larger or stay open longer as well.

 

Has anyone had any experience with these sets?

 

 

 

 

 

 

That about sums it up! Right now I'm still thinking I'll likely go with the single shot CA870 springer and upgrade it into a tactical wet dream of a shotgun, but I do really fancy the Tanaka and Maruzen M870 shell ejectors so I'm considering them as options. If the Tanaka's are reliable for the most part or there was a way to substantially boost the power of the Maruzen M870 without the need for one of those now extinct KWC 12g CO2 adapters I might consider them.

And before anyone says anything regarding the Marui shotguns, they're out of the question. I've owned a few and never liked how hard they were to pump and the pesky tri-nozzle breakage issue. Maruzen M1100s are out of the question too, after my 3rd one self destructed I gave up on those things. The ACM and Marushin M500s are out of the question too, I've had a few and had too many issues with them.

 

 

So yeah, any info on the Tanaka M870 series and the G&P M4 Style Stock/Gas Tank Set for the Maruzen M870 would be much appreciated!

[ruvon]

I have, a Tanaka 870. It's a beautiful piece, fit and finish side by side on the Maruzen is ten times better. BUT....

what people say about the fore end and the rest of the body is true, as is your statements on the replacement parts. Let me explain....

 

I got the Tanaka on credit from a friend of mine. I put it up on the wall, as it was the end of the season for gas, and left it, all giddy and excited that I was going to have the most realistic and killer gas shotty on the field this year. The agreed price was 400, with about 17 shells, some of which were needing to be rebuilt, due to this being a imported Japanese market model, and not able to handle my green gas. At any rate, at one point a friend of mine asked to see it, I handed it to him, and turned my back looking for some of the shells to show him the ejection feature. Well, as I turned I heard him rack the gun, and the return, I heard a schink, and a clunking noise, sounding like two inside parts hitting the floor. It was the body pin holding the two pieces of the gun, barrel/pump section, to the receiver. The two parts hitting the floor were the guts of the piece, and my friend was standing there with a look of "oh my god, I just broke the most expensive piece in my buddy's collection" on his face, stock and receiver in one hand, barrel, pump and magazine tube in the other! Well, as the year has progressed, I some how managed not to get the gun back together, and I ended up loosing the firing/bolt assembly, and at this point, due to the extreme lack of spare parts on the market, I have a very nice space taker, dust collector, that I'm actually STILL freaking paying off!

 

I'm at this point trying to sell off the remaining parts, and this is the one piece that I will never ever regret getting rid of. I have the pieces for sale, if anyone would like them and reads this please pm, or if your interested in any spare parts, please let me know.

 

My only solace out of this whole ordeal has been the fact that, as hard as I am on my gear, this could have happened on a skirm field, in the clutch.

The Maruzen is very finicky from what I've seen (my house mate runs a custom/repair shop, and has a client that brings his marusen in all the time, because the gas hose keeps ripping it's self to shred) and I wouldn't have use one myself, in as I said, I play hard with my gear, and it's not been all that reliable.

 

I've used TM shottys, the new UTG clones, with no problems. I've also seen great things out of the ACM M-500's, as well as G+P's.

 

But the fancy Japanese companies have been nothing but fail for me!

[Marginal]

I had a Tanaka M870 that I sold some weeks ago. The reason I sold it is because I have tried many ways to make it more reliable and didn't succeed.

 

What I've done basically is try to remove the two nuts holding the outer barrel assembly to the body and have two screws instead. I failed at making a correct threading so I ended up with nothing to hold that particular connection between the body and the outer barrel. Positive side is, quicker to disassemble Surprisingly enough, the whole assembly held well with only the two pins below the outer barrel that you can find on each side of the gun.

 

Speaking of those two pins, I had them replaced also with larger (plastic) pins. The original ones would refuse to remain in place once I removed them.

 

I also got myself a set of enhanced firing pin made by Clarence Lai that he puts in its custom-made M870 on RedWolf . The firing pin is in aluminium and is obviously more durable than the plastic original one (looky here). Unfortunately, the firing pin doesn't have that small hole inside that holds the spring to push it back in its original position and I don't have to tools to drill one myself.

 

The cartdriges themselves are not very well made. The top cap can fall apart and when the firing pin hits the gaz chamber, the valve is not pushed far enough so that a powerful shot can be delivered. Sometimes, the cardtridge would get stuck and you get no shoot at all. Pretty frustrating when you're in front of an adversary...

 

Oh, and I was forgetting... beware of the trigger mechanism! After some time, I noticed I had a hard time pushing on the trigger until it wouldn't fire anymore! I pulled the trigger mechanism out and noticed that a little piece was half-broken and the hammer also had a nice little crack. I think that overtime, the crack will be deeper. I resolved it by myself but had to do it two times. I finally grew tired of all these shortcomings and decided to sell this M870 before another problems appear. I warned the buyer and sold it to a cheap price.

