RED CELL ROCK OUT WITH YOUR GLOCK OUT!

ONCE AGAIN RED CELL COMES FULL-CIRCLE AS WE RETURN TO OUR G-SERIES POOL OF TEST PISTOLS, AND OF COURSE SINCE WE STARTED THERE HAVE BEEN SOME UPDATES IN THE WORLD OF AIRSOFT “GLOCKS AND NOTS” WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF THE 17 GEN5, SO WE’VE UPDATED THE LIST TO START BRINGING THOSE MODELS INTO PLAY AS IS RIGHT AND PROPER. THANKFULLY THESE ARE IN THE HANDS OF TWO OF OUR MOST ACTIVE PISTOL SHOOTERS, STEWBACCA AND BOYCIE SO BBS WILL BE GOING DOWNRANGE IN NUMBERS AS THEY GET TO GRIPS WITH THE LATEST ITERATION.

So far the G-SERIES pistols that we have in house continue to largely perform very well indeed, especially the VFC/UMAREX models that are proper “old campaigners”, but at the other end of the price spectrum we’ve had some mixed results! The HUNTSMAN H17 is proving to be very good indeed, and the RAVENs just keep on trucking along, but sadly we’ve begun to see some issues developing on the ARMY R17.

Now we have heard reports from our retail friends that batch one of the R17 was very solid, but that batch two came replete with numerous issues, and although our own test model of the R17 came in the very first wave and has not failed catastrophically, it has begun to show some annoying traits like not locking back on empty, and failing to feed all the BBs in the magazine; in honesty the poor old thing has started to feel distinctly “tired” compared to the other models in the pool of a similar age. We’ll keep an eye on how these gremlins develop…

In the mid-ground of course the TM keeps giving steadfast results, and the WE, Armorer Works, Evolution, Redwolf and VORSK pistols are showing some wear externally but no real downgrade in performance at all. As most of us in the testing group use Kydex holsters that have an habit of showing up any poor external finishing very quickly indeed we can tell you that the “wear and tear” on all the models is minimal, even at the more budget end.

Apart from the new Gen 5 models all the pistols have been given basic maintenance using MAGLUBE on the working parts, and all magazines have been serviced at six-month intervals in a rolling basis. Thus far we’ve not seen any mag failures from any of the manufacturers involved in the long-term testing, not even broken feed lips, and although some O-rings have been replaced that’s about it!

Once again, all the models that are featured here are either held in the long-term-test pool or are owned by the members of Red Cell. Our aim as always with this category is not to find out “what am best gnu” but instead to treat every single pistol under evaluation equally to ensure that you have the information you need when you’re considering your next purchase; we’ll hammer them all the same so that when you do part with your “airsoft pocket money” you at least have a good indication of what to avoid, and what will become a valued “airsoft sidekick” that will provide a great service life if you look after it!

Bill: I’ll come straight out and say it; when it comes to MilSim use or indeed for any kind of “6mm upgrades it’s a great little “fightin’ secondary”. However, although the continued functioning and performance can in no way be either on the range for fun, or during training scenarios that I’ve been run through. The plastic of the pistol whilst in all ways excellent just doesn’t give close to the real “feel” of a G17, and although this isn’t important for airsoft-game-use, it IS important to me when it comes to “skills and drills” training for when I have an opportunity to get my hands on the real thing.

The UMAREX though, itself a fine, accurate, and durable airsoft pistol actually goes some way to replicating the G17 GEN 4, and although it’s actually a little lighter than the TM (go figure that!) it does benefit from an alloy slide and to me at least, just “feels” better. Once again this is still a “stock from the box” pistol, but it shoots insanely well and with just a modicum of maintenance continues to delight me. Now we may all have different opinions on this, but the fact that the UMAREX G17 is also a fullylicenced airsoft replica means that all the external “trades” are correct as they can be, and although the TM also benefits from similar markings I know that these are only there as Japanese law has allowed it; it looks like a Glock, but it’s “hokey” in this respect, and for some reason this diminishes it in my eyes; don’t get me wrong, it’s one cool shooter but I just wish TM would bite the BB and man-up when it comes to their use of real-world trades.

