Army Armament R19 (Glock 17)

[mightyjebus]

Another day another Glock 17 review.

 

Up this time is the Army Armaments R17 which is a copy of the Generation 3 Glock 17. If you want to know the history of the glock pistol then check here and if you want to have a look at the current Glock lineup then check here.

 

The Army Armament R17 has been around for a while and with the company now selling at least 30 new variants of the Glock it was time for me to have a look.

 

The AA R17 is direct copy of the Tokyo Marui Glock 17 but it comes with a metal slide as standard. I'll stick up some photos and add comments as I go along.

 

The Box:

a simple cardboard box with some nice and clear markings on the outside.

 

Inside the box you will find the pistol, Magazine, paper target, small instructions sheet and a bag of BB's.

 

The Pistol:

The pistol has full trademarks on the slide and frame. The slide is plastic/polymer and the slide is cast metal. The outer barrel is also cast metal and nicely trademarked.

 

The base of the magazine has ARMY markings on the base plate and if you want you can replace this with a Guarder traded version. The magazine holds 24 bb's and will work in a Tokyo Marui, WE, KJ Works and Stark/Storm Glock. The magazines for all these companies will work in the Army R17. For best results I found that the WE Glock mags worked best with an increase of around 10 FPS and a much snappier blowback.

 

The rear sights are plastic and have a luminescent paint which when charged with white light will glow in the dark. I've tried it and it does glow brightly for quite a while.

These are a direct copy of the TM so any metal aftermarket designed for the TM Glock 17 will fit the AA Glock.

 

Inside the pistol:

splitting the AA Glock is like any other airsoft or RS Glock. Remove the mag, rack the slide and then pull the drop down lever down on both sides and the slide will slide off towards the muzzle. Inside you will find a copy of the TM Glock but everything is pretty much cast metal. one nice addition is that the pull down lever is metal as standard.

 

The outer barrel is cast with trades, the inner barrel and hop up seem decent quality but can be replaced with aftermarket parts if needed. The recoil rod, spring and buffer seem good quality and the spring is strong enough to return the slide with a nice snap.

 

Overall experience:

 

So the big question..is it any good?

 

For £51 you get a direct copy of a Tokyo Marui Glock 17. All the aftermarket parts made for the TM Glock will fit and it has a metal slide with full trade marks as standard. So for the price and all these features I'd give it a yes vote but let's have a look at performance.

 

So with a Magazine filled with Guarder 1000 gas and 24 BB's I put a few mags through the pistol and found that it would average 275/280 FPS and fire all the BB's but it didn't always lock the slide back after all the BB's had been fired. I think this is simply because the slide and internals are all cast metal so the pistol struggles with the weight. When I tried the WE magazine which increased the FPS to 285/290 the slide locked back every time.

This would indicate that this is probably a summer pistol as the pistol will struggle to run in the colder months unless you up the gas type and drop the BB load from 24 to around 15-18.

 

Accuracy is on par with all my other Glocks. I can hit a man sized target at 40 meters with easy. The hop rubber works well but if you want to improve this then putting in a tigher bored inner barrel and changing the hop rubber to a nine ball one will increase the accuracy down to probably an A4 sized target at 40 meters.

 

I like this pistol and I think it's good value for money which can be repaired with aftermarket parts if anything breaks. My only concerns are that it's more of a summer pistol and the metal slide feels brittle. I think if you dropped it onto concrete from 2 meters it would shatter. it's not the end of the world because of this and I think that with a few tweeks inside and a guarder metal slide installed it could well server you for years.

 

To get the best from this pistol I'd recommend the following:

Use WE magazines

replace the hop and inner barrel with better quality versions

replace the blowback housing with a light weight one and replace the outer barrel with a plastic one would make the pistol a bit snappier and would make sure that it locked back everytime when using the AA magazine.

 

Overall 7/10

[mightyjebus]

I found that the outer barrel was slightly loose in the cutout of the slide (the part where the spent shells would eject in the real Glock). It was a little annoying as it clinked away when I was holding the R17.

 

I decided to replace it with a spare plastic TM one I had and it fits perfectly, the annoying noise has stopped, the pistol recoils better (as I've saved some weight) and the serials on the plastic TM outer barrel match the serials on the R17. SO if you but one of these try to find a spare TM outer barrel to make a big improvement.

I also had a go at making a grey frame using spray dye as I've seen a few RS glocks with a grey frame recently. Turned out ok I think.