 

Despite all of that, a week ago I was about to put my hands on another M870 in mint condition with 25 shells for a very competitive price. Unfortunately, the brother of the guy that was selling this shottie appropriated himself the shotgun without notice and now skirmishes with it. Too bad, I don't think a similar opportunity will occur. I kinda like this M870 even with all its flaws and I was willing to give it another run without modding anything but the shells this time and install some RS parts maybe.

 

Nonetheless, I also have a Marushin M500 (6mm) with a Guarder M4 stock/pistol grip combo installed. If you have to choose between the two, go for the M500. Good power, full metal, easy to disassemble for maintenance, no worries of loosing shells.

 

I'm also about to acquire a cheap springer shotgun, the DE XM1014. Now that they made it tri-barreled, it's a good reason to go for it. I didn't see myself spending 185$ for the CAW that fires one BB at a time.

[Jin15]

Thanks for the responses guys!

 

Both of your experiences echo what others have told me about the Tanaka M870 series. Due to all these overall negative reports that I've read I think I'll save myself a lot of money and avoid the Tanaka M870 series.

 

I also found out from lovecraft25 that the G&P stock set for the Maruzen M870 that has an M4 style pistol grip and retractable stock with a gas tank in the buffer tube makes no difference whatsoever in the M870's shooting velocity. Darn shame, but I'm glad someone actually bought one of these so I could find out. Thanks much for the info mate!

 

 

 

Still pondering what to get for a new shotgun though. I was planning on doing a custom build with a CA870 but I had the chance to use one a bit over the past week and decided it just wasn't for me. They look great when kitted out with G&P body parts but the shooting experience is still pretty anemic since they only fire 1 BB at a time.

 

 

Now I've owned a few different shotguns before... 2 different Marui M3s (one Shorty and 1 Shorty with a full stock), a Maruzen CA870, a Maruzen M1100 Revision with the CL upgrade package & Zeke metal body, a Maruzen M1100 Full stock, a Marushin 8mm M500 Shorty, and a BE M500 6mm Full Stock that I cut down to a shorty length.

 

 

All of these got sold at some point for various reasons detailed below...

==============================================

Marui M3s - difficult to pump & fear of tri-nozzle breakage (there were no cheap clones being made at the time to buy for replacement nozzles).

 

Maruzen CA870 - anemic shooting experience with 1 BB at a time

 

CL Upgraded Maruzen M1100 - After 2 weeks of use even with th it stovepiped shells every shot even on 134a gas only

 

Maruzen M1100 Full Stock - Got it used, arrived DOA. Stovepiped shells every shot, cracked internal mech casing, torn piston head, warped shell loading latches, almost broken loading door. Tried to fix it with no success.

 

Marushin M500 8mm Shorty - I was dumb. Pure and simple. Nothing to complain about with this gun other than having to replace the charging arms with steel ones, which was no biggie.

 

BE M500 6mm Shorty - Echoing the Marushin 8mm version, I was dumb and decided to sell it to buy something else. Wish I wouldn't have though, fantastic shotty aside from the good amount of dremel fitting it took to install steel charging arms (the charging arm dimensions are a little bit different than the Marushin versions).

 

 

 

 

So what haven't I tried yet? Hmm... there's the Tanaka M870 which is a big "no-go!" in light of all the problems people have been having, the oldschool Marushin M1887, the Marui SPAS 12, and the Maruzen M870.

 

Right now I'm reaaally leaning towards the Maruzen M870 and upgrading it with a KWC/3PSA/SMK/Cybergun 12g CO2 adapter to boost the power. Then a bunch of other neat cosmetic stuff like a G&P flashlight foregrip, RS pistol grip full stock, and other such goodies. It would really only be usable for CQB and plinking around (which is a bit of a downside since it could be 6 months to a year until there is a real CQB field in my area) but it would be cool as heck with the ejecting shells and whatnot without having to worry about the constant stovepipeing issues that the M1100 series has.

 

On the other hand, the Marui SPAS 12 just looks so awesome and would be be very practical for the long cold winter here in Minnesota and would work well for outdoor skirmishes too, unlike the Maruzen M870. No cool shell ejecting and no options to customize it with aftermarket parts though.

 

And then there's the Marushin M1887 T2 shotgun... I know very little about these beauties but I've heard they're quite lovely and have good power shooting three 8mm BBs per shell on green gas. I know nothing about their reliability though so I'd have to find out more before I seriously consider one. Still though, darn cool gun! Powerful and shell ejecting right out of the box, if only Maruzen could pull that off too

 

 

Of course, for the price of a fully kitted out Maruzen M870 with the 12g CO2 adapter and the works I could get both a Marui SPAS 12 and a Marushin T2 M1887.

Hmmmm

[Marginal]

I had two SPAS 12 and was satisfied with them. I sold them as well because I wanted some change around here. Right now, I have ordered a DE XM1014 which is tri-barreled yay!

 

I have dreamed of the SPAS 12 a couple of times, like if my destiny was attached to it I would go for one more if I get the opportunity, but let's see what the XM1014 is all about.

[shmook]

kind of off topic, but here is a link to some custom gas shotties, including a spas 12

 

clicky for gas goodness

 

and a link here to the thread it was given to me in

 

thread

 

some more food for thought...