The original M3 “grease gun” was developed in the early 1940s and adopted by the U.S. Army in 1943 as a cost-saving alternative to the much more complex and difficult-to-produce Thompson submachine gun. In much the same vein, Umarex has now developed its own CO2-powered airgun version of the M3 that costs a fraction of a fraction of the genuine article—which today will run you between $20,000 and $40,000—and fires .177″ steel BBs rather than .45 ACP cartridges.
A member of the Umarex Legends series of historical replicas, the airgun is a facsimile of the late-war M3A1 variant that is capable of both semi- and full-automatic fire, thanks to a three-position selector/safety located under the receiver in front of the trigger guard. As with the real M3A1, which did away with the right-side charging handle of the original M3, the Legends Grease Gun fires from an open bolt and is charged via a simple slot cut into the bolt itself. Up to 60 BBs are loaded into the front of the detachable box magazine, while two 12-gram CO2 capsules installed into the bottom of the box power the airgun. The Umarex M3 has the original’s same appearance of being manufactured from stamped-and-welded sheet metal, and weighs just shy of 8 lbs. fully loaded.
Umarex’s Legends M3 Grease Gun launches its BBs up to 450 f.p.s. at a firing rate of 1,050 BBs per minute. Holding down the trigger in full-auto mode causes the M3 to blurt through its entire payload in less than four seconds—and the airgun’s sub-rimfire level of felt recoil makes it easy to keep the fixed aperture rear and post front sights on target, even during fully automatic fire. In short, it’s about as much fun as can be had on the range without lighting off a single primer—particularly when used with targets like Birchwood Casey’s Shoot-N-C line of products that really highlight all the rapid-fire impacts.
