Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

[Desert.Express]

Hi,yesterday I attempted to open a thread about my Tanaka SAA Casyopea,because I'm willing to trade it with something special,but the thread was closed immediately..according to mods,the gun is indowed with a too realistic shooting system,and that means it would be illegal in Uk.

Any thoughts?Can someone tell me if it's legal or not?

[FireKnife]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

It is not legal here due to it being a self contained cartridge.

Basically as it has a pressure pin and the gas and ammo are stored in it, it is considered the same as a live cartridge, like a 9mm or a .22 for example, this means that it is only legal to those that possess the right to buy live ammunition.

Best bet is not to list it as it will just incur all kinds of issues from people, trying to prove if they can purchase it etc.

Don't hold me to that being the only reason but on another two forums this was the reason given by a representative for Tanaka, it seems that other countries banned it due to conversion to real steel issues, this might also be relevant here making it a no-go at all. Best to just hold off and not risk it.

'FireKnife'

[Desert.Express]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

Ok,thanks

[Sir Stephen]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

so what about m203's then? are they not also fal lunder that?
they contain a pressure pin, gas charge, and amo, all within a shell.
ive also always wondered would an m203 laurncher be able to fire a geniun grenade? i means its just a big tube with a firing pin so far as i can tell (never owned one) how different is an airsoft laurncher from a real one?

[FireKnife]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

I think it was due to material design with the M203s that they would fail under pressure. Others suggest that the pin in an airsoft M203 doesn't have enough strength behind it to strike and fire a real M203.

Saying that this was fuelled quite a bit by hype that some one out in the Far East had 'successfully' made a Cassyopea design fire live ammo. Not sure at all how true said story is but it lead to a ban of sale in many countires and Tanaka withdrawing the item from sale, making them illegal to sell in many places yet also collectors pieces at the same time.

M203s are a bit different though as while you could buy a .45LC round over the counter in some places with the right license how would you go about getting a 40mm grenade? I think in that case it was legal availablility over actual application.

'FireKnife'

[dave38x]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

I've (as im sure more than a few forces members on here have) dry fired an SA80 UGL once, and the way the firing pin works is completely different. On an airsoft grenade the firing pin on the back of the grenade is a valve that is pressed as you pull the trigger, on the SA80 UGL pulling the trigger draws the firing pin back and releases it to strike the primer on the grenade with quite a large jolt - I'd be surprised if you could get an airsoft 203 launcher to trigger a real grenade with enough force.

Surely under this ruling any gas shotgun where the shells contain gas, and m203s are all illegal?

[Sir Stephen]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

if its a case of the pin being too weak, im sure that oculd be easily 'rectified' with some simple enginering (would you then be manufacturing a firearm though? or making your nerf laurncher more efficent?)

i see what your saying though, would be like selling handles for kniefs becuase its impossible/illigal to buy the blade
seems a bit wreckless though, its illigal to buy a handgun in the uk and yet people still get shot, guess there isnt much need for grenades in the uk gang warfare

[dave38x]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

Although they do get used from time to time by gangs...

It's not a case of the pin being too weak, its a case of the pin being of entirely the wrong design to actuate a firearms primer.

[FireKnife]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

I've (as im sure more than a few forces members on here have) dry fired an SA80 UGL once, and the way the firing pin works is completely different. On an airsoft grenade the firing pin on the back of the grenade is a valve that is pressed as you pull the trigger, on the SA80 UGL pulling the trigger draws the firing pin back and releases it to strike the primer on the grenade with quite a large jolt - I'd be surprised if you could get an airsoft 203 launcher to trigger a real grenade with enough force.

Surely under this ruling any gas shotgun where the shells contain gas, and m203s are all illegal?

Yes they would, but as no airsoft shotguns hold gas in the shell it is not an issue. All airsoft ones either have a spring system or gas held in the body of the gun.

As for M203s, again my point above. Buying and converting something to fire a pistol round is illegal as the pistol round can be bought in the first place, but how would you go about getting a M203 40mm shell to use in the airsoft one. Plus as you pointed out the mechanism is different.

Either way for a number of reasons the Tanaka system was found to cause issues and banned in many countries with Tanaka apologizing and recalling the guns.

