Supporters Ian_Gere Posted August 11, 2012 Supporters Share Posted August 11, 2012 Gun Name and maker: CO2 FIREPOWER RAIDER by Palco FPS: 350 +/- 5% Hop up: Fixed Mag Capacity: officially 17 but you can get 18 in the mag Battery: none Plastic/Metal/Both: Mostly plastic with some metal, mainly internal. My opinion and overall comments: Here goes then... I bought one of these from Action Hobbies because I read this thread, dogpiled the gun and found it at a mega-cheap price - £34.99 (I had come to the opinion that, for the time being at least, if I was going to get a pistol, a plastic NBB would be the best option for reliability until I know enough about how gas guns work to be able to fiddle with a more expensive gun and keep it going). I didn't think of writing a review and thus taking pics for it until after I'd demolished the packaging, but above is basically what you get, except the .html] CO2 Capsule, which I bought separately from J S Ramsbottom because they're cheap. The first thing that I noticed was that hideous orange muzzle. In fact I had an almost visceral reaction to it and... ...which was probably not the right thing to do before I had even checked that the 'kin thing worked! Still, it does work so I'm counting myself lucky and I'm sure you agree with me... ...it looks so much better now! Right then, after I could experience it without wanting to beat it to small pieces with a claw hammer, re-box it and send it back, claim it arrived that way and demand my money back, I noticed that it has a pretty good feel to it: weighty enough with a slightly rubbery feel of the grip and a good distance from the back of the grip to the trigger. That last is quite important to me because I have fairly large hands so a lot of pistols sit naturally in my hand with my middle knuckle around the trigger - with this the tip of my finger sits nicely on the trigger. It does feel like a lot of the weight is in the mag, so I weighed it: Loaded Pistol = 660g Loaded Mag = 280g External Metal Parts: Slide Rod, Trigger, Slide Lock Level [possible spelling error in place of "Lever"], Faux Safety Catch (it doesn't move or do anything), Hammer, Mag Base Plate. The Trigger Guard feels like it might be metal underneath the slightly rubbery plastic exterior. It tells you, in the Destruction Manual, not to operate the slide and I'll add that, when I did so to colour in the muzzle, I started playing about with it and somehow managed to get the slide stuck open with the hammer jammed against the underside of it. Fortunately I have a dental probe with a right angle tip in my toolkit so it was easy enough to hook the hammer out of the way and unjam it, but otherwise, if this happens to you, just use a bent paperclip to do the same. It's totally simple to fit the CO2 cartridge into the mag (I've never done it before and I didn't actually need the Destructions, even though, after the stuck slide fiasco, I had read them), but loading BB's into it isn't anywhere near as simple. Firstly, the speed loader (which doesn't hold that many BB's compared to the other pistol mag sized one I have) has one of those attachments on the end of it to make loading a pistol mag easier. Guess what? It doesn't fit on the mag! I had to take it off and just press the speed loader in place. Just ignore that nasty looking bit of green plastic for the time being... Secondly, the Feeding Pin of the mag isn't so easy to simply slide down to the Feeding Pin Lock... ...because, you see that notch part way down the slot? Well, the 'kin Pin springs out from under your thumb/finger pretty easily, as you pull it down to the Lock end (left in pic), when you pass that 'kin notch, grrrr! To operate a speedloader with these mags, you have to hold them together in an exact position and press the plunger very slowly, to give each BB time to drop, otherwise the BB's jam in the Loading Port (hole for BB's), whilst simultaneously shaking the mag every couple of plunger-squeezes to make the BB's stack zig-zagged rather than one on top of the other. This is the position, but upright, if you get me: and it's a right pain in the arse. However, it can also easily become a pain in the hand too. You have to be careful when sliding the mag back into the magwell because otherwise you trap skin between the metal cup/plate on the bottom of the mag and the grip. I've done it twice already and I've only had it about 12 hours! This hazard will, of course, be neutralised by the gloves I wear whilst skirmishing, but (and isn't there always at least one?) it's so fiddly that there's no way on earth I could do any of the above in gloves. Onto the shooting then... It's quite powerful but , straight out of the box, it pulls significantly to the right. This would be a major bummer and grounds to send it back, except that the front sight is adjustable. After a bit of a fiddle I've got it set so I can get a 1½" grouping with 5 shots at 7.5m and at 25m I can hit a crouching man sized chimney stack, which is good enough for me. Any further than that and the BB's are just coasting before dropping. It took about 4-5 mags to empty one 12g CO2 capsule. The dent on the right in the Lynx can above was caused by my AK, having a bad day (Later that day chrono'd @330-ish FPS, but dropping as low as 316, due to air nozzle vs hop rubber issues {I think - it's not resolved}.) fired from 2" with a .2g BB. The dent on the left was made by this