Moving away from strict replicas lands me onto another favourite of mine, and that’s the WE G17 MOS. Although I usually choose a “simple” secondary (pistol) myself, these days you can have pretty much any pistol model pre- fitted with a reflex red dot sight (RDS), and it’s most definitely something that I’ve been working on myself, as it does change the way you shoot a bit. Advancements in sighting systems have allowed us to enhance our pistols with options including adjustable sights, tritium, and fibre-optic inserts. Changes in iron sight options have enhanced our ability to see and track our sights but have offered no way to change the way we see both the sights themselves and the target; we’re all still stuck with the “front sight, rear sight and target” thing; with a RDS for this changes.

With companies improving red dot sights so they can be mounted directly to a slide and handle the rigours of slide-mounted recoil RDS systems can now be trusted, and better shooters than I have spent many a range hour proving this. Yes, it’s a personal decision whether to incorporate “technology” onto your pistol, and no doubt many a discussion will still be held over nice malt as to their efficacy, but the fact is that the technology itself works, and can be trusted to work and perform.

When it comes to what I use on my AEGs and GBBs it’s always ALL about choice, and therefore I like the option to have a RDS mounted on my pistol, but in some games I also want the choice to be able to run my pistol “clean”, and this is where the WE Airsoft G17 Gen5 MOS gets my full approval. We’re talking a lot about G-Series models in some depth here this month, and although the MOS is featured here in its base form, it’s when you start to look at the modularity of the pistol that it REALLY begins to shine, as its core feature is the MOS platform on the slide, which allows you to adapt and install mainstream pistol red dot optics onto the slide directly without any permanent modification!

The WE G17 Gen5 MOS allows you to have a RDS while keeping the iron sights as a co-witness option, or indeed you have the option to run the pistol “clean” if you so desire by simply leaving the cover plate in place. Whichever way you like to run your pistol it’s always nice to have options, and on that front alone, as on many others, in my opinion the MOS delivers fully; however, Dan has been working on a few of these so I’ll hand over to him…

: The original WE G17 MOS generated much fanfare among WE fans as WE’s major foray into an ready Glock platform also replicating the newer Glock MOS specifically. These with several optics plates for wide compatibility with various red dot mounting footprints. Disappointingly, WE ships the MOS with a faux RMR that is non-functional and has a painted dot for aiming reference. This also looks nothing like a real RMR and is functionally useless to boot since you cannot zero it to the pistol. WE could omit this from the package entirely and nobody would miss it!

Tokyo Marui G17 Gen 4

Price: iro £150.00

Age: Three Years

Weight: 709g

Length: 202 mm

Magazine Capacity: 25+1

Cold Chrono:0.83 Joule/300fps

Hot Chrono: 0.89 Joule/310fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good Suppressor Compatibilty: No

Available From: www.fire-support.co.uk

Raven Eu17

Price: iro £85.00

Age: Five Years

Weight: 700g

Length: 200mm

Magazine Capacity: 24+1

Cold Chrono: 0.75 Joule/285fps

Hot Chrono: 0.75 Joule/285fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good Suppressor Compatibilty: Good Available From: www.rvnairsoft.com

RAVEN EU18 (SELECT FIRE)

Price: iro £90.00

Age: Five Years

Weight: 790g

Length: 200mm

Magazine Capacity: 24+1

Cold Chrono:0.75 Joule/285fps

Hot Chrono: 0.78 Joule/290fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good Suppressor Compatibilty: Good Available From: www.rvnairsoft.com

Vorsk Eu17 Vented

Price: iro £120.00

Age: Four Years

Weight: 500g

Length: 220mm

Magazine Capacity: 22+1

Cold Chrono: 0.95 Joule/321fps

Hot Chrono: 0.95 Joule/321fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good Suppressor Compatibilty: Good, Adaptor fitted as standard Available From: www.vorskairsoft.com

