Tokyo Marui Steyr GB Review

By Brandon
August 14th, 2010

Real Steel History:

Type: Double Action
Chamber: 9x19mm Luger/Parabellum
Weight: 845 g empty; 1285 g loaed
Length: 216 mm
Barrel length: 136 mm
Capacity: 18 rounds

“The development of the GB pistol was started by Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG (now Steyr-Mannliher AG), Austria, in the early 1970s, when the Austrian army announced its plans to replace aging P38s and High Powers with the new pistol. Original design, labelled as PI-18, was developed in 1974, and final version, called GB, entered production in 1981. The production of the GB was ceased circa 1988, after some 15.000 to 20.000 pistols had been produced.

The GB is a blowback-operated, gas-retarded blowback semi auto pistol. It uses some of the hot powder gases, feed from the barrel into the front part of the slide, to slow down the retraction of the slide before the bullet leave the barrel. This scheme was developed by German engineer Barnitzke at the end of the WW2. The gas brake is formed by the barrel, its bushing and the slide.
The trigger of the GB is of double action design, with the slide mounted decocker lever. GB also featured firing pin block that unlocks the firing pin only when the trigger is completely depressed.
The frame and the slide is made from carbon steel with special high-strenght finish. Barrel has polygonal rifling and is chrome lined, and solidly attached to the frame.
The sights are fixed and featured white-dot inserts (one in the front sight blade and two – around the rear sights notch).
Some early GBs were manufactured with steel grip panels, with all the rest manufactured with plastic checkered grips.

Thanks to its gas-retarded blowback design and solid weight, that resulted in low felt recoil, and to the barrel with polygonal rifling, that toesn’t move when firing, the Steyr GB displayed wery good accuracy. The reliability is also adequate, at least. While the GB failed at the Austrian and USA Army pistol trials (won respectively by Glock 17 and Beretta 92FS-B), it was used by some Law Enforcement and Special Operations forces, and also was sold to civilians in Europe and USA.”

From World.guns.ru

Movie Appearances:

The Steyer GB has some movie appearances.  I can’t call them notable in good conscience, but here we go.

Tony Leung apparently shot the hell out of this guy with one in Hard Boiled.  I still haven’t caught this one yet.

Charlie Sheen was serious in the Rookie, also while holding a Steyr GB.

Some random cronie from They Live also got shot to death while holding a GB.  My lack of surprise can be explained in the shooting impressions section of the review.

So, in film, not a particularly notable gun.  Forgive my lack of enthusiasm, but honestly I’ve never seen any of this stuff.  Personally I want to know how much tape is holding that guy’s flashlight on…

Overview:

Again (and as is becoming a financially disturbing habit), this was an impulse item tacked onto a late night Ehobby Asia order.  Players have remained relatively silent about these little known replicas (could the two be related?) And the only way to find out was to buy it blind and hope for a good result.  The sole point of data I had to reference was an Ehobby review, noting a two star performance, and simply that “you won’t go far without hopup”.   Really, that sounds more like a piece of bizarre life advice.   With a good attitude you can go quite far, and that adage doesn’t mention a hopup anywhere (I double checked).

As such, being the noble consumerist that I am, I decided you as a community deserved a less confusing review.

Wait… No you don’t.  You ungrateful bastards………..

Sorry, I got a little off track.  Even if none of you cared about my FNC review (that I spent a few hours writing for you fickle dweebs), I still want you to know about Marui’s lesser known NBBs.  Your slovenly readership habits and my benevolence aside, I ordered this little 40 dollar handful of joy to find out (for you…) what makes it so forgettable.

Let’s pause and think on TM’s history with nonblowback pistols.  Their Python revolver is an excellent bit of kit, as probably one of the most skirmishable revolvers I’ve used.  Also, the iconic Mk.23, which is both laser accurate, and quieter than the FNC review’s comments page (which currently echoes to the sounds of silence, for those of you with no context).  In fact, the Mk.23 is so good, one of our potential contributing writers was unable to put words around it.  Anyways, Marui NBBs have a tendency to be extremely good.

So, now we’ll delve into what makes this little thing so easy to ignore.  Coincidentally, I’m writing this on a plane.  We just boarded, and for all you know, I’m flying back from some super secret airsoft company we went to talk to about their sensational new PKM/F2000/Crack, Whatever you kids like these days.

Not that you would care, but lets look at some pictures of the gun;

We start with the box and packaging.  Marui made the box really pretty (apparently for no reason, you guys won’t look at it…), and its essentially standard fare on the inside.  Ehobby filled it with a decent amount of bubble wrap, and it comes with standard Marui manuals and loading rod.  Unfortunately, my camera was wonky when it was time to shoot the box and materials, so you’ll have to make due seeing someone else’s GB Box here.

The entire gun is plastic (if you can be bothered to take it out of the box), with a small smattering of potmetal parts, including the trigger and hammer.  There is also a potmetal cap on the front of the slide.

See these levers on the slide?  These are the safety/decocking lever on the real one.  Here?  Doesn’t do much, as its molded in place as plastic.

This is the safety lever.  This actually works, though it feels extremely flimsy.  I’d have concerns about this breaking over the long run.

Trademarks on the left-hand side of the slide are decent, with proper Steyr Mod GB trademarks, and a good recreation of the Steyr Logo.

