Looking for my first side arm

[Jon199102]

Hi all. 

 

I'm.currently looking to arm myself with my first side arm. This will compliment my Specna arms E15. 

 

Price wise I don't wish to spend more than 130.

 

What brands would you recommend? 

[BigStew]

Tokyo Marui. you'll struggle to get anything new £130 but there are a few in the sales page going for sub £100 with spare mags HK45 is a very good pistol. for pure functionality MK23 NBB clone can be bought new for about £50/£60 not as much fun as a GBB but it can out range a lot of full size AEGs and is very quiet.

[Adolf Hamster]

what's the use case here, are we talking a 90% holster filler that'll get the occasional couple of shots in cqb or a serious backup expected to perform to the full in the depths of a northern winter?

 

if it's the former, then it expands your options, WE stuff is generally *alright* for that kind of work and you can get some good range/accuracy out of them, but they will let you down in the cold.

 

if it's the latter then either an NBB or a TM is going to be the order of the day, plastic slides may not feel the greatest but they do make the gun run better when conditions are against it.

 

i'd stay away from co2, just a pain in the ass to work with compared to just making sure you keep your gas topped up.

[E21A]

 

2 hours ago, Adolf Hamster said:

 

i'd stay away from co2, just a pain in the ass to work with compared to just making sure you keep your gas topped up.

 

Funny how I’ve found the exact opposite, green gas mags have been fucking worse than useless for me. 

[Adolf Hamster]

7 minutes ago, E21A said:

 

 

Funny how I’ve found the exact opposite, green gas mags have been fucking worse than useless for me. 

 

it's a strange one all right, pretty much every time i hear the sound of gas escaping in the safe zone it's almost always a co2 mag.

 

gg aint perfect, but it's a damn sight easier just keeping them gassed constantly.

[E21A]

Just now, Adolf Hamster said:

 

it's a strange one all right, pretty much every time i hear the sound of gas escaping in the safe zone it's almost always a co2 mag.

 

gg aint perfect, but it's a damn sight easier just keeping them gassed constantly.

To be fair I service my mags regularly and always put a fresh bulb in them with oil if they going to be stored more than a week without use. 
 

I find co2 just works, even in the cold. 🤷🏻‍♂️
 

Horses for courses I suppose 

[heroshark]

Begs the question which gg mags have you had experience. There are bad ones I'll give you that but the good design ones I've used have never need fixing over many years use. 

[Dentonboy]

Fire Support currently have most of their TM pistols for sub £130, so I recommend checking them out.

 

Go TM.

 

Or WE Glock.

[Cyberlawyer]

Personally If it’s a secondary I’d get a WE Glock. The WE G17 is a steal at £99 and is a pretty good performer. In the colder months you can use red gas to keep things pretty snappy. Biggest performance boost to be had is a maple leaf hop rubber which is less than £10 (although the stock one is ok, it’s just a bit hard and a ML is better).

 

Also for not much more than the price of a Marui  and an extra mag you can get 2 WE G17s which will get you two mags, but also means if you drop your sidearm in a puddle, you can just stick the dirty gun in your gun bag to clean later and swap to a clean pistol.

 

This is actually quite a big long term cost saving as cycling a pistol with grit in it (even after your best efforts to clean it in the safe zone) will dramatically shorten a GBB’s life.
 

if it’s for use as a primary then I’d suggest a Marui hi-Capa as a base and you can then throw money at it forever to get the perfect gun for you as there is so much after market support. It’s not my thing personally (I much prefer the ergonomics on a Glock), but the Hi Capa is so popular for good reason.

[Guest]

Whatever you do, don’t buy anything Raven or Nuprol.

 

I agree with  @Cyberlawyer , get a simple, robust WE, preferably G17 or 19/19X, as they are reliable and well built for the price

[kasaran]

18 hours ago, Adolf Hamster said:

 

it's a strange one all right, pretty much every time i hear the sound of gas escaping in the safe zone it's almost always a co2 mag.

 

gg aint perfect, but it's a damn sight easier just keeping them gassed constantly.