Vorsk Eu18 Vented

Price: iro £145.00

Age: Five Years

Weight: 550g

Length: 220mm

Magazine Capacity: 22+1

Cold Chrono: 0.98 Joule/325fps

Hot Chrono: 0.98 Joule/325fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good

Suppressor Compatibilty: Good, Adaptor fitted as standard Available From: www.vorskairsoft.com

Moving onto the rest of the exterior, these do not mark a major departure from WE’s usual fit and finish; though I would say the slides are looking nicer now and no longer have those visible milling marks as on the old WE models. These do not sport authentic trades but there is some unsightly text and WE trades on the grip frame. There is still the safety lockout serial number plate on the railed portion of the frame. It is still difficult to manipulate and few will ever use it in practice.

The slide itself is absent of any markings, save for the barrel hood. The barrel itself has fairly common (to GBB pistols, at least) 11mm threads, which allows it to mount suppressor adapters or tracer units. As on the real GEN 5 MOS, the grip backstraps are easily removable, allowing the user to tailor the width of the grip to their preference. Overall, it’s a pretty solid feeling sidearm and will certainly pass the “squint test” for visual form, but purists will no doubt feel a bit squeamish.

Internally, these share a lot of parts commonality with older WE models, but the major change here on the MOS is the proprietary blowback housing which is probably the heaviest and chonkiest G-series BBU I’ve ever encountered. This is also the biggest drawback of the WE MOS as the sheer mass of the BBU and a proper RMR contributes to rather poor efficiency. You can upgrade the barrel and bucking, which improves greatly on the out of the box accuracy, but there’s not much you can do with this BBU so far. Most of the examples I have encountered seem to average two magazines per fill, and I can sometimes extend that a little by upgrading the barrel and bucking, a new cup seal and polishing the guide rails and other points of friction. In a hotter climate, you might see better performance too.

WE’s generally always have had great magazines, and the newer version that comes with the MOS features an improved gas router and WE’s usual higher-flow (respective to TM’s designs) valves. WE so far have not jumped on the train of moving the inlet valve to the interior of the grip, so for now it’s still in the traditional exposed location on the bottom of the magazine.

In testing, every one of these I’ve seen comes heavily over-lubricated from the factory, so it’s a good idea to give it a nice cleaning before you start. 9 times out of 10 the barrel and bucking are very greasy and this doesn’t assist with maintaining good accuracy. Aside from the aforementioned efficiency, these otherwise function well with respectable accuracy out to 30m or so, and have crisp recoil.

The primary attraction of this model is that it is optics ready out of the box and it has a much lower cost for entry, making it a more palatable purchase over the more expensive Glocks which continue to rise in cost. WE’s parts support is usually good, with the parts themselves being fairly inexpensive too. So for the player on a stricter budget or just starting out with GBB sidearms, this is a good first choice. Airsofters with a keen eye towards tuning and upgrading as much as possible will undoubtedly be better served by a VFC or Tokyo Marui, however, as those simply have a much larger aftermarket.

Bill: So, onto some of the other models! As I said at the outset, the only pistol we’re really having some issues with is the ARMY R17, but I want to run this

(and some of them even more than this!) through them it seems odd that just one is struggling, but that’s the truth of it.

At the “Uber-G” end of the spectrum, that of the funkier looking models both the VORSK EU models are really still kicking butt! The “EUs” continue to rock, and the muzzle wear I noticed on the slide of the grey RDS version seems to have abated, and now I know it was indeed just down to the sharpness of my Kydex as it’s not appeared anywhere else. I continue to run the EUs on the suggested NUPROL 2.0 and still

Umarex Glock 17 Gen 4

Price: iro £160.00

Age: Three Years

Weight: 659g

Length: 210mm

Magazine Capacity: 24+1

Cold Chrono: 0.89 Joule/310fps

Hot Chrono: 0.92 Joule/315fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good Suppressor Compatibilty: No

