For those of you who grew up in the 80s, you may remember the iconic villain from the Transformers TV show, Megatron. Megatron’s design was originally from a japanese toy line that predates the Transformers cartoon in America. Takara, before they merged to form Takaratomy, made a line of transforming toys. All the car robots like Optimus Prime and the rest came from Diaclone. Megatron came from the Microman series of toys. The premise was every day objects that would change into spy robots.

Plain Walther P38 “GunRobo”

Below you can see the iconic Megatron toy. Takara designers were influenced by the Man From U.N.C.L.E. TV show. Hasbro got the rights and used this design to create Megatron the character.

U.N.C.L.E. inspired P38 carbine.

Well it has been a dream of mine to own a Walther P38 and have it customized like Megatron. I traded my friend Bryan for his Walther P38 and ordered a pair of reproduction grips that look like the ones on the toy. Then I had my friend Ian Greene of Crossbone Custom Firearms paint it matte silver with gun kote. We decided to stray from toy accuracy and left the controls alone in original parkerized finish. Also it would make it easier to sight the gun.

Next up my friend Bryan, of Azzy’s Design Works, helped me to print the iconic Decepticon logo with his new Roland Versa UV printer. The printer can print directly onto the surface with no treatment other than making sure the surface is clean of oil.

Below are comparison pics of the 2007 Japanese Masterpiece Megatron. The toy was scaled up so that when transformed as a robot, it would be the same size as the Masterpiece Optimus Prime toy.

Masterpiece Megatron vs Walther P38

Megatron and P38

I would like to continue modifying this Walther to more closely replicate Megatron. However mounting a scope is difficult. The toy just mounts the scope to the fake slide of the gun. If I try to mount it like the prop from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. TV Show the grips look different and are somewhat expensive.

There is a replica prop maker that sells theUNCLE  flat grips for blank guns and he wants $150 for the grips. They have a notch molded for the scope mount to attach to the grip. However when I mentioned I want to put these on a real P38 he recommended the machined aluminum grips. They are only $600. Yikes, that costs more than the gun.  Then there is the legality of adding a stock and trying to find a long barrel to make it a rifle. I think I will leave the gun alone and maybe consider trying to modify the grips and make a scope mount sometime in the future. For now I am geeking out over having a working Megatron Walther P38.

Edit: Here is a live fire test of my Megatron Walther P38.