Inokatsu M60A1 (VN Model) & MK43
Here we take a look at the Inokatsu range of M60 AEG Support weapons. We spent about 5 hours there playing around with the M60A1 and the MK43, and below is a brief ‘review’ based on our findings. Because we had limited time and couldn’t take the guns away with us, I would call this article more of a ‘preview’, as we feel it’s not up to the usual quality of our normal review material…
Introduced in 1957, the M60 machine gun which began development in the late 1940’s was designed as a direct replacement to the BAR and the M1919 Browning Machine Gun. It was recognised that a lighter and more robust general purpose machine gun that fired the NATO 7.62mm was needed, with the necessity for increased rate of fire, and sustained fire being top on the list of requirements for the US Military.
The M60, whilst being the machine gun that provided awesome fire-power during the Vietnam war, was not without it’s faults and in the 1980’s was phased out in favour of the M240 series and the M249 for a squad based weapon. An Infantryman’s primary complaint was the weight, and at over 10kg (unloaded) and having to carry spare ammo, you can understand why. It was also prone to jams and other mechanical failures if not properly maintained and the working parts became dirty. The barrel, which required changing after sustained burst of fire of 200 rounds or more required changing, but this was not done easily without the use of an asbestos glove!
Still, this beast of a support weapon has featured in many of our favourite action flicks such as Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Rambo… the list is endless. And Airsoft manufacturers have been quick to cater to our lust for big, heavy support weapons with insane rates of fire, Inokatsu however have something a little more special up their sleeve, and in our opinion have produced the most realistic copy of them all.
TOP produced one of the first fully working M60’s, which have been around for about 15 years now. Unfortunately their design used a ‘bellows’ system instead of the usual piston and cylinder set up we see on most Airsoft replicas, which required replacing or servicing quite often, after as few as 5,000 rounds… a major downfall for what was otherwise a pretty good gun. Inokatsu (pronounced I-nok-at-su) have designed their system around the hugely versatile version 3 gearbox, which means spare parts are in abundance, and makes the entire mechanics a lot easier to service and upgrade. Out of the box all of the Inokatsu M60’s shoot at well over 400fps with rates of fire around the 1000 round per minute mark, making them the most feared weapons on the Airsoft battlefield. *(more on this later!)*
As with all of our reviews, we start right at the beginning and that usually means before we even take the gun out of the box, and what a box it is too… or rather, crate. That’s right, to further add to the authentic M60 experience, your Inokatsu replica is shipped to you partially assembled in an olive drab wooden crate, with two very sturdy rope handles at either end. And you’re going to need them too, as the weight, around 15kg boxed is pretty authentic too. The majority of people when purchasing a new car, check to make sure they can fit an average weekly shop or perhaps little Timmy’s buggy in the boot… You buy an Inokatsu M60, and you’ll be checking to make sure you can fit it in the rear of your motor, fully assembled. Whilst it’s not necessarily the longest Airsoft gun on the market, it’s certainly one of the bulkiest, especially with the box magazine and the menacing looking bi-pod attached.
Two different variants of the Inokatsu M60 exist. The full steel version, and the aluminium version, although still with plenty of steel parts. The price difference between the two is around £200 with a weight difference too at nearly 4kg, although picking it up you might not notice the difference, after a full days play your arms certainly will. Now, I’m not exactly on the small side, I’m a shade over 6ft and weigh 13 stone and I found the M60 heavy, so a word of warning to those of you with a smaller, slender build – this gun will slowly work your arms loose from the sockets before lunch time.
A disappointing factor with the Inokatsu range are the lack of instruction booklets with their Airsoft packages. Although you receive an A3 sized colour assembly guide (taken directly from their kit models) which should contain enough information for you to assemble or dis-assemble the model, there is limited information as to care and maintenance, adjustment of the hop-up etc. For the purpose of this model, you’ll only really be interested in steps 19 to 24 of the instruction sheet, as these detail how to assemble the barrel, which you’ll need to do upon removal from the box.
The gun is beautifully finished in a very dark and dull grey ‘gun’ metal, and it looks like the steel parts received a very high quality paint finish that at first look doesn’t appear to scratch easily. One point to consider that as the majority of this gun is steel, it would be worth wiping down with an oily rag on a regular basis to keep the rust at bay. On the top of the gun, behind the carry handle are some fairly deep set stampings, reading ‘Machine gun, 7.62mm M60, SACO DESNEFE System, DMSION, MaReMONT Corp, U.S’. The Inokatsu M60 also incorporates a unique number to every Airsoft M60 produced, and we were looking at number 0492 – a nice touch!