Available From: www.landwarriorairsoft.com

Army Armament R17 V3

Price: iro £50.00

Age: Three Years

Weight: 700g

Length: 200mm

Magazine Capacity: 25+1

Cold Chrono: 0.89 Joule/310fps

Hot Chrono: 0.92 Joule/315fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good

Suppressor Compatibilty: No

Available From: www.allagesairsoft.com

We G17 Gen 5 Mos

Price: iro £120.00

Age: Three Years

Weight: 770g

Length: 186mm

Magazine Capacity: 25+1

Cold Chrono: 0.92 Joule/315fps

Hot Chrono: 0.95 Joule/320fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good Suppressor Compatibilty: No

Available From: www.weairsoft.com

Umarex Glock 19x

Price: iro £185.00

Age: Three Years

Weight: 641grams

Length: 185mm

Magazine Capacity: 20 + 1

Cold Chrono: 0.89 Joule/310fps

Hot Chrono: 0.95 Joule/320fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good

Suppressor Compatibility: No

Available From: www.landwarriorairsoft.com

We G19 X

Price: iro £120.00

Age: Three Years

Weight: 690g

Length: 180mm

Magazine Capacity: 24 + 1

Cold Chrono: 0.92 Joule/315fps

Hot Chrono: 0.95 Joule/320fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good

Suppressor Compatibility: Good

Available From: www.weairsoft.com have experienced with me, and they’re still a pleasure to shoot. a Glock weighs in at 625g, so I was pleased to find out that the EXA came in iro 700g on the scales (see my comments on “feel” earlier!), and that 75g difference can be felt when transitioning between targets. As Jase said in his initial review of the EXA “I should say that a special mention should go out to the trigger on the EXA; I’m not exactly sure what stable has produced it but it really is quite lovely; the throw

The EVOLUTION WARRIOR was their first foray into G-style pistols, and they did their usual job of making a GBB that works very well indeed, and although the silhouette is unmistakeable it does still when slippery. Then the enhanced magwell for faster n easier reloads but the looks.... the look is superb! The Warrior has a solid heft that gives the feel of high quality from the start, with no rattle from anything as new, and this is still the case today. The quality really begins to show when shooting it; it continues to chrono really, really consistently. I was impressed by the concept of the Warrior, and then the realised pistol designs, and Evolution have created something that works efficiently and effectively and shows good durability so far.

The RWA Agency Arms Agency Arms EXA pistol is also a bit of a peach! In the real world of firearms are really playing with longevity of design, hedging their bets at both ends of the “form V function” debate is Armorer Works (AW). These days AW are no longer the “new kid on the block” as they’ve been around for a good few years; AW’s apparent flair for the unusual yet functional means you are presented with great-looking, great-feeling products straight out of the box, fully loaded with parts that you would usually have to add yourself as

Umarex G17 Gen 5

Price: iro £145.00

Age: New Weight: 637g

Length: 200mm

Magazine Capacity: 14 BBs

Cold Chrono: 0.80 Joule/295fps

Hot Chrono: 0.84 Joule/301fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good

Suppressor Compatibility: No

Available From: www.landwarriorairsoft.com

Evolution Eo17 Warrior

Price: iro £145.00

Age: Three Years

Weight: 776g

Length: 180mm

Magazine Capacity: 23 BBs

Cold Chrono: 0.76 Joule/286fps

Hot Chrono: 0.76 Joule/286fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good

Suppressor Compatibility: Good Supplied By: www.evolutioninternational.it

HUNTSMAN H-17

Price: iro £80.00

Age: Two Years

Weight: 690g

Length: 198m

Magazine Capacity: 25 BBs

Cold Chrono: 0.89 Joule/310fps

Hot Chrono: 0.92 Joule/315fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good

Suppressor Compatibility: Good Available From: www.bespokeairsoft.co.uk

Armorer Works Custom Vx9100

Price: iro £110.00

Age: One Year

Weight: 670g

Length: 180mm

Magazine Capacity: 22 BBs

Cold Chrono: 0.86 Joule/305fps

Hot Chrono: 0.88 Joule/309fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good

