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FNH Inc. designed the P90 in the 1990's to fit the needs of helicopter teams and law enforcement in need of a weapon more compact and stable than the usually outfitted mp5 series by Heckler and Koch and the m4 series by Colt. It has also been adopted as a personal defense weapon for armored vehicle crews and numerous SWAT teams on the east coast. It has made its appearance in many video games as the oddball weapon, holding more ammunition than its mp5 and m4 counterparts, and also sporting a high rate of fire for a real steel firearm.

I got the box a week ago from Redwolf airsoft (one of the best in my opinion) in two packages. Everything BUT the gun came in the first the package, and then the gun came in the next day. You can’t imagine how impatient I became. But finally it came the next day. When I opened the box of my new P90 TR, I felt several different feelings, of course the usual excitement, but then a small disappointment. The body is a flat light grey and the receiver is a darker gray, almost black. In my opinion it isn’t the best looking color scheme around.

Gripes aside, I took a look at the trademarks, while not very numerous, all of the trademarks are legal and therefore don’t need to be covered (but I had them just in case). On the receiver the words "P90 cal 5.7x28" is stamped on the left side. Just above the "square hole" on the left is "FN013827", and under the magazine well, also on the left, is printed "Model PROJECT 90 Cal 5.7x28 SS90". Then on the RIGHT side of the gun is printed to classic Tokyo Marui Co. Ltd. Made in Japan and the ASGK logo stamped in. Another thing I might add are the numerous “screws” all over the body. I have heard several reports of people trying to unscrew them to get the body apart. That’s NOT how it works. All of the screws are completely fake, but I think they add a little something to the flat grey plastic body.

The magazine's fake rounds are deceptively real, my mom made me take the magazine apart and show them to her so she wouldn’t like call the cops on me or something. They are actually just one big piece of molded plastic that look like a bunch of rounds. By the way, they are easily removed if you feel that they’re going to get you shot or something. On the left side on the magazine is stamped "MOD. P90 50-ROUND MAGAZINE-2001-RESTRICTED LAW ENFORCEMENT/GOVERNMENT USE ONLY". Oops.

There are not many movable parts on this gun (only one actually) and that is the charging handle, which is located right under the magazine "pocket" in the front of the receiver. But when you let it go, it makes a very satisfying CLACK noise. It is not functional for anything on the gun in any way. Just for show.

This gun is also pretty light, weighing about 3 lbs with a battery and a magazine with 68 bbs. The gearbox accounts for almost a third of this weight. With all my other crap on it, it weighs closer to 7 lbs. Just a side note.

This is what caught me to buy the P90 TR in the first place, the silencer. However, this gearbox design and body design make the silencer EXTREMELY effective, going from a loud CLACK to a very muffled phoot noise. The main reason is the butt plate. All the sound that is transmitted from the motor goes thru the back. However, the P90 butt plate like very well sealed on the back on the body, so most of the sound from the shots go out the barrel. Thus, the silencer works. Really, really well. The triple rail system is also there so you can attach your own optics to the top rail and other things on the two side ones, though having all three of these rails filled looks tacky in my opinion. My best idea for a setup for these three included rails are a regular red dot on top (a reflex sight is looking really good) and an RIS sling swivel on one of the side rails. That way, you can have ambidextrous sling swivel without losing a screw and your finger in the process. Also, the apparent problem with the sling on the P90 can be solved one of a few ways. The setup I’m using is an IBD rear sling mount (shown) and the RIS sling swivel by G&G. Both spectacular parts for what they were made for. WGC also has a rear sling mount that bolts directly thru the hole in the body, and then the sling swivel can be attached to a number on holes. A front sling mount may also be purchased (as shown in the P90 sling review) that goes onto the barrel.

With all my external mods done, my new P90 savage hunter remake kinda looks like it could be from halo. I don’t mind however, its something different, unlike the hundreds of armalites that cross thru HSP every other Sunday. No one ever wanted to be on the wrong side of this thing.

So I took an 8.4v 600mah battery I had lying around, took off the butt plate, which has an anti-come-out-during-middle-of-battle mechanism, slid the battery in, closed it up and got ready to go.

Loaded up the 68 round magazine and put it in. what you have to do is place the magazine thru the space inside the receiver all the way in and then just push down on the back end. It should click right in. if it doesn’t, that little locking clip isn’t in, all you got to do is give it a little nudge and it’ll click.

Next I noticed the grip scheme. Instead of holding a vertical foregrip or handguards on many traditional rifles and SMGs, the grip scheme pits both of your hands about 6 inches away from each other. While some will argue this uncomfortable, I find it very helpful in getting your gun around in CQB. Of course, if you absolutely hate it, the nitro vo. handguard is what its name is, a handguard. I currently have a TDI arms folder grip on it, which gives me another handle to maneuver the gun around easily.

