HellasAirsoft.com - Wei-ETech Hi Capa 5.1 Review

Introduction
Saturday August 6th, was a day full of surprises for me. Upon returning home around noon, I found a box waiting for me. Greek Post Office usually does not work the weekends, so this was the first surprise of the day.

Upon examining the labels, I saw that it was coming from Airsplat, from whom I was expecting a new, all metal pistol for testing, the Wei-ETech HiCapa 5.1. But since it had not arrived by Friday noon, I had given up hope for it, expecting it to be delivered on Monday.

Now remember, this was my first Airsoft pistol I was going to handle, so as you can imagine I was quite anxious to see it and play with it. So I opened the box and start taking out its contents.

One large, flat box, which contained the pistol, another long small box, which contained a second magazine, a bag of BBs and an Airsplat sticker.

As I already said, this was the first time in my life that I handled an Airsoft pistol. So you can imagine my (second) surprise, when I picked up a quite heavy STI-alike pistol. A full metal pistol (meaning that the upper frame, barrel and slide are made of metal), weighting more or less the same as a high capacity 1911, loaded with rounds!

This particular pistol, looked very much like a standard STI pistol, the Eagle 5.0. There were some differences of course, but the first impression was "Oh, here is an STI". The pistol had the silly (but necessary for some countries) orange tip at the muzzle, adjustable sights and one standard length , high capacity magazine. The second magazine, that you see above, is an extended one, with a hidden feature, more about that later.

The first thing I did, was to remove the magazine and rack the slide back. Oooops, the slide went back almost before I touched it. Of course this is not a .45 ACP pistol, so the recoil spring is very light. I let the slide forward, and decided to do something about the orange barrel tip, right then and there. Very soon the tip was in the garbage can, in my office.

Features

With that minor annoyance out of the way, I started examining the pistol. Typical STI look-alike frame, with a metallic upper frame and plastic grip, huge magwell, ambidextrous thumb safety, a light rail, and Bomar rear sight.

While I was removing the orange tip from the muzzle, I noticed the first thing which didn't impress me. The barrel/slide fit, leaves a lot to be desired. The barrel's outside diameter is quite small compared to the internal diameter of the slide. Even though the reverse recoil spring plug is a very nice unit, which supports the barrel the mismatched diameters of the slide and barrel make me skeptical, as to what accuracy one can expect from this pistol. We will see.

Here you can see the shooter's view.

Wide (really wide) but perfectly shaped ambidextrous safety pads (I wish I had such a safety on my real 1911), a very nicely fitted beavertail, a false extractor and a dummy firing pin.

The thumb safety is one of the best I've laid my hands on, it's shaped with a slight downward angle to the side of the pistol, and the shape is perfect for quick manipulation. However, it suffers from what I am afraid every ambi-safety can suffer from. Mismatched movement of the right and left parts, due to a loose connection on its axle. This means that if you use the right side of the safety to make the gun fire, the left side does not exactly follow the movement, and the gun is still on safe. Not very encouraging, if this was a real gun.

I removed the safety and had a look inside. The left part is shapped in a triangular shape, which mates to a female triangular shape on the right side. A little crazy glue could fix this issue but then I won't be able to fully strip the gun. And since I never use the right side of the safety, I left it as it is.

The extractor is of course a dummy one, since there is nothing to extract, so it's just a half-circle shape engraved on the rear of the slide.

Finally, the firing pin is a dummy too, because the real firing pin (whose role is to let gas out of the magazine to propel the BB down the barrel) is actually in the frame, not in the slide.

I played with the controls a bit, and the plungers spring is very light also. This makes the safety snap on and off quite easily, more easily than I would have liked. I thought about changing the plungers spring with a normal one, but I am afraid that this might affect the last-shot lock back feature, so for the time being, I didn't touch it.

The hammer is also made of metal, but this one is a poor quality casting, with several imprefections. A new hammer might be required in the future, if this one snaps.

What is a clear winner though, is the rear sight.

A very precise immitation of our well-known Bomar adjustable sight, with both elevation and sideways adjustements.

The sight is burried almost perfectly on the slide (at least better than the sights Colt installs on some of their pistols). Also, the slide is serrated on the top.

The front sight is dovetailed on the slide, and it is a little strange, since it is thin at the front, and becomes thicker as we move towards the rear.

In a real gun, that would allow the shooter to trim its width, according to how much light he likes to see around it, when he centers the front sight in the notch of the rear on. The front sight also has a circle on its face, as if the same sight is used on another model, with three-dots. On this particular model though, the sights are flat black, as they should be on a "target" pistol.

The frame is not checkered, but stippled, offering a nice, secure grip. The front of the grip is checkered, much like the STI's grips are and so is the mainspring housing.

Another touch I liked, the magazine release is checkered (not just serrated, which is the usual thing found on almost every 1911). I love checkered magazine releases, so I thought this was a very nice detail.

The pistol's dust cover incorporates a light rail, which is becoming a trend lately (so that holster makers have more work to do). However, this one is next to useless, since it does not have the cross-cuts which are used to secure the item you will mount there. Of course, with the recoil of an Airsoft pistol, you do not have to worry too much about the cross-cut safety, but still if you install a light there, you do not want to see it hitting the floor, when you lower your pistol.

I am not fond of these light rails in any case, since they do not allow you to use your existing 1911 holsters, and also destroy the very harmonious lines of the pistol, but on this particular case, I didn't care much, I do not have an STI holster anyway, so I didn't care much for holstering it. As for its lines, the hi-cap pistols were never particularly attractive in my eyes.

Here is what the pistol looks like with the slide locked back. As you can see, it features a full-length guide rod. I then disassembled the pistol.

Finally, what is significant for shooting, the pistol's trigger breaks like a glass rod, no creep and very light. Actually this pistol has a trigger pull, lighter than the one of my real pistols, so it is ideal for target shooting.

Proceed to the next pages about DISASSEMBLY and SHOOTING >>>

Credits/Acknowledgments
This review was brought to you by John Caradimas (M1911).
The M-1911 Pistols Organization
www.m1911.org

September 20, 2005. Athens, Greece.