Inokatsu M4 super version problems

[Karolis]

Hello, bought Inokatsu M4 thought that this is a flagman of all the gbb rifles, but i was wrong or i am doing not right something. The main problems are that after few shots or sometimes after 1 mag (50bbs) my gun stuck/jam or it just push gas out ,then i take mag and i see few bbs stuck/crushed . Opened the gun i noticed few parts heavily wear of even imprints. From my point of view the bolt carrier doesnt work properly it is also quite loss and it is not align . This is just my theory , waitting for experts thoughts. I attached photos . Waiitng for replies , thank you

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[Bada Bing]

The Inokatsu nozzles weren’t that great. They had tendency to rip the base off, despite them being aluminium. 

The nozzle guide was another weak point. You can find that on the left side of the bolt carrier. If that’s broken, your nozzle can be off centre and cause problems you describe. 

 

[Karolis]

Hello Bada Bing, thanks for reply. If you are speaking about this part i attached foto highlighting it. So this part is brushed a little bit but not broken. I am planing to change bolt chamber with a steel one(the lower part of the ring is deformed) and also planing to change bolt carrier it is almost all internals. Should i do that ? Would it solve my problems 

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[Bada Bing]

Before you buy new parts you need to find out why it’s failing. If you are getting bb jams and gas venting it might be due to bolt bounce. If you film the shooting action in slow motion you can see what it’s doing as it’s firing. 

Like this: 

https://youtu.be/p9Xx6bmSdBI

Bolt bounce induced double feeds and then jammed up, the following shot vents the gas. 

 

[Karolis]

Hello, yes i will try to do filming and to check if this is the issue, and what would be the solution to this problem ? 

 

[Karolis]

I done slow motion to see whats going on(videos attached). I didnt noticed bolt bounce , but i noticed that the nozzle could get stuck in the bolt chamber .Could this be the case?

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[Bada Bing]

Thanks for the upload. 

General operation looks okay to me, no bolt bounce at all and it looks very positive.  The nozzle staying in the chamber a couple of moments longer is normal. 

What bbs are using? And what magazine?

The last shot on the second video, was that the last bb from the magazine attempting to be chambered, or was that bb ejected from the chamber?

 

[Karolis]

I am using airsoft surgeon bbs 0,25g and mags are G&P gen II redwolf recomendation, i also bought prowin but it doesnt fit my gun. It was probably ejected, after this shooting the rubber part in barrel is ruined. Do you have thoughts why the nozzle got stuck in the chamber ?

 

[Bada Bing]

Do you have the weight installed in the back of the bolt carrier? Those older type WA pattern magazines aren’t known for their efficiency and any added weight to the BC is going to negatively effect the gas efficiency.  

Towards the end of the magazine it’s running low on gas and cannot drive the working parts back far enough for the nozzle spring to return the nozzle back to the bolt. That maybe why it’s shooting but not returning the nozzle. 

The bb ejecting from the chamber is probably due to the damage to the rubber that you spoke of earlier. 

At the end of the day, the Inokatsu M4’s are not very reliable, I’m sorry to say. While they have near perfect externals and build quality, they are replicas that just happen to fire bbs. I owned one for a couple of years and it only managed half a day on the field in all that time. 

They don’t produce them anymore, as far as I know. Viper Tech was somewhat related to them and they are still going. Perhaps it can share parts like the Bolt Carrier if you require it, although you’d have to email them to double check. 

Viper Tech now use a dual o ring nozzle which greatly helps it cycle the heavy bolt more than the single o ring design. It might be worth sending an email to them asking about the compatibility. GHK magazines would be better than the G&P ones purely for the better gas system, however the INO’s were always a bit fussy with what mags they took. They might not be compatible. 

 

[Karolis]

Hello, yes there is a weight in the back of the bolt , i removed one segment of the weight and the gun shot even worse. I called viper tech but they dont speak english so i couldnt be able to make a contact with them and ask some question, maybe you have contact who can asnwer some question from viper ? Because they said write us email i wrote email from their page and i got it back that this email doesnt exist. So about inokatsu someone said that ino is capable only on hanging on the wall as interior emelent  It is quite true . Is it worth changing internals fully or i should not invest in it and change the gun ?

 

[Bada Bing]

I’m not sure how far you could take the INO. Whether it can be made to be a reliable GBBR. But I can definitely say that the odds are stacked dangerously against you.

The valve striker is horribly designed and because of the heavy weight BCG you need gas as powerful as CO2 to drive the action reliably. Green gas is not recommended. 

So if you use gas like CO2, and if your magazines could actually withstand CO2 (which they can’t), you might need a stronger hammer spring to punch those magazine valves. When a high pressure gas like that is kept in those magazines it makes the valves increasingly difficult to activate, thus the stronger hammer spring. 