Then I noticed the selector switch and the trigger. There is no selector plate in a version six gearbox, and I have yet to figure out how the selector switch works, but it does. When you turn it to semi, it fires one, and when on auto it also fires one. ? . In order to fire full auto, you must pull the trigger all the way back for a click noise, and then it goes spraying away. Well the gun chrono'd at 286 fps average, which wasn’t surprising and clocked in at an impressive 15 rounds per second. Even though the barrel isn’t very long, it was more accurate than I though it would be. I had 5-6 inch groups at 50 ft, and every 10 ft after that; it would degrade by 2-3 more inches. After I got a chance to test it in a field, I found the maximum range was about 200 ft. (stock) and effectively hit man sized targets at about 125 ft.

After I installed my m100 systema FTK (wonderful bit of parts I might add) I took it out for another test run. This time, the chronograph read 367 fps to my rather wide eyes. The ROF decreased with the 8.4v 600 mah from 15 rps to 14. Nothing really noticeable, but its there. Accuracy with the FTK installed kept the same 50 ft groupings, but the shots degraded the 2-3 inches every 25 ft or so until they lost the effective range at 160 ft. the maximum range jumped to around 250 ft. All of these tests were taken with AE .2 bbs.

Where to begin? Well, the first thing that struck my mind were the amounts of PB'ers dropped jaws as I walked by with my halo gun remake. And it wasn’t neon? WHOA. Ok anyways, in a skirmish, I found this really easy to move around in a CQB environment, have you ever been camping around a corner, and saw the guy’s barrel pop suspiciously out of a wall as you got ready to shoot? That won’t happen with the P90. It’s so compact that as long as you’re not crawling along, they will not get any warning when you come bursting around the corner. Because of all the rails to put stuff on, dark rooms were never a problem and the need for quick sighting was easily fixed with my PVS red dot replica sitting on top the highest rail. Winding the box magazine is the same as with a regular hicap, just wind and go. However, may people thought that the magazine would make that swish noise with the bbs bouncing around in there. It actually doesn’t make such a noise unless you shake the gun uncontrollably, which I hope no one on this forum does. After taking this baby for another test run with an open reflex sight, whole new worlds opened up. This thing just got a lot better. Being that it looks better this way, it’s also a heck of a lot more easy to see thru, and allows a full field of view. This is especially helpful when you’re spinning around trying to find the guy spraying at you uncontrollably.

However, this thing shows its true worth in a hallway like environment. With armalites, the users usually have to keep the gun down when entering a room, because its clearance usually cant get a thru a regular sized doorway with u. when you turn that corner and your guns down, the one with the better reflexes wins. That’s a big toss up. When you got the P90, keep the gun up and aimed, turn on that laser and let er rip. Hoo hoo, that was the best part of the day.

Two gripes, don’t leave the barrel plug on, especially if it’s the silencer, let me explain. HSP also requires barrel plugs and I often forget that its there. If you fire any more than three shots with the barrel plug on, the foam inside the silencer gets shredded by bb fragments and sometimes bbs bouncing around in there really fast. However it’s not hard to replace, some PVC foam will do the job nicely. Second, the iron sights on this gun shouldn’t be there. They’re not iron sights. They consist of a hole in the back end of the top rail and a small notch at the font end. Even with shooting glasses, these aren’t gonna be used in any sort of consistency.

This is where my major gripe is, it’s hard to adjust the hop up without breaking a nail or something first. There’s a small "door" inside the thumb grip on the P90, you pull it back and there’s a cogwheel. Turning left increases, right decreases. However it’s a bit touchy and doesn’t want to move. However, it’s an effective design that doesn’t fall apart easily like some m4 hop up units I've seen. Even though it’s a drop feed, it works. Now after a little more use, the cogwheel loosened up a little bit but it’s still tight enough to hold that fine adjustment for quite a long time. It’s especially easy to lube up the hop up, as the chamber opening is in plain view when you remove the magazine. Then you just drop some in, and off you go!

Because the barrel is relatively short, barrel cleaning is easier than say an m16. It’s easier to get to the nooks and crannies. But as a general rule to all airsoft guns, only use 100% pure silicone oil.

I ordered immediately with my gun the P90 box magazine and the nitro vo. RIS handguard, spiffy I must say. However with the box magazine, there’s in now space where the magazine use to go for a large battery. However if you despise external wiring, you cannot use this space. Wiring internally will require cutting the body apart and that’s not pretty. Externally requires a small 6mm by 3mm hole so the wiring can get thru. Honestly, I don’t think one should care, since there is external wiring on certain real steel components. And besides, on a savage hunter, wiring in this sort (not to much) looks pretty good. However, I do not like that the box magazine is not ambidextrous. If your lefty and using this thing, it will get in the way of your arm. Just a heads-up.

