Attention - Preorders for our Nambu "Tensei" Carbine go live on November 7th at 9:00 PM CST

The Nambu Project

Release Information and Updates

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Update 10 / 31 / 2025:

Now that the Nambu is ready to go, the focus now is reorganizing my shop to make the shift from "Individual Small Shop Gunsmith" to "Production Firearms Manufacturer". For this, I humbly ask for your patience and understanding while we get the ball rolling. Most folks don't know this, but ever since the very beginning, GHG has always been a one man show. While there is a team on the backend that I can call up for an extra set of hands if needed, they aren't here 24/7, so that leaves a majority of not only the design and dev work, but also the manufacturing, quality control, logistics, customer support etc all to me. This will be changing hopefully by the end of this year, but I likely won't be able to bring in full time help until after the new year.

Right now we are anticipating the first batch to ship no sooner than December 2025, but no later than February 2026. The goal is to ship the first batch out shortly after returning from SHOT Show. While we already have work orders in place for most of our suppliers and outsource vendors, I wanted to give myself a big enough buffer so we don't blow past timeline deadlines like I have in the past. If anything changes, I am very active on our social media and will post updates as they happen, and transparency and communication are two of my biggest priorities.

Now, on to the juicy parts.

There will be 30 Tensei carbines in this batch. Currently, this is the only batch planned for 2025. I wanted to do three batches and stagger them (next one starting in November, etc), but I decided it would be best to focus on the first batch so we don't get overwhelmed. I anticipate that we will be in full production shortly after the new year, so hopefully there won't need to be preorders. If there is, we will announce it a few weeks in advance.

Despite some doubts, we are still at a 1250 MSRP. The only thing that will cause this to be raised is if there is a drastic increase in material costs, which we will do everything we can to prevent. We have manufacturing costs fully under control, as we produce a majority of the parts in house.

Down payment will be 50% upfront (625). You will only be able to cancel within two weeks (14 days) of placing your pre-order, as after that your receiver will be finished and a serial number will be assigned.

The link to the preorder page will be shared one hour prior to preorders opening. It's pre-loaded with the "default" options selected, so if you don't want anything too fancy, you can click through right to the end. Some of the customization options will be available on the initial preorder page, but all of the customization options will be available on the second half of the preorder page, so if you change your mind on any of the different options, you will have a second chance to make adjustments before the gun ships out.

We'll see y'all in a week!

Happy Halloween!

FAQ's

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-What's caused the project to go on for so long?

The easy answer is "things get busy". The long answer is - GHG has been a one man shop from the beginning. Behind the scenes, there's one guy doing all the design, the prototyping, most of the manufacturing, the assembly, etc. The same guy answers all the emails, replies to all of the comments, etc. I love every minute of it, but it's a ton for one person to handle.

The entire process involved designing and subsequently redesigning multiple subsystems, many of which were designed specifically for this gun. What I thought would be a yearlong project ended up going well into two years as some of those systems, such as the semi auto striker mechanism, underwent complete redesigns from the ground up. The end result, in my humble opinion, is my Magnum Opus.

The 一〇〇式 isn't engraved correctly in your photos!

We know! The gun you see in the photos is the very first prototype we made, which means it bears all of the mistakes we made, the incorrect engraving being one of them.

This has been corrected in the final CAD. Good eye!

-What caliber options are available?:

For starters, just 9x19mm. 7.62x25mm is in the works, along with 8x22mm. 7.62 will likely come much sooner since it uses the same PPS-43 magazines, as 8x22 will also require proprietary magazines.

-Will it ship with a magazine?

I can't say 100% for sure yet, but we're working on that. In the meantime, stock up! Any surplus PPS-43 magazine will do. Some may require some light fitting due to the rather tight tolerances of the magazine well, but we made those tolerances loose enough where only light fitting should be required, if at all.

-What barrel lengths will be available? What about SBR length?

At launch just 16" threaded and non-threaded barrels will be available. Sometime after the New Year (2026), we will already be an SOT, and will begin offering SBR length and integrally barrels. Integral suppression will be in cooperation with our friends at NoVox Research.

-What made you switch from striker to hammer fired?

It was getting to the point where a striker fired mechanism was getting overcomplicated, and the "pros" of a hammer fired system began to far outweigh whatever we stood to gain by further development of the striker mechanism. What we accomplished with the hammer fired system was a more reliable ignition, with a far lighter trigger pull.

-Will you be developing an FRT / Binary for the Tensei?

We are not developing an FRT or Binary trigger for the Tensei, nor do we have any plans to. However, we welcome and openly encourage the community (you!) to come up with safe and legal modifications for your Tensei carbine. If you're able to come up with something, we'd love to see it so make sure to tag us!

-Will every gun be test fired before shipping?

Yes. I personally test fire every gun that we produce. "If I don't shoot it, it doesn't ship."

-What rail / accessory mounting options will be available?

At launch, a clamp-on picatinny rail mount is available that attaches to the shroud / handguard. The rear sight can also be replaced by a short section of picatinny rail. A full length "top rail" attachment is also in the works which will allow for larger optics such as rifle scopes. On the underside of the stock, the mounting plate for the front takedown block can be replaced with a railed section.

It is important to note that none of these options require permanent alterations to the firearm, and are purely optional.

-What's with all the gimmicky addons?