Suppressor Compatibility: Good Available From: www.bespokeairsoft.co.uk

Rwa Agency Arms Exa

Price: iro £160.00

Age: New Weight: 672g

Length: 195mm

Magazine Capacity: 23 BBs

Cold Chrono: 0.78 Joule/290fps

Hot Chrono: 0.83 Joule/300fps

Holster Compatibility: Good

Taclite Compatibility: Good

Suppressor Compatibility: Good

Available From: www.redwolfairsoft.com and weighing in at 664g with the 22 BB shortened magazine, it just goes to show that looks can be very deceptive! This is a short, small-frame pistol that’s designed to feel much lighter and be more “pointable” when it comes to engaging multiple targets at speed; the VX9100 has all the things that I like, and at 10m the VX9100 is just fine, thank you and it keeps BBs on target with consistency, and that’s really all that’s important at the end of the day, isn’t it? The VX9100 feels like, and acts like an accurate compact secondary from the get go, and in my opinion, where the many “Nots” are good, the VX is top notch, and is in fact far better than many of the other AW pistols I’ve tried to date, and as good as most models in the market in its category so far!

At the other end of the test we have the more “budget conscious” GBBs, and the HUNTSMAN H-17 certainly fits that bill! What a great choice they made for their initial models as they’ve concentrated on the ever-popular “G-Series” (H-SERIES in HUNTSMAN parlance!) style that’s popular amongst all kinds of airsofter! And what team have done with the HUNTSMAN H-SERIES is to create something at a very attractive price that will be affordable for any airsofter, but guarantees solid performance based on excellent QC from the get-go, pistols that whilst relatively cheap in price will make you extremely cheerful is nicely put together, and everything is tight, with minimal wobble (and I mean minimal!) in the slide/frame interface which is creditable for a pistol at this pricepoint, especially as the slide is of alloy and not plastic. The H-17 has been designed to spit

BBs at a sensible power at a decent range, to go into your game-day holster for those “WSHTF” moments when you need a reliable secondary to get you out of the mire, and as such it performs very nicely indeed. I’ve run the H17 on green gas so far, and to date I’ve had no major issues with consistency of power, and the 28 BB magazine has performed well too with no leaks apparent. The action of the pistol has now been Maglubed and offers the smoothness that it had when it first arrived with me; in fact, if anything the action cycles even more efficiently the more you use it, and it just goes to prove that every model needs a little time and some use to “bed in”.

I was very pleasantly surprised late in 2017 when I was introduced me to the pre-production version of the new RAVEN EU17 and I’ve had one ever since in my personal airsoft armoury! Working directly with the factories in the Far East the team behind your new “EU18” you’ll find a set of interchangeable backstraps (you might say here “Gen 4 style…), a little bag containing spare O-Rings and even a spare nozzle! In one go your maintenance issues are solved from the get-go!

In terms of operation both models perform extremely well; using RZR .20g BBs and NUPROL 2.0 Gas the “18” came in at 0.8 Joule/295fps with the “17” at 0.82 Joule/298fps; both readings were “means” over 10 BBs as new and there was very little drop-off from first to last, and this is consistent to this day. In terms of accuracy both pistols are happily hitting centre mass of a “Figure 11” at 10 metres which to me is perfectly acceptable. If you’re having to engage a target with a handgun over 10m then all

I can say is that you must be having a REALLY bad day, although the “full-auto” function of the EU18 will certainly make opponents sit up and take notice!

But what of the latest GEN 5 models? Sadly to date I’ve not personally had the opportunity to get behind one of these pistols, although this is something I will remedy at the earliest possible opportunity; therefore I’ll hand over to Stewbacca to take things forward…

Stewbacca: I purchased my UMAREX/VFC G17 GEN 4 on a whim and never actually got around to even using it for the best part of a year, originally intending to fit it to my Archwick B&T USW-G chassis in lieu of my VFC Glock 18C which tends to fire full auto when I don’t want it to, however still haven’t gotten around to setting that up properly.