The RIS handguard is as sturdy as it ever will be, and you can still attach the silencer thru it, and without the silencer it looks kinda stupid. You can mount all sorts of tech gizmos on the handguard, heck, that’s what it’s for right? It mounts by attaching to square blocks that go into those holes on the front of the receiver, thus it is VERY steady and doesn’t move. The top part bolts onto the bottom part with the help of 6 2mm hex screws, doesn’t move and is very steady. To solve the problem of the sling, I put an RIS mounted swivel on the left rail. Currently my setup (effective, but still retains its dignity….sort of) is a flashlight on bottom, ICS PEQ w/ spare batt. And laser on the right rail, a folder grip on the left, the RIS sling swivel on the left receiver rail, an SR15 flip up front sight on the top handguard and an NCstar reflex sight on the top receiver rail. It doesn’t look tacky in my opinion, though many may say differently.

Now more on the box magazine, it’s hard to explain. You probably already know it’s like a big extra holder thing for bbs and takes an m16 hicap, it CANNOT take standards. There’s a small notch inside that holds the little door open, and the standard doesn’t have that. Anyways, the box magazine holds 1500 bbs according to Laylax, plus the particular hicap you are using. So its 1500+300, or 1500+190. Now, the reservoir in the box magazine basically drops into the hicap, where the feeding mech is. It then feeds the bbs into a separate tube and into the hop up chamber. Surprisingly, it does not misfeed often, if at all. Reason for this is a more curved feed tube rather than the P90 standard mags squarish feed tube. A small amount of silicone on a bb will keep that tube ready to go.

This is the interesting part, the gearbox is version 6, and is REALLY easy to get out of the body. You just remove the small plate holding the gearbox in place and slide it out. Now you don’t have to worry about the selector plate getting in the way of the bushings, since it doesnt exist. You just take off a few screws, remove the motor, and replace anything you need. There are FTKs out for this gun, that’s what I bought, and it works great. If you’re looking at replacing the spring guide and cant find a version 6 one, that’s because it doesn’t exist. Version 2 fits fine in it. Now adjusting the motor is actually very simple, but it doesn’t use a 1.5mm hex wrench. You need a 2.5 for this one. You remove the butt plate and the motor screw is on the bottom half of the gearbox.

The v6 gearbox is designed very differently than the normal v2 and v3 gearboxes. The motor is similar to the v3 as it is attached to the gearbox, however it can be adjusted in position. This is for switching with the m1a1, where the motor must go into the trigger grip. Inside, the gears are placed kinda like a backwards L. the cylinder and piston assemblies are pretty much the same as all the other gearboxes, though the v6 can supposedly take a lot more brunt than a v2 because of a better structural design. This means more ROF, and a lot higher velocity without leaving the gearbox is ruins. I’ve heard of it holding up against an m130 reliably while the v2 seems to crack under an m120, and sometimes even an m100.

Now if the field you play at requires a full mask of some sort, the TR is for you. The regular P90 red dot sight is VERY hard to look down with a PB mask on. However, both sets of iron sights aren’t gonna see the light of day in effective use. A sighting device is needed for both. That and its relatively small aperture just make things difficult. Besides that, both guns are relatively the same. They can both take the same upgrades, the box magazine, and nitro vo. handguard, BUT, the TR comes with rails for your optic of your choice, plus a free silencer that really works wonders. After reading the review of the inferno P90 by whistler, I would still conclude that the foam around the gearbox isn’t really necessary, because sound can’t get out for some reason. It’s trapped, never to see the light of day. And a silencer only makes it better!

Because of its really short footprint and crazy add ons, this gun is meant for CQB. Attaching a sling isn’t hard, there’s a guide on ASR already (as well as here too!). If you don’t like the short barrel, hide a tightbore in the included silencer, if you want more ammo without all that tedious side loading, get the box magazine, if you want more battery, use the box magazine, or get a J battery. This gun is a very project gun; you can do all sorts of stuff to it.

• Incredibly easy to customize
• Very short footprint, great for CQB
• Internal upgrades easy to perform, v6 gearbox
• Comes with a free silencer (works tremendously well) and triple rail system
• One touch disassembly
• Lots of quick fixes for battery space and inner barrel
• Very lightweight (easy to maneuver)
• Looks really cool!

• Lack of battery space
• Rather small inner barrel
• Color scheme is kind of weird
• Standard magazines are hard to get to work
• Very lightweight (kind of unrealistic)

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