 

you sure thats not the bulb running out.  i run a couple of co2 pistols and a tm green gas sig.  with my co2 mags, when the bulb is emptied it tends to vent after the last shot. i assume its because it didnt have the pressure to fully cycle and so vents the remainder?  either way, slap in a new one and all is good

 

i get 3 mags (45bbs) out of my kwc luger and about the same out of my kjw g17 (60 odd bbs)

[Tackle]

Agree, in the price front, the WE Glocks are apparently excellent, or spend a bit more & get the only pistol you'll ever need, the TM hi-capa.

Technically buying the TM would actually be very cost effective, think of the money you'll save on all the other pistols you'll buy, only to eventually say fuckit & buy the TM 😜

[E21A]

19 hours ago, heroshark said:

Begs the question which gg mags have you had experience. There are bad ones I'll give you that but the good design ones I've used have never need fixing over many years use. 

TM, WE, APS and some non branded eBay/China stuff (All glock mags). All have been pretty useless despite being stored and maintained properly. 

[Adolf Hamster]

1 hour ago, kasaran said:

 

you sure thats not the bulb running out.  i run a couple of co2 pistols and a tm green gas sig.  with my co2 mags, when the bulb is emptied it tends to vent after the last shot. i assume its because it didnt have the pressure to fully cycle and so vents the remainder?  either way, slap in a new one and all is good

 

i get 3 mags (45bbs) out of my kwc luger and about the same out of my kjw g17 (60 odd bbs)

 

nope, almost exclusively putting in a new bulb only for it to vent it's contents.

 

when they work they definitely perform, but it's the preface to that sentence that seems to be the tricky part.

[Cyberlawyer]

2 hours ago, rocketdogbert said:

Whatever you do, don’t buy anything Raven or Nuprol.

 

I agree with  @Cyberlawyer , get a simple, robust WE, preferably G17 or 19/19X, as they are reliable and well built for the price

The WE19x is an excellent pistol and my preferred skirmish side arm. The slightly shorter barrel doesn’t perceptibly impact range or accuracy but speeds up weapon transition times (shorter barrel is quicker to draw).

 

The only reason it isn’t my first choice for this recommendation is its slightly more expensive so my “man maths” justification for buying 2 doesn’t work as well. Also the whole transition time thing isn’t really an issue for skirmishing unless you are into hardcore CQB and is more a personal bias based on doing practical shooting (even when a table is available I prefer to holster my pistol if allowed).

2 hours ago, Tackle said:

Agree, in the price front, the WE Glocks are apparently excellent, or spend a bit more & get the only pistol you'll ever need, the TM hi-capa.

Technically buying the TM would actually be very cost effective, think of the money you'll save on all the other pistols you'll buy, only to eventually say fuckit & buy the TM 😜

If it’s a primary weapon or target pistol then the Hi Capa is hard to say anything bad about (even though I don’t like them personally).

 

As a secondary at some point it will get dropped (holster failure, fumble in transition etc, at some point it just will happen) and then there is real value in just switching to a clean unused gun for the rest of the day.

 

Even if I was running some tricked out super upgraded pistol when I was running a pistol as primary, I’d still revert to a WE Glock when using a pistol as a secondary. 

[Rogerborg]

On 18/01/2020 at 19:45, Adolf Hamster said:

what's the use case here, are we talking a 90% holster filler that'll get the occasional couple of shots in cqb

 

If it turns out that's the answer, then I'd note that the Army Armament R17 does actually work, and can be delivered into your sweaty mitts for just £55.80 from ... [looks around guiltily] bbguns4less.co.uk, if you put it in your basket then wait 24 hours for the "secret" 7% discount code.

[heroshark]

14 hours ago, E21A said:

TM, WE, APS and some non branded eBay/China stuff (All glock mags). All have been pretty useless despite being stored and maintained properly. 

And what co2 mags do you use? 

[E21A]

11 minutes ago, heroshark said:

And what co2 mags do you use? 