pistol firing a .2g BB from 2". Draw your own conclusions... That brings us to the nasty bit of green plastic we encountered earlier: it's the alternative front sight, which Palco describe as "fibre optic" It's a bit of a shame that it is such a POS because it is actually slightly better than the white dot front sight, which the pistol comes fitted with, to aim over. Only time will tell if the cheapo-slot-in-plastic adjustability of the front sight will stand up to being drawn and holstered in a hurry, but it takes a fair bit of force to shift it so I'm confident. A definite drawback is that I can't find any spare mags for sale. This is a proper bummer which is only ameliorated by the price. It says in the blurb that this pistol is not intended to be a replica of any RS gun, but to me it looks a bit H&K-ish. Frankly, my dears, I don't give a sh!t. All I wanted from this was a cheap, reliable enough emergency side arm to skirmish with, not pose with, or make a movie. That could well be what I've got and, for £35, I'm well happy. Overall rating: 7/10 (Would have been 6.8 but the price makes it significantly more attractive.) This case doesn't come with the pistol; the sticker does, but the case is from B&Q and comes with either a set of various pliers or various screwdrivers, I forget which. All images uploaded with ImageShack.us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporters Rock-climby-Dave Posted August 11, 2012 Supporters Share Posted August 11, 2012 We have 'em up at the shop, and tbh, they are fantastic little guns. Not had one back with a fault and we've sold bloody tons of the things! Very gas efficient and works even in sub-zero temperatures. also, just to note on them looking HK-ish. we thought that too, so we tried and they DO fit into USP IMI holsters (I would assume other brands work too) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporters Ian_Gere Posted August 11, 2012 Author Supporters Share Posted August 11, 2012 also, just to note on them looking HK-ish. we thought that too, so we tried and they DO fit into USP IMI holsters (I would assume other brands work too) Thanks for that info, Dave. I began feeling quite confident about the thing from around 1/2 way through the 3rd mag, when I'd got the front sight adjustment fine tuned and was getting consistent hits either in or around the red #5 bullseye of my sticky target from approx. 7.5m, which is the longest shot I can make indoors chez moi, cos the house is only about 8m wide, or 26' in old money. However, now you've said that you've had none back from loads of sales, that sends my internal mental Red Kite, who had a watching brief over the potential arseness of this pistol with his hawk eyes, back off to scrutinise my kitchen sink drain, the least said about which, the better... (oh, and for those who may think I'm either a weirdo, overly enthusiastic ornithologist, or have simply lost it, there is a very good reason why I refer to that part of my psyche which performs quality control as a Red Kite, which goes back as far as the middle ages ). Good to know about the holsters too, but here comes the vexed question, mate: can you get spare mags or do you know of any others, USP ones for eg, that either fit or can be easily modified to fit the Firepower Raider? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaeproductions Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 I'm getting one once I've got me UKARA defence. The mag does seem like a bit of a nob'ed but still a good pistol for the money. Will be fine for a beginner like me especially. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporters Ian_Gere Posted August 15, 2012 Author Supporters Share Posted August 15, 2012 Well I've done about 2 1/2 CO2's through it, some mags fired fast enough to sound like full-auto, and it's still working just as well as straight out of the box, so I'm feeling confident that its design is what I wanted, ie too simple to break easily! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporters Ian_Gere Posted September 3, 2012 Author Supporters Share Posted September 3, 2012 I used this pistol at NAE12 and it withstood 2 days and a night of skirmishing just fine. At one point it fell out of my leg drop holster and got ground into the leaf litter and dirt by me and others belly crawling and rolling to avoid fire over it - when I found it again it was covered in dirt which I just brushed off with my gloved hands and it carried on firing just fine. The front sight has remained solidly in position where I set it, but the marker pen black has worn through to the orange plastic of the muzzle due to rubbing as I drew/holstered it. I chrono-ed it with 0.2g BB's and got a 1st shot of 374 FPS after which it dropped off so that the fourth was 349 FPS. Subsequent shots were in the high 340's - low 350's. I am slightly concerned about this, because that 374 wasn't from a new CO2 cartridge, just the first in that session of firing... I'm hoping that, with use, it drops off a little, but when I'm at my home site I'm going to make sure I fire it a couple of times on the way out of the safe zone for each scenario. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporters Ian_Gere Posted March 28, 2013 Author Supporters Share Posted March 28, 2013 Has somebody deliberately edited my review? There's bits missing!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.