When I did finally come to use it, it was to lend to a teammate for CQB one weekend, only to find that it wouldn’t actually fire BBs; turns out the valve had gotten stuck forwards preventing any gas flow to the barrel. VPSC sorted it out easily enough and since then it’s been fairly flawless, with a stout recoil and nice handling, it just works and shoots fairly flat and accurately, being a no frills sidearm. Most of my team seem to run VFC Glocks or PPQs of some flavour as a default pistol that can be relied upon, and the only other issue I’ve found with any of the VFC Glocks is sometimes the newer magazines have misfeed issues where the plastic feed lip unit affixed on top can be slightly burred or misaligned leading to BBs getting hung up and essentially dry firing after the first shot or two as a result; this happened at the IDPA event I attended on my first magazine of one of the stages. Easily remedied, but spoiled an otherwise seamless effort.

Similarly I’ve used it along with the rest of my ever growing VFC Glock collection as a simple brick for entry level shooters at the CivDef pistol courses we run where I do the armourer bit as well as some of the teaching. When people ask me what to get it’s usually my first suggestion, unless you’re particularly hell bent on a different pistol for sentimental or loadout replication reasons you can’t really go wrong with them for the most part, draw, point click, bang… no additional safeties or whizz bangs to deal with and reasonable handling for most hand sizes.

I acquired my UMAREX/VFC G17 GEN 5 more recently as part of my personal armoury expansion to better serve the aforementioned CivDef pistol classes by not only offering a greater number of handgun variations, but also serving the left handed shooters among the newcomers, some of which have since plastic of the magazine well which does admittedly help guide magazines in a little better in my experience of using it, although the resulting reconfiguration of the magazine striping cutouts to the front edge of the magazine well does sometimes cause issues during reloading in a hurry if the feed lips slip forwards through the crescent opening, so it’s a little less forgiving for magazine alignment front to back in that respect. The slight rounding off of the front edge of the slide can also make it a little easier to reholster for new shooters it seems, but is probably more of an aesthetic preference for anyone who’s got their indexing down already.

The elongation of the front edge of the baseplates to account for the front magazine stripping cutout also makes them easier to retrieve from pouches during reloads, and helps identify which direction they are facing by touch alone; if you re-index partial magazines facing the other way to your full ones it appears to work for many for example.

Again, it’s been a fairly consistent shooter out of the box, although the guide HOP is a convenient solution to changing the HOP setting without having to remove the slide; sometimes I find the models with it fitted do resist takedown a little more when you actually have to do maintenance, but it’s not a deal breaker by any measure. If you particularly want the left-handed release or flared magwell and front mag stripping cutout then it’s a worthwhile option, but otherwise the GEN 4 is probably comparable in performance if you want something slightly cleaner or simpler.

Boycie: As may be obvious to some, my love of Glocks is quite apparent; way back when I used to own a RS Gen 2, then Gen 3, to now when all barring two of my GBBs are Glocks. I’ve owned WE, Vorsk, KSC, KWC over the years but I keep going back to the Umarex (VFC) Glocks. For me the fit and finish just is better than anything else. Attention to detail of licensed markings and ‘trades’ just adds to the realism that, let’s face it, airsofters are all about. My current stable of Umarex (VFC) Glocks is GEN 3 17, GEN 4 17, G19, G19X, G45 and now the G42 (.380 replica) and GEN 5 17.

Despite the ambidextrous nature of the GEN 5, all these years using a “right handed” pistol, I still favour dropping the mag with my trigger finger (yes, I am left handed). It’s a drill which I have “perfected” over my 45 years of shooting and there’s no need for me to relearn a new way of doing it. When myself, L’il Stu, Steve and Dan were over in Vegas for Shot Show, we had the opportunity to handle the real steel Glocks and as all of us have now fired the 9mm Glock we have a good level to compare them on, Dan even more so as he has a LOT of experience with the RS Glocks ! The Umarex (VFC OEM) Gen 5 17 for me is another in the excellent line of replicas... the line is so good that they are supplied to at least one training company in the UK I know for Force on Force scenarios! AA