Honestly, I was surprised with the amount of requests we got for odd customization options. These included the obvious optics options, themed Cerakote finishes, the ability to name your gun, etc.

Everyone has different interests, and I wanted to make it as fun and customizable as you would want it to be!

-I don't have a question but I just wanted to say, "I love you"

We love you too, whoever you are, wherever you are <3

-Why?

Why not?

The Nambu "Tensei" Story

The story about the Nambu project began early in my childhood, back in the days when Call of Duty: World at War released in 2008. Those that played World at War likely had fond memories of the Nambu Type 100, as it was widely regarded as one of the best submachine guns in the game. That was my first "experience" with the Nambu, and eventually I discovered it to be present in other video games, such as Bad Company 2, and Red Orchestra 2 - Rising Storm, and it was also present in many of the newer WW2 era Call of Duty titles.

As I grew older, I developed an interest in collecting and restoring vintage firearms as well as the learning the art of manual machining. In 2015, when I was around 20 years old, I began apprenticing at a machine shop where I grew up in El Segundo, California. The owner and I became fast friends, having a shared interest in classic cars, firearms, and manufacturing. My interest in firearms and manufacturing eventually led to an interest in gunsmithing and firearms design, and I began designing and making replacement parts such as barrels and firing pins for obsolete vintage and antique guns. At the time I was also heavily involved in the conversion of surplus gun parts kits into functional semi-automatic carbines. Such parts kits included guns like the British Sten, the Finnish Suomi M/31, and the Polish PPS-43.

In 2017, with the Nambu still in mind, and the Fort DeRussy museum on my list of to-do's, we traveled to Honolulu for a summer family vacation. Within the museum was one of the few rare examples of a late war Nambu Type 100/44. I was lucky enough to be granted access into the museum's archives, where I collected a wealth of reference material that became invaluable later in the reverse engineering process.

Between 2017 and early 2024, not much happened with the Nambu project with the exception of a few notable instances where owners of miscellaneous Nambu parts made contact with me, and we exchanged measurements for the parts we had. By now I was confident I had most of the dimensions accurate on a 2D scale, but I still did not have much to reference to on a 3D scale with the exception of the photographs I took in Hawaii.

In February of 2024, a friend that worked at an auction company in California reached out and informed me that they had come across what they believed to be the barreled action of a Nambu submachine gun. I gathered my measuring tools and immediately took off, and spent the next several hours taking every measurement I could think of, not knowing if I could come close to a cash offer that they would consider. After some deliberating, we came up with a number that both of us were happy with, and I walked away with something I never thought I would lay hands on - a demilled barreled action of a early serial number, late war Nambu Type 100/44. I spent the next week, 14 hours a day modeling the entire barreled action in a CAD environment, and capturing the original via 3D scan to preserve for future modeling. I received another message not long after that the matching stock for the Nambu barreled action had been found. At this point, I had everything I needed to begin drawing the scale model to cross reference with my 2D drawings. Unfortunately, the matching internal components were never located, but we're still searching for a spare set that may still be floating around in private collections.

Thus, the real work began. The thought from the beginning was always, "It really would be cool to be able to own a Nambu someday", and that's exactly what we did. It may not be a 1:1 scale copy of the original, but it's about as close as you can get without introducing too many expensive, proprietary components. Starting with the rough overall shape of the original Nambu, over the course of 9 months or so, I designed a semiautomatic Pistol Caliber Carbine (PCC) that shares near-perfect similarity with the original Nambu, and it accepts commonly available surplus PPS-43 magazines, an AR-15 firing pin, and an AR-15 ejector to keep things simple. Since historically accurate metric diameter materials were unavailable, the next closest inch standard material was chosen to replace it. All in all, we got it as close as we could while still being able to locate the materials to produce it.

I drew a lot of inspiration for this design from the British Sten and Polish PPS-43 submachine guns in both form and function. I borrowed the extractor and fire control group design from the Sten, and the bolt from the PPS-43. As the design progressed, we eliminated many of the proprietary parts we had designed in favor of commonly sourced components, such as AR-15 firing pins and ejectors. This, if anything, ensure that the firearm can continue to be repaired if they remain in circulation if and / or when our company ever meets its untimely end.

Halfway through the design process, we uprooted our lives in California and set sail for Rosenberg, Texas, and it took a couple months of settling in before any work picked up again.

While we were hoping for a release date by or before SHOT Show 2025, unfortunately we were hit with a number of setbacks once we landed in Texas.

SHOT Show 2025 -

Wow, what a wild experience!

When we arrived at SHOT Show, we hoped that the Nambu would get some attention, but we didn't expect the outpouring of positive feedback and support we got from practically everyone. We drew the attention of some of the most influential people present at the show, including Mark Serbu, James Reeves (TFBTV), and "Gun Jesus" himself - Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons.

A lot of people asked us "Why" when it came to the Nambu project. Why are we doing this? Why are we spending so much on a gamble that could very well backfire against us? The answer is simply "Because I can, and because I want to". The Nambu has been, and always will be a passion project. I could sell a grand total of zero firearms, and still be happy with how the project turned out. And after hearing the story on why I'm dedicating so much time and effort into this little dream of mine, most of the folks that came by to ask "Why", left asking us "When?"

We're happy to say that my little childhood dream project has over 500 people interested in preordering at the time of this writing.

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