‘The side effect is that INO’s valve striker will remain protruding into the magwell if the hammer is not cocked. On a GBBR made by TM, Viper Tech or GHK, their Valve strikers hinge upwards if a magazine is inserted when the hammer is not primed. The INO’s do not feature this design and instead they have a linear travel/retractable striker which is kept out of the magwell with a spring. A spring which is just strong enough to push back up against the hammer and stops it from being forced back in harms way.

A stronger hammer spring will override that small spring and this could be damaged if a magazine is forced into the receiver. 

You would only be able to insert a magazine if it’s been charged. 

Furthermore the hop up chamber is poorly designed and require a complete barrel disassembly to adjust. 

G&P WA hops were a common upgrade, and this enabled quicker adjustment via the hole under the lower rail panel. 

As as I mentioned earlier the nozzle guides were prone to breaking and finding the spare parts was very difficult at the time. 

This and many other reasons which contributed to the Inokatsu’s downfall. It was just too expensive for a fancy replica with no skirmishability. 

You could pour money into it but it is better that you don’t. Around 2013, I saw that GHK were to be releasing an M4 and as soon as I saw that on the horizon I put my INO up for sale. Now I own their Version 2 M4 and I couldn’t be happier. It’s not as well comstructed/finished as the Inokatsu but it has the feel and realistic features that it had, but it works. And it works very very well. 

Check out the review I made of the GHK:

 

[Karolis]

Hello, thanks for brief conclusion probably will not invest money. I was also looking earlier at the ghk m4 and i think when i will sell ino i will buy ghk , was it hard to sell youre ino? what could be the price for non functioning ino with 6 g&p mags ? What mags better for ghk m4  G5 or m4 mags ?

 

[Bada Bing]

You’re welcome. 

It wasn’t for sale for very long, I decided to list it at a cheap price. 

I sold it for £500 and that included 3 magazines and a bunch of parts/accessories. If you don’t get a interest from the Airsoft community, try selling it as a collectors piece. There’s a market for quality replicas.

The GHK AR-15 mags all give equal performance, of course the CO2 version will give you a lot more ooompff. 

Their GMAG’s are probably the best as they are the lightest out of all their GBB M4 mags. Their G5 mags are still great and you may be able to find them cheaper. Downside is they’re a lot heavier than GMAG’s. 

 

[Anotherinoowner]

Regarding the OP's problems of cracking bb's...i have owned an inokatsu since 2010 but only been used for plinking. Most issues i've had were magazine related and a cracked nozzle. Only this year(2019 to 2020) have i encountered the cracking bb's. This problem seems to have happened after a nozzle and nozzle guide replacement. So like badabing mentioned, those may be the problematic parts. *can almost smell the coffee and toblerone while reading badabing's posts hehe Love your channel. 

 

[Swantiet]

You can try to use the vipertech extension barrel and hop up assembly and it will solve the misfeeding issue. 

ghk m4 is really superior in performance and a price tag that is not heavy in the wallet too, but theres none to compare to have an Inokatsu m4 in your armory. it is different in any other gbbr m4 variant in the market out there

 

[Marcsparks]

Hi, I hope you did not sell your Inokatsu, admittedly there are easier guns to use but with a bit of care these are completely reliable and without doubt the most fun to shoot, Prowin mags are the best, lightest with a 50 round capacity, to avoid the sticky mag issue load 44rnds, 11 pumps on the speed loader. Guarder black gas will run it on cooler days but will over pressure in the mags on warmer day, Nuprol red on warmer, 3g bbs, use as a DMR on single shot at around 320fps. Awesome, best gun ever..

 

[Epicentity20XX]

As a long time Inokatsu M4 user. I can positively say that the 2012 versions are not good out of the BOX. It has a weird hop up system that you need to take the barrel off to adjust, pot metal internals, leaky mags (both prowin and G&P), and a hopup chamber that keeps breaking every time a jam happens (mine broke last week again for the umpteenth time). Once you upgrade all internals to steel (most of them RA tech upgrades), switch the hop up unit to a standard WA that you adjust from under the barrel, modify a steel washer to replace that stupid e-clip that can never keep the nozzle attached to the bolt and you figure out that you need to use harder BB's (>.30g) to minimize bolt getting stuck from chomped up bbs, HPA tap/leak proof all magazines cause the gas efficiency is horrendous, and hundreds of dollars later (with an HPA tapped drum mag) it's an awesome gun to take out into the field that gets all the attention. Everything becomes more reliable. Except I can't find a good hop up unit that can survive a jam and takes me out of the game more often than I would like. If I was in your position selling it off is cutting your losses. I however, somehow enjoy working on my M4 trying to make things better and more reliable which may be an unending process. I probably would try a viper tech if I wasn't to deep in the hole on this inokatsu because maybe they succeeded in the design where inokatsu failed. 

TLDR: Inokatsu sucked but I made it work-ish, viper tech might be a better gun? 

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