Taking the barrel out of the box you can appreciate where a lot of the weight of this gun is, we weighed it in at roughly 3.7kg, which weighs more than most peoples Airsoft guns in total! At the end is the beautiful made CNC cut, anodized aluminium hop-up chamber, which can be adjusted with a blade type screwdriver whist out of the gun, and installed, through a small hole in the outer barrel near the top receiver. At the business end of things is the menacing vented flash hider, which is removable and locked in place with a small Allen type grub screw. Removal of this allows you to take off bi-pod, although not highly recommended as when used in a suppressive fire support role, you’re going to need this to help distribute the weight, unless of course your surname is Schwarzenegger, in which case, carry on as you were Sir. There are two reinforced sling points on the gun, one at the front of the hand guard on the right hand side, and the other at the top of the butt stock, at the very rear. I would highly recommend purchasing a strong strap to assist in carrying the gun, make sure it has steel attachment points and not plastic!
The barrel locks into place with the help of a spring loaded lever, on the top of the gun just behind the upper heat shield, and a two inch steel supporting rod slides into the gas tube on the lower of the barrel to help keep it in place. You can certainly appreciate the thought that has gone into the construction of this model, in fact it’s so sturdily built that if you were to run it over with your car, it’d be a write-off… the car that is. A steel carrying handle is also found near the barrel release lever, and although Inokatsu say this is strong enough to take the weight of the gun, I personally wouldn’t trust £1200 of Airsoft model to this one point of potential failure.
Behind this are the flip up sights which are fully adjustable for both windage and elevation. The real steel M60 was effective to around 800 meters, although it’s said that trained operators could engage ‘area’ targets at up to 1500 meters using these sights. Further back is the flip up top cover that on the real steel would provide access for loading 200 round ammunition belts, as well as accessing the firing mechanism for maintenance. This is covered by a rubberised cheek piece for your comfort, wow, they think of everything! In our Airsoft version, this is where the battery and wiring harness is stored, as well as for attaching the dummy 7.62mm rounds which all add to the realism factor. The gun will fit a 9.6v large battery quite nicely, and is recommended that a 9.6v is used for grin inducing rates of fire, although it will function from an 8.4v, albeit with a slightly slower rate of fire.
The 1500rnd D type magazine, which is electronically wound by the gun, is attached to the side by means of a canvas bag with Velcro straps. The internal workings of the magazine are concealed in a cardboard box, which is probably not the best material to use in the wet! Although authentic – soldiers used the cardboard boxes from their C ration packs to assist the belt feed. I would recommend perhaps some varnish or other sealant on the cardboard to stop it getting damp. Over the top of the box and into the canvas bag are a number of fake plastic 7.62mm rounds, which although a little on the shiny side, serves their purpose in adding a little bit of realism, and to be honest the gun lacks a certain something if you decide to take these off.
The right hand side of the gun sports the huge cocking handle which is removable. It doesn’t unfortunately sport a nice metallic ‘ker klunk’ sound when pulling it back, but it serves no other purpose that for aesthetic value. Above this is the ejection port cover and although being a separate piece and not moulded, does not move. Further above this is where the M13 disintegrating belt links would be ejected. The safety on the gun is ambidextrous and oddly requires pushing upwards for the fire position. On the real steel, soldiers found this a little awkward also, as the M16 and the Colt 1911 (the standard side-arm at the time) were all push down for fire.
Like the M14, at the rear of the gun has a flip up shoulder plate, which is supposed to assist in keeping the weapon on target. It serves little purpose in the Airsoft world as the gun does not suffer any recoil, unlike the real steel (although on the real version, the increased weight helped keep this down). The butt stock pad is removable with a spring loaded button at the bottom on either side, and is a little fiddly to get open if like me you bite your finger nails… aha! one of those dummy 7.62mm rounds however make an excellent tool for this job. It’s rumoured on the real steel M60 that it could be field stripped with a live round. In here is where the battery is loaded, by removing this end piece, and sliding the battery in, whilst connecting it from the top once the cover has been opened. The gun has a large type Tamiya connector for the battery, and small type for the magazine feed wiring. The fuse harness is a screw open type and comes fitted with a fuse rated at a whopping 30 amp!