'FireKnife'

[bob86]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

i believe the way they get round it with 40mm shells, is that they have a barrell. so it is basically a self contained gun. the launcher itself would not be able to withstand the pressures of the real thing.
whereas tanaka's Casyopea design would be able to do this. there was a similar case in this country with brococks self contained airrifle ammo, which was deemed as a bullet too.
tanaka's design even almost put their MD in jail because of the firearms laws in japan. so it very quickly got scrapped and i beleive a court actually made them issue a product recall on ALL Casyopea pistols sold
if anyone is found in possesion of one in this country (like with the brocock design) i believe you can be done for firearms offenses

[Yivo]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

Yes they would, but as no airsoft shotguns hold gas in the shell it is not an issue. All airsoft ones either have a spring system or gas held in the body of the gun.

Tanaka ones do (which I know misses the point of the argument somewhat) and although they are rare I have seen them sold both by retailers and privately with no issues in the last couple of years.

[dave38x]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

Fireknife - what are the madbull shotgun shells then, or the haw shan shotgun shells? One sticks bbs and gas in them, slaps them in your airsoft sawn off and pulls the trigger...

In fact I was considering the plausibility of using them in a gas AA12 that used a CO2 or Propane reservoir to operate the bolt, and just fired those shells, for that exact reason.

[PureSilver]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

Like bob86 says, this issue can be traced back to the Brocock Air Cartridge System ('BACS'). This system was originally pioneered by Saxby-Palmer, and when they went bankrupt their intellectual property was bought by Brocock, who renamed it BACS (and eventually replaced it with the improved Tandem Air Cartridge, or TAC). The cartridges were the same external dimensions as a .38 Special, and several companies which made real firearms (Weihrauch, for example) adapted their .38 designs to fire BACS. Since it took only a barely competent machinist and a lathe to sleeve a TAC or BACS gun's inner barrel in steel, pretty soon guns converted to fire .22LR or .38 Special started to turn up at crime scenes. That lead to an amendment to Section 5 ('Weapons subject to general prohibition') of the Firearms Act 1968 by way of Section 39 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, which read:

39 Prohibition of certain air weapons

(1) The Firearms Act 1968 (c. 27) shall be amended as follows.
(2) In section 1(3)(b) after “air pistol” insert “ which does not fall within section 5(1) and which is ”.
(3) In section 5 (weapons subject to general prohibition) after subsection (1)(ae) insert—

“(af) any air rifle, air gun or air pistol which uses, or is designed or adapted for use with, a self-contained gas cartridge system;”.

So, that's the law. Any air rifle, air gun or air pistol which uses a self-contained gas cartridge system is a prohibited weapon, and believe me that's not the sort of thing you want to have in your possession. After the enactment of the 2003 Act, most owners of BACS or TAC guns surrendered them to the police, who destroyed them. Others had them added to their FAC, but the guns are anomalously illegal - they cannot be transferred between FACs (like any other firearm can) and must be destroyed upon the owner's death.

In terms of what that actually means, it's more complicated than it might first appear. Firstly, airsoft weapons are traditionally not conceived of as air weapons for the purposes of the various Firearms Acts, so in theory at least airsoft weapons that fire from a self-contained gas cartridge system (e.g. Haw Shan or Tanaka shotguns) don't fall foul of the ban. Quite what separates an air weapon from an airsoft weapon is contentious but it would appear to be a question of a minimum level of lethality, derived from a muzzle energy of 1J. So, at least in theory, if the Cassiopeia revolver shoots at less than 1J, you should be OK. However, in practice, this is an untested area of law carrying (IIRC) a minimum term of five years' imprisonment, and not one I would want to test. Avoid.

[Aitch]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

Fireknife, tanaka shotgun shells use the same system, they are on sale in the UK, the crapyopia system uses a weird system to fire, but the hammer strike wouldn't fire a round, the pin on the hammer when cocked is for show, it is spring loaded, it folds into the hammer when at rest (Desert Express can check his), I had to repair the one I saw, my mate took it apart bolloxing the cycling and discharging, the gas release iirc was at the front of the shell, I can't really describe it in words :/
But firing a bullet, that's too daily mail, but the chamber could take a .45 round, that in Japan = a ban.

[happyal]

Re: Tanaka SAA Casyopea: legal or not?

I don't know about the Tanaka, but I had a Haw Shan Madmax shotgun that was intercepted by the police and tested to see if it could be made to fire a real 12g shotgun shell. A 12g shell fitted right in the barrel, and it closed etc, but in the end they could not get it to fire, and they really tried hard.

http://forums.zeroin.co.uk/showthrea...ghlight=madmax

I can't see that there is going to be much different between the Haw Shan and the Tanaka, the primer of a real shell needs to be hit quite hard.