I’ve always been a sucker for Beretta M9s and decided
to buy the best airsoft replica there is by Western Arms.
Western Arms is authorized by Beretta to use
the original trademarks on their replicas and it’s
not by chance that there are some WA Beretta replicas on
display in the Beretta Museum and official Beretta website…
This gorgeous GBB was bought from www.wgcshop.com
in Hong Kong for about 185 EUROS (including shipping). Excelent
prices and excelent service. It arrived 5 days after making
payment but due to customs and import procedures which involed
lots of paperwork, the GBB was at my posession 4 months
after arrival in Greece… Don’t get me started
on this one…
THE BOX
The box is plain cardboard with the WA and Beretta logos
printed on top and other info around the sides which are
in Japanese and carry a secret message to everyone who knows
how to read Japanese. Didn’t bother with it, myself…
The secret message, I mean…
As you can see, the box includes the GBB, two allen wrenches,
a small bag of BBs (spent most of them but you can still
see three remaining…), the loading tube and rod and
the loading adapter that sits on top of the magazine for
loading the BBs. There are also documents like the manual
(again in japanese only, like they don’t know that
the whole world wants desperately one of their GBB pistols),
a safety mezures brochure and of course paper targets in
case your brother wont sit still or the cat moves too fast
or the dog eats the flying BBs or you’re out of china
plates in the living room…
The gun is cosmetically perfect, more or less, with mould
lines no where to be seen. I ordered the grey parckerised
version, even though there is an all black model, because
I find it more intriguing :P
HOW DOES IT… EM… HOW DOES IT WORK?
Come on people! It’s not nuclear physics! Follow my
lead…
Press the mag release button, the mag slides out.
Place the loading adapter on top of the magazine, insert
the loading tube (brass tube) in the adapter’s circular
hole.
Insert 25, I say 25, no more, no less, BBs in the loading
tube and push them in the magazine using the loading rod
(black plastic). There you go!
Now, let’s try filling the mag with gas, shall we?
I’d stick to HFC134a if I were you because it’s
an expensive replica and Top Gas, Green Gas or HFC22 will
damage your GBB for sure!
If you still want to use more powerful gas, upgrade the
slide to a metal one.
At the bottom of the mag you can see the gas valve. Hold
the mag upside down and insert the gas canister into the
gas vlave. Try and keep it vertical and alligned with the
magazine or you might damage the valve and have leak problems
afterwards. Press the canister downwards for 3-4 secs. The
mag is full of gas when excess gas starts spurting out of
the canister. Extra mags cost around 40 EUROS in case you
break it, butterfingers…
IMPORTANT!!!
There is an output valve safety on the back side of the
mag, right under the output valve where the pin strikes
the valve. It is a black metalic plate that goes up and
down. In order for the magazine to be filled succesfully
with gas, this plate should be DOWN! In case you forgot
and the plate is up depressing the output valve, the gas
will go out from the top of the magazine.
Done with the gas!
Now, insert the mag into the magwell and press it up until
you hear a “click”.
“Click” means that the mag is secured in place
by the mag release button.
Put the safety lever up so you can rack the slide and shoot.
When the gun is “HOT”, i.e. no safety, you can
see a red dot below the safety lever.Then you pull back
the slide as far as it goes and let it return forward. You’ve
just loaded your first BB in the chamber! Yay! The gun is
ready to fire so be very careful!
After that, what you see is the hammer cocked and the trigger
depressed almost completely. This is the single action trigger
position. Whenever the hammer is cocked, the trigger is
in single action mode. Either you press the trigger to shoot
or decock the hammer by putting the safety lever to the
down position, covering the red dot.
Once you shoot, the released gas sends the BB flying, cycles
the slide, which in turn reloads the chamber and recocks
the hammer, thus “BlowBack”, people. Then you
can shoot again untill no BBs are left in the mag. Once
the last BB is gone, the slide stays open as shown in the
main picture of this review.
To close the open slide, press the slide release lever.
If you choose to decock the pistol, put the safety lever
over the red dot. When the pistol is “SAFE”, the
trigger mechanism is disconnected from the hammer and the
slide is locked in the closed position.
To shoot again, safety OFF, cock the hammer with your thumb
and shoot. Alternatively, you can shoot without cocking
the hammer, just buy using the double action mode of the
trigger which cocks the hammer for you and then releases
it.
ALWAYS WEAR GOGGLES OR ANY OTHER TYPE OF EYE PROTECTION!
DO NOT SHOOT AT PEOPLE THAT DON'T WEAR ANY KIND OF EYE PROTECTION!!!
Note that the safety is ambidextrous and, you can take
the mag release button and place it for left hand use, i.e.
on the right, same as the real steel.
DISASSEMBLY / REASSEMBLY / MAINTENANCE
In order to disassemble the pistol, put the safety OFF (up
position, red dot visible), remove the mag, press the slide
disassembly button (right side of gun, not visible here),
turn the disassembly lever 90 degrees down and the slide
moves forward a few milimeters. Slide it off the lower receiver.
Take out the barrel unit (outer barrel, inner barrel).
Reassembly is like all previous steps backwards but pay
attention when repositioning the disassembly lever. When
the slide is in position, push it back a few milimeters
and then rotate the disassembly lever 90 degrees to the
right. It’s a bit tricky at first but after a while
it becomes mechanical.
Maintenance consists of ceaning the dust from all parts
of the gun using a simple canister of compressed air like
the ones used to clean PC keyboards and a brush to get to
those “hard to reach” areas. Lubricate the gun
using only silicon oil, in drops or in spray, because any
other type of oil damages the gun’s O-rings. Make sure
you put silicon oil on the friction areas where the slide
meets the lower receiver, into the magazine, onto its output
valve and finaly, into the valve on the slide.
HOP UP. NOT YOU! I MEAN THE HOP UP SYSTEM!
It’s located in the BB chamber and you need the appropriate
supplied allen wrench to adjust it. It’s quite a pain
actually because you dissasemble, adjust, re-assemble, shoot,
dissasemble, re-adjust, re-assemble, shoot again and so
on…
It gets boring even if you write about it, imagine how
boring it is when you have to do it over and over again
and again…
But the good thing is that you have the option of Hop Up,
which is far better from the GBBs that don’t have any,
since proper adjustment of the Hop Up will give your GBB
a very good range.
COMMENTARY
Because of the Magna Blowback system that Western Arms has
patented, this replica is by far the best, as far as performance
out of the box is concerned. It’s build quality has
yet to be surpassed and the M9 MilSpec version reviewed
here is even of the same weight as the real steel. The blowback
is fast and crisp and that makes the fastest double taps
you can shoot. Accuracy is good, even though I didn’t
test it thoroughly since I find it difficult to aim properly
in the heat of battle. Let’s see you keep a cool head
when BBs are flying past your head… They hurt you know!
In the pictures you might have seen some worn out areas
due to heavy use, especialy on the metal parts that just
have the black paint removed over time. There are several
accessories out there like tactical rails for flashlight,
laser and scope, silencer adapters, reinforced parts, metal
slides and receivers so you can customise your M9.
Overall, every WA Gas BlowBack pistol is an investment
and should be handled like one. A gun stand wouldn’t
hurt so you can show off your “precious”…
Muahahahahaaa…
MAGNA BLOWBACK
SPECS
Built Material - ABS
Magazine Capacity - 25+1 in chamber ( 6mm BB )
Length - 217mm
Weight - 960g
System - Gas Blow Back / Hop-Up / R-Type Magazine
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Credits/Acknowledgments
This review was brought to you
by Journeyman.
July 26, 2005. Athens, Greece.
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