So how does it shoot? Well, remember how I said the 9.6v battery would inspire a grin? The moment you’re laying on the floor with the bi-pod extended, you’ll be smiling from ear to ear before you even pull the trigger. As the magazine is electrically wound, you need to initially fire several long bursts to get the BB’s to feed through, worth doing BEFORE you start your game, otherwise they’ll be much disappointment as you dry fire at your enemy, followed probably by laughter coming from the opposition’s side. Out of the box, the hop-up required some adjustment to get a level flight with reasonable distance, approximately 15 clicks, this gave us level flight for our target set-up which was an array of coke cans at about 25 meters.
The sights were pretty much spot on with out any adjustment required at this distance, and needless to say our cans didn’t stand a chance as a fully charged 9.6v battery will practically gun them in half. Highly recommended that a large capacity battery of at least 3000mah or above is used, as this gun is supposed to be fired in long successive bursts, which would flatten a battery of any less capacity quite quickly. The magazine feeds pretty well, with perhaps the odd miss-fire every so often, but this is to be expected from any electric box magazine, trying to keep up with a gun with a high-rate of fire, feeding BB’s up a flexible metal tube.
Upon inspecting the cans that were slain by a solid line of 6mm plastic, it was pretty apparent that they were mangled beyond all recognition. Curious, as I wouldn’t have thought just the rate of fire was capable of this alone, we decided to chrono the gun… Astonishingly, it came out on average at a mind blowing (and frankly quite scary) 410fps. *You must get this gun downgraded if you want to use this at any skirmish site in the UK and Fire-Support are downgrading these to around 340fps the moment they come into the shop. Any responsible retailer who sells these should ensure they remain within the limitations for Airsoft velocities in the UK, Fire-Support are a responsible retailer.
So what did we think of the M60? Well personally, I wouldn’t use this as an ‘every day’ skirmish weapon, but it certainly has it’s uses. It’s definitely not going to fall apart on you either. At £1200 you’re basically buying the Astin Martin of the Airsoft world. Hand built by sun kissed goddesses in Japan, it’s the nearest thing you may ever own to a real M60. If you’ve just re-mortgaged your house and you’ve got the money, go get one… if you haven’t got the money, sell your car and walk to work, carrying your M60, smiling manically.
MK43 Version
So, if the M60A1 was an Astin Martin, then the Mk43 has to be some kind of Italian made sports car, with a carbon fibre body and other weight saving measures… because that is basically what the MK43 is, it’s an M60 that has been on some kind of diet. Several kilograms lighter than it’s bigger brother, its certainly more compact a little easier to carry. Based on the M60E3 the MK43 was developed in the early 90’s primarily for the US Navy Seals for more of an ‘assault’ role, with it’s shorter barrel and rail attachment points for a variety of accessories and sighting systems. For the Inokatsu version, the internal workings are identical and it pretty much functions the same. More aluminium is used in the construction of this model, but still with plenty of steel parts. The differences are mainly aesthetic, whilst remaining functional. I’ll quickly cover these below:
Barrel: the overall length is 5.7cm shorter than the A1 version, and with a slightly different flash-hider too. Obviously the gas tube is also shorter.
Sights: The fore-sight is a little chunkier than the A1 and the rear sight uses the same adjustment method although it’s a peep hole type instead of a notch.
Markings: These are printed in white, rather than stamped into the metal of the guns upper outer barrel.
Carry Handle: Same swivel linkage, but a shaped at a slightly different angle than the square looking A1 version.
Bi-pod: This has also gone on a diet, the feet are now triangular and does not include the steel plate re-enforcement. It is still adjustable for height however, and uses the same swivel joint to bring it back flush with the outer barrel.
Fore-grip: CNC cut metal with RIS rails on the sides and bottom. You could fit a vertical grip quite comfortably, and the heat shield has now disappeared from the top also. If you’re feeling really gun-ho, then try attaching an M203 on the bottom RIS rail! 🙂
Grip: Slightly shorter than the A1 model, and I didn’t find it as comfortable to hold. I felt it dug into my hand more under the weight of the gun.
Butt stock: Still has a flip up plate which assists in aiming the rifle and keeping it shouldered, but this is now a folding steel tube as opposed to the plate on the A1. The end of the stock now requires a screw driver to remove it also (by the looks of it).
The upper receiver is still the same, and flips open in the usual way, however there are two small holes on top, which we think are for some kind of sighting mount.