Trademarks on the right-hand side of the slide are interesting, as they note “Made In Japan” and a strange PO number, reminiscent of the Crappy Jieke Springer model numbers.  Strange connection, right?  Also, the gun (like all Marui guns) has ASGK markings.  Also note (or don’t… I don’t care.  Seriously.  Think I care?  Why am I spending a whole review shouting at you?  Probably because of the metric system or something.  Get over it.) that Marui simulated milling marks on the side of the slide.  Did you manage to read that last sentence correctly?  I don’t want you to think I’m mad at you and making things hard to read on purpose.  I would never let a personal grudge sacrifice my journalistic integrity.

Coincidentally, my flight has taken off by now, and the person behind me is making strange whimpering noises and kicking my seat.  That’s probably your fault too, but luckily I’m a pinnacle of forgiveness nice guy, and I’ll keep writing for you.

The grips are also emblazoned with the Steyr Logo.  The grip panels are made of pretty cheap feeling plastics finished in matte, but it feels like with use, it would wear off pretty easily.

Check out this hammer.  It has a hole in it.  That’s about the coolest thing I’ve seen on this replica yet.

The magazine is probably the biggest aesthetic failing point of this replica.  Marui, for some reason, made this with a stick mag, with gas held in a reservoir in the grip.  This magazine is pretty hard to find spares for.

The sight picture is very standard, and doesn’t include the proper 3 dot setup that is mentioned of the real gun above.

So, if you read this (which you didn’t), we conclude that the build of this pistol is reasonably chintzy.  Its on par or a bit below Marui’s springer handguns, which for $40 seems relatively appropriate.

Shooting Impressions:

So, this is the part where I’d talk about how it shoots.  But you forgot one thing; I’m on a plane, you idiots.  Right now I’m somewhere over Oklahoma enjoying a coke and a minuscule bag of pretzels pondering my eventual dinner. Why would I ruin the experience by starting a skirmish to test this?  And further, who brings an airsoft gun on a plane?  That’s preposterous.  Happily, I have a few guest writers who haven’t been hurt by your blatant ignorance of our work here, who will happily talk to you about how it works.

Here’s Blake, who ran half a day at the DMZ using this pile of magnificence as his primary, for you (even though I know you don’t care).

“The gun was overall suckish. it wouldn’t shoot 10 feet before falling.  The gun feels very cheap, like you would break it for even pulling the trigger.  There is no reliability or consistency and as a result it got me killed on more than one occasion.  The gas reservoir holds one mag, (no more) and if you want to use it, gas it right before you play. DONT BUY THIS GUN.”

Here’s Stan’s take, who did the same;

“My take on this weapon, it is an unreliable gun.  You can’t trust this gun to hit a target, even five to ten feet in front of you.  It dumps bb’s after the first three feet.  With it having a fixed hop up there is no way to improve on the accuracy of it. I also did not like that out of the box, it had trouble holding gas, and if you didn’t use it right off the bat, the gas would leak out. In my opinion it is a replica not worth buying.”

Finally Terrence, who also took a turn behind the trigger;

” All your fancy GBB pistols can stand up to pure elegance of the trigger pull on this Tokyo Marui NBB! Now go buy one right now! Who needs Hop-Up anyway just angle the gun in there and get that sweet lob kill! Pure win for the price in my book”.

See what I did there?  I wasn’t even bothered to test the gun for you.  Blake and Stan are pretty avid players at the DMZ, and probably a more decent judge of shooting than I am.  Terrence is a TM fanboy, and cannot be trusted.  But he is awesome.

Oh fine.  I’ll chime in a bit.  I did take the gun out for a few skirmish runs (last week) and noted everything per Stan and Blake above.  The gun lobs BB’s in pretty much whatever direction it feels like, and none of them go particularly far.  The gun shot a pretty consistent (and terrible) 200ish at the chrono.  How does an NBB work so poorly?  I’m confused and sad.  It makes me want to sit in my air-chair and whimper, like the jerk you all undoubtedly planted behind me.  We’re getting ready to land now, and he’s re-assumed the whimpering and rocking my seat, but now he’s also holding his head.  Did you find this guy on the street, or is he a really good method actor?  Regardless, I hate you (readers.  I can’t hate the guy you put behind me, he’s just doing his job).

Conclusion:

Since we’re landing, I have to bring this shit show reasonable candid discussion to an end.

Performance: 0.5/5

This thing is useless to shoot.  Unless you want to mow down things around your target, without actually hitting them.  But I can consistently get it to expel a bb, thus it gets something for trying…

External Design: 1.5/5

What a cool gun in real life, but this thing is a let down to the real one.  This feels light cheap, and… terrible for lack of a better word.

Value: 2.5/5

It is cheap as hell, which is the only thing that gives it any points here.  It would look ok on a shelf, or in a holster, but leave it at home.  Always.

Overall: 1.5/5

Averaging the 3 ratings gives us a result that indicates the gun is not particularly good, or average even.  I concur

The Final Word:

This gun is essentially uninteresting.  No wonder no-one knows or cares about them.  Now back to you, readers.  I know I’ve taken a harsh tone on you.  I’m sorry.  Maybe you do care.  Maybe you didn’t plant this psychopath behind me (maybe he was just born that way (and that’s ok)).  Its ok readers, I’m ready to forgive.  You can come ignore my reviews anytime.  I love you.