CAW M32 MGL Review

NakedDex

I don't write reviews here that often because most of the stuff I get doesn't last much longer than a week before it's been upgraded or modified in some ridiculous manner which renders it unreviewable. As such, before I get to pimping this new piece of glory, let me introduce to you, the MGL.

CAW have a rep for doing unusal 40mm grenade launchers and their excellent M79 Thumper is rather highly regarded (and incredibly satisfying to use). Having seen this several years back, it had always been niggling away in my head as something to pick up one day for giggles but the cost of running it always put me off. A couple of months ago, in a moment of DocLOL induced madness, I turned to Shiva and said "order me an MGL"...


Delayed slightly but worth the wait, the MGL arrived in all it's heavy-glory. Made mainly from black powder coated, heavy gauge aluminium/magnesium alloy, she's a heavyweight bit of kit at 7.5lbs unloaded (add 6 grenades, bbs and gas to that and you'd be surprised how heavy it gets). The finish is good, with no flaws in paint or cast lines. Just like the real thing, it's a fairly spartan looking piece of kit, with visible screw heads and exposed threads on the spindle bolt. It's ugly, but it's supposed to be. That's what makes it pretty.

The foregrip and pistol grip are a bit of a let down due to their shiny plastic finish, but both feel solid and are clearly quite strong. The front grip is connected to the barrel via a Tri-rail clamp so dropping off the front grip and replacing it with a more aesthetically pleasing one is no problem, but you are stuck with the pistol grip. A coat of textured spray paint would do wonders for it's finish. The other two rails on the clamp are yours to tart up with torches, lasers or more grenade launchers (don't even pretend you weren't thinking about it).
The launcher also features a top rail across the length of the drum assembly. The most practical use for this is to put an M4 carry handle onto as this piece is a tad cumbersome to carry around without one. The most impractical use for it would be an 8-32x50 rifle scope and the Gucciest use would be, you guessed it, another grenade launcher.

The grenades that can be used are limited in length to 110mm due to the length of the barrel. So far, for me, I've found that only means I can't use my Madbull 204rnd CO2 grenades but the rest are fine(I can hear people breathing a sigh of relief about that already).

The grenades are loaded into the drum by clicking a thumbswitch at the end of the top rail to open it in a break-barrel format. Grenades are placed into their breaches and the launchers is closed up. To get around the heavy-as-all-hell trigger pull that would be caused by having the launchers drum set up like a traditional revolver pistol (the trigger pull moves the drum and hammer at the same time, bringing the next shot into place as you fire), CAW copied the MGL's idea of having the drum on a clockspring.
When you have your grenades loaded, you simply rotate the drum a few times until she holds firm and she'll rotate as you let go of the trigger after a shot is fired. This means you have a reasonably light trigger and always have a round ready to go rather than having an empty round on the 12.
The drum is only ever lined up with the barrel when firing, until then it's at about a 1/4" offset to ensure undersized grenades don't accidentally slide completely out of the barrel (which I think is a nice touch).


And here's the part you've all been waiting for. Firing.
Yes. It is unbelievably good fun. It will fire about 2 grenades per second, depending on how quick you are and how tense the clockspring is. That's a potential rate of fire of 320 rps (take that Systema Turbo).
Reloading is a bit of a pain, but then reloading launchers always is. There are recess to allow you to grab the tail of the grenade easier though. If you're on grass you can always dump the grenades out and chuck your fresh ones in, but if you're on hard ground you'll obviously have to take your time to protect your grenades.

So far, I've found from my oversized grenade collection that Madbull (with the exception of the 204HP), G&P and Vanaras all fit fine. King Arms grenades are a bit tight coming out but work perfectly (as much as a KA will work) but Classic Army grenades don't fit properly at all. They can be shoved in if you are so inclined, but you'll need a pliers or long screwdriver to get them back out.



Overall, this is a heavy, well made bit of kit that you get the feeling could genuinely go through a proper war and come out ok. The looks are let down only by the pistol grips sheen, but it's an easy fix if you're bothered enough to do so. Obviously this isn't the weather for launchers, but this is something I'll definitely be skirmishing once the good weather rolls back around, if only for the fun of it rather than anything serious. I'd regard this in the same vein as the LAW "rocket" grenade launchers, something not necessarily practical but definitely a lot of fun and very unique.



Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, I have no pictures of it right now. I do, however, believe Doc took some piccies of it while we were quiet this morning. He might be so good as to post them. In the mean time...

38 seconds in -->

Oh, and then there's this...

spicymchaggis

damn work has kept me from mine, i'll be in half 10 monday mornin, if carryin this, an m249 and 2 claymores and spare nade shells = perfect weight loss plan haha

NakedDex

Sounds more like epic weight gain to me.

spicymchaggis

love to hear any comment on skirmishin, the spread, the range, the facial expressions haha, gonna have to spend a bit to feed this baby

Flecktarn

Whats up with the second video?

Masada

I was having great craic with them the other day., you can actually play Russian roulette with it.,

Turncoat

vtec wrote: »

I was having great craic with them the other day., you can actually play Russian roulette with it.,

I wish you hadn't said that *flashback American Pie : Beta House*

Hivemind187

I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it
I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it
I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it

Gimmie.

NakedDex

spicymchaggis wrote: »

love to hear any comment on skirmishin, the spread, the range, the facial expressions haha, gonna have to spend a bit to feed this baby

I was intending to take it out this weekend but alas those plans are scuppered, so it'll be next Sunday when she gets an airing.

spicymchaggis

vtec wrote: »

I was having great craic with them the other day., you can actually play Russian roulette with it.,

dex's one i assume :rolleyes: should get to break it in next weekend aswell

Masada

Heres some pics dex.,

Puding

reloading all those m203 grenades........fun

what greades do you plan to use/are using?