WE and APS 

[Armo1000]

On 18/01/2020 at 22:03, E21A said:

To be fair I service my mags regularly and always put a fresh bulb in them with oil if they going to be stored more than a week without use. 
 

I find co2 just works, even in the cold. 🤷🏻‍♂️
 

Horses for courses I suppose 

 

I agree. Standard Green gas guns never seemed to work for me (leaking, venting, running out of gas early, not working at all in the cold) but then I got a Co2 KWC 1911 and it just worked no matter the weather and I always get a good 3-5 mags worth out of each Co2 bulb. Also hit allot harder (but not nearly as hard as people complain about with Co2) and had a really satisfying blowback action.

 

Only reason I would opt more for green gas is because allot of sites stupidly ban Co2 including my local site which makes it difficult, but performance wise it’s been awesome for me. 

[Adolf Hamster]

12 minutes ago, Armo1000 said:

 

I agree. Standard Green gas guns never seemed to work for me (leaking, venting, running out of gas early, not working at all in the cold) but then I got a Co2 KWC 1911 and it just worked no matter the weather and I always get a good 3-5 mags worth out of each Co2 bulb. Also hit allot harder (but not nearly as hard as people complain about with Co2) and had a really satisfying blowback action.

 

Only reason I would opt more for green gas is because allot of sites stupidly ban Co2 including my local site which makes it difficult, but performance wise it’s been awesome for me. 

 

see i have one of those kwc's and it's easily the most unreliable gun i've ever owned

[heroshark]

The way I see it I have never come across a Co2 mag capable of lasting as well as a well put together gg mag. Although I've never come across the aps gg glock mags I've had to fix a few WE ones for people and they where no bother. Some for friends which I know are still running. the early variant WE glock co2 mags where terribly designed and failed quickly, not had experience with current or the aps. I would also agree the kwc co2 guns and mags are not great having worked on them. One thing I do know I've played gbb pistols only quite heavily for the past 17 years I went from tm sig, to tm & kjw capas (kjw co2 mags also crap, gg ones good). Tm Detonics and more recently the hk45 and uspc.  A lot of my mags where 2nd hand from the off, I used then sold on and I still know are working today because they are with people I know. Most of them I never serviced the odd one of my capa and detonics mags got a slow leak but where easily remedied. As far as metul goes I can live without it for a good cold running gbbp that runs on reliable gg mags. I used to build a fmk version and have an abs build for colder times in the past but I don't bother now.

[Jon199102]

Hi all. Firstly thank you all for your advice. 

 

I much prefer the realism aspect of Airsoft especially when it comes to the gear. 

 

I've come across one that I really like (RWA Nighthawk custom). Only issue is that it's Co2. Maintance wise I'm happy to do what's needed to keep it maintained. Would it be a good choice or should I shut up and just look at a TM high capa?

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Jon199102 said:

....stuff...

 

By what you like. I’d recommend handling first if you can, but whatever, buy what you like

[Cyberlawyer]

12 hours ago, Jon199102 said:

Hi all. Firstly thank you all for your advice. 

 

I much prefer the realism aspect of Airsoft especially when it comes to the gear. 

 

I've come across one that I really like (RWA Nighthawk custom). Only issue is that it's Co2. Maintance wise I'm happy to do what's needed to keep it maintained. Would it be a good choice or should I shut up and just look at a TM high capa?

Nothing inherently wrong with Co2, the fact you can’t top up mags as a pain. After a while you will work out that each capsule will fire a certain number of full mags and you can change the capsule at that point so you don’t gas out. Running costs are also slightly higher and if you run out of gas at a game many site shops won’t stock C02.

 

Big up side is its much more resistant to the cold....

[heroshark]

13 hours ago, Jon199102 said:

Hi all. Firstly thank you all for your advice. 

 

I much prefer the realism aspect of Airsoft especially when it comes to the gear. 

 

I've come across one that I really like (RWA Nighthawk custom). Only issue is that it's Co2. Maintance wise I'm happy to do what's needed to keep it maintained. Would it be a good choice or should I shut up and just look at a TM high capa?

 

Essentially a kwc/cybergun  in RWA clothing .