[Comicbook hero]

Nice detailed review. Keep them up!

 

I have had an Army R17 for a couple of years now and it has done sterling service for the price.

Mine came with a plastic outer barrel and performance was fine although the slide could be a bit sluggish.

 

I recently stuck a 6.01 TBB and upgraded recoil spring from my TM 4.3 Hi Capa in it. (The Hi Capa is unwell and needs a new hop unit and rubber and it seemed pointless having them lay around until I got it fixed.) Now it performs nicely with crisp recoil and good accuracy. Not sure how the internals will hold up but to be honest its served me longer than I expected already.

 

I'd be more than happy buying another one.

 

Again, thanks for the review.

 

CBH

[Dentonboy]

How do you rank the Army Armament Glocks, Mighty, when compared against each other?

[Dentonboy]

Or, better still, how does it rank against the Arsenal 4th Gen Glock?

 

Cheers.

[mightyjebus]

good question.

 

I'd always say get a TM if you can. The downside to a TM is it's all plastic so if you want to make it more realistic then you need to spend money to get it to the pistol you want. The obvious bonus of a TM is that it will keep on working.

 

The AA and the Storm are about level peg. The internals of the AA are directly a copy of the TM so replacement parts are easy to source. The Storm is about 90-95% TM compatible so the AA just beats it on that score. The Storm is slightly better when it comes to using it as the AA is sluggish because of the heavy outer barrel and slide. I'd use both during the winter but I'd recommend using WE magazines and dropping the BB load to around 15 in the winter. The plastic TM doesn't have this problem.

The Storm is also a Gen 4 frame so if you are looking to do a modern UK loadout then this is the one to buy. The quality of the casting on the Storm is also better than the AA.

 

Whatever one you buy, TM, Storm or AA, then I would recommend using WE magazines and replace the inner barrel with a tightbore as standard.

If you get the AA try to find a plastic outer barrel as well.

 

If you look after them I believe the AA or Storm will work fine for a long time.

 

I really should get a WE G17 at some point to see how that performs but I've had mixed luck with WE pistols.

[Dentonboy]

Cheers Mighty.

 

Am am a preacher myself regarding TM pistols (their M9A1 is scarily good if you've not treated yourself), but it is always good to see what the clones are like.

 

I'm tempted, I have to say.

[Rogerborg]

Small BUMP.  In $CURRENT_YEAR, all the trademarks are gone, and on the R17-A model at least, the sights are just white paint, with the rear being Glock's daft U shape.  I think I'll glow them up a bit.

 

Also, the ostensible 11mm CW outer barrel thread is larger than the ostensible 11mm CW thread adaptor for my Lighter-S, so I dunno what's going on there.

 

[UPDATE]

Ah, it seems that Army Armament like to use 12mm threads, just to be different.

 

[UPDATE to the UPDATE]

Yes, definitely 12mm, and CCW.  Not knowing which way it was threaded, I bought a 12MM "CW" to 14mm CCW adapter, from Chinaland via eBay.  Fortunately, it was actually CCW to CCW and works fine.

 

The gun performed OK yesterday, although it was massively over-hopped even with the hop fully off, and there's no resistance from the hop wheel. I'll need to get in there to see what's going on, but just bending the metal hop arm up slightly actually got it close enough for CQB work.

[Mad Rag]

Old i know but fantastic review think i have made a good choice. thanks ! 

[Rogerborg]

Oh, right, I should have followed up. The initial hop issues on mine were I think down to it shooting weak out of the box.  That was just bedding in issues, it's now up around 280 and the hop adjustment range is fine for .2 to .25g.

 

I've had one instance of the slide not locking back on an empty mag, but I'm not sure whether that was with the OEM mag, or one of the WE's that I bought.  I've been unable to replicate it in the mancave, so am not too fussed.  It's still shooting just fine and is now serving as an effective CQB primary.  I can't fault the value for money.

[Mad Rag]

23 minutes ago, Rogerborg said:

Oh, right, I should have followed up. The initial hop issues on mine were I think down to it shooting weak out of the box.  That was just bedding in issues, it's now up around 280 and the hop adjustment range is fine for .2 to .25g.

 

I've had one instance of the slide not locking back on an empty mag, but I'm not sure whether that was with the OEM mag, or one of the WE's that I bought.  I've been unable to replicate it in the mancave, so am not too fussed.  It's still shooting just fine and is now serving as an effective CQB primary.  I can't fault the value for money.

mine came today cracking service from bbgus4less tbh.