NakedDex

Several different kinds. The mainstay will likely be Madbulls 108 round CO2 grenades once I can get hold of 6 or 12 of them. I'm also going to get a couple of the Madbull 60 round 8mm grenades to see how they work out. I'll have a couple of Madbull Stingers (24 round) handy as they're small and light to carry as spares too.
Vanaras do grenades now too, both metal and POM with around 60 rounds each. The POM seem good but have some flaws you can work out yourself if you've got time and are handy with a needle file. The metal ones are perfect right out of the box and can be adapted to 8mm using a screw on chamber. I'll likely be grabbing a half dozen of these to throw in too consider they're rather cheap and, from the ones I have here, pretty reliable.

I have intentions on getting a few slug shot grenades too, but I'm going to hold off on these for a while as I'm strictly intending on using them outdoors for "destroying" vehicles or small buildings in milsim games. I've been hit by them at close range before and they don't hurt anymore than an oversized bb, but I can see why people would have objections to being hit by it so I think it'd be fairer and more enjoyable for everyone, especially new players, if they weren't worried about getting hit by it. I may get a few of the Madbull 4 round paintball grenades for the same function in outdoor milsim.


Basically I'm going to be slightly realistic about it and give myself a choice of grenade based on the situation. High capacity (~100rnd) grenades only work properly with CO2, but they give a great range and good spread this way. A clutch of those complimented by a few 8mm and a few short range 6mm (Stingers and Vanaras) should work well. If I can sort out the couple of niggles with the Vanaras POM grenades, carrying six of those spare would equate to the weight of two of the CO2 grenades, so that'd be a major boon. If not, I'll stick with the metal Vanaras ones and carry two or three.

Puding

been looking at the co2 grenades myself, we had some concerns in regard to there joule output with the higher pressure co2 can put out

NakedDex

They're still quite a bit below, despite the higher pressure. You'll find Madbull only make CO2 grenades in high capacity types (108 and 204). The reason for this is they know green gas, or even red gas, isn't strong enough to push that many bb's across that many chambers and still get decent or usable velocity, range and spread from it, especially on a cold day.
I have a couple of the 204 round CO2 grenades (which are, incidentally, too long for the MGL drum so I can't use them) and using them with green gas is just pointless, even if it's 22 degrees outside with no wind. I've used them about three or four times and I've given up until such time as I can get my hands on the XC03 CO2 adaptor I have ordered. From what I've read, the 108 round CO2 perform with the same range and velocities as the 48 round green gas powered ones.

Incidentally, the fill valve is the same, so you can still use green and red gas in them should you have no CO2 or not wish to use it.

zero19

Been thinking about getting one of these for the laugh myself quite cheap on a polish site i found

NakedDex

If you're getting one, make sure it's the CAW version. I've seen a few cheap ones too that, upon further investigation, turned out to be a plastic body one with a manually operated drum. That being you fire it, then twist the drum to the next round by hand. I've even seen a few around $130-150 mark that turned out to be nothing more than big springers.
To my knowledge CAW are the only crowd doing a "proper" version of it.

Puding

same information i have found there dex, the charger i ordered is apparently going to be delivered tomorrow, we had no issues with the normal shower grenades, the only co2 grenade that we had worry's about was the XMPB4 i was very interested in its design and seems far more practical in terms of reloading, we have just been looking to confirm if there would be any problems with it legaly,

go to know someone else is going teh co2 path for grenades thought madbul also do a nice cheap spares service for all orings and valves which is very nice

NakedDex

I'm going to be picking a couple of those up myself. From what I know, the lack of any order with the bbs in the centre tube means they can't pick up any great velocity because the gas isn't easily or evenly distributed and there's no control over the initial blast so bbs can often knock each other off to side-courses. I've heard reports of people dumping 50 or so rounds into them and a bit of cotton wool on the top for a short range but wide blast effect on CO2, though with the size of the tank on it, I'd say green would be more than adequate (the tank makes up most of the body).

Madbull grenades are the best out there, and I've often bought their replacement fill valves for other grenades (mainly CA and KA) as they're of much higher quality and are such a cheap and simple upgrade. They're the grenade equivalent of the Guarder Silicon hop rubber.

Puding

nice to hear someone thinking along the same lines as myself, good to get other peoples views and opinions on them

G3-Nut

lmao that part whre mac shoots the house with the launcher is one of the funniest things i ever saw....ive been laughing for like 5 minutes:pac:

NakedDex

5 minutes is a good record. Doc couldn't stop for about 5 hours.

Masada

lol. i love the look on mac's face when hes doing that.,

NakedDex

You know what's going through his head that makes him grin like that? It's not just the grenade launcher, or the house exploding. It's the the thought that he's getting paid a hideous amount of money to blow things up and play with gear that may not even be released to military forces, let alone civilian markets. How many other people from any profession can say they fired the Masada? AND get paid to do it.

spicymchaggis

loving mine with madbull paintball co2 nades, little bit o maskin tape across the top and yer set and the range and spread but the crack of it when it goes off

Fallschirmjager

vtec wrote: »

lol. i love the look on mac's face when hes doing that.,

yes it is priceless LOL...living the dream....


and dex this looks pretty darn amazing...

Darth Phoenix

Hey guys, wondering if ya can help me with regards to co2 grenades when it comes to charging them with gas. Do ye know where i can get the madbull XC03.....If it means ordering it from another country, does it fall under the one of many airsoft related things that we're not allowed to order any more from outside Ireland...