By socomairsoft
Published: February 2005
When I first saw the AEP on Renegade Recon I knew I had to get one. I waited and waited. I looked at every update and read all the posts about it. Then, when the release date was set I went about trying to get my parents to get this for me for Christmas. They told me that they were not going to get it, so I began to save up. On Christmas I was very surprised to find that they had ordered it for me via Hobby Asia (my favorite retailer). Now came the hard part…waiting for it to get to me. It finally came four days after Christmas. I opened it up, picked up the box and knew that this thing was going to be one sweet piece of machinery. I was right.
Looks
I guarantee that if you looked up a picture of a GLOCK 18C and compared it to this airsoft replica, the resemblance would be striking, if not the same. I find GLOCK’s to look very good and the AEP did not disappoint me. It even has a serial number engraved in metal under the slide. It has the signature Austria 9x19 trademark that graces the GLOCK, and it has many other trademarks/serial numbers including EHG703, EHG703US (engraved in metal), and various GLOCK logos.
The paint is matte black and it hardly shines, but it is not as flat as some of my other GLOCK’s. The frame is a swirl pattern and the slide is patternless save some thick vertical lines at the end. The trigger guard and the front and back of the grips have small squares that keep your hand and fingers from moving. The magazine is thin and cold to the touch. That makes me smile whenever I feel that cold metal in my fingers. The top of the slide has a hole in it showing the outer barrel. I like this feature of the 18C because it is cool to look at. Overall I really like the look of the 18C, but then I am partial to GLOCK’s.
Feel
This, as most GLOCK’s do, feels extremely good. It sits very well in the hand and has a nice balance. The one thing this has that helps the feel and authenticity is weight. It weighs 700 grams according to several sources, but I do not have a delicate enough scale to measure the weight. This is as much as a real-steel GLOCK.
Just about everything on the G18c is ergonomically designed. First, the front of the grip has indents that rest your fingers and the indents have squares in them to keep your hand from slipping. These same squares are on the back of the grip. Also, on the front the trigger guard curves up, and this allows your middle finger to rest comfortably. The thumb rests comfortably in an indent at the top of the grip, as does the index finger in a replica groove on the other side. The webbing between the thumb and index finger rests comfortably in a curve below the slide. I personally love the feel of GLOCK’s and this is no different. In fact, I like it even better due to the extra weight that it has. I do not think that anything could be done to make this pistol more comfortable, except make it out of pillows.
Everything on the G18c is designed to be done quickly and efficiently. The selector switch lies directly above the thumb. Just a quick flick of the thumb changes the gun from semi-automatic to automatic and vice versa. A quick move of the index finger safes the weapon or lets you “go hot”. The magazine release is in such a spot so that it will not be hit accidentally while firing, but is easy to hit when you need to change magazines. Tokyo Marui also picked the perfect spot to put the button that removes the slide. A quick move of the thumb, and voila, it’s off.
Battery changes can take less than ten seconds. The G18c has everything where you need it to be in a small, comfortable, and heavy package. It is perfect to me.
Performance
Alright, now the good stuff. (All numbers are with .2 gram bb's as well as ideal hopup setting). FPS is said to be around 200-210 FPS with .2 gram bb's, but some have reported their FPS to reach 235 FPS consistently with maximums of 245 FPS.
First off, thirty foot accuracy. For all accuracy tests I took ten shots. This has decent accuracy within thirty feet. It’s not excellent, but it is better than average from my experiences. At thirty feet on semi-automatic the groupings were two inches. However, were two of the ten shots to be discarded the groupings would jump to one inch. On full-auto the groupings were almost as good. They were three inches. Once again, if three were taken out the groupings would have been 1.5 inches. I find that this is pretty good compared to my spring pistols, and if you want to compare it to an EBB I will laugh at you. The EBB could barely hit the target which is more proof that this is NOT an EBB.
Next, fifty foot accuracy. I have to say that the accuracy is decent, but could definitely be better. There were also some odd results. The G18c on semi-auto at fifty feet managed only two shots in a 4”x4” target. However, these every shot taken would have been a headshot. I know this because behind the target was a life-size picture of a head and all the shots hit the head. The accuracy on full-auto was what surprised me. Aiming at the same target FIVE of the bb’s went into the target and the rest hit the head. That is pretty odd that the gun was more accurate on full-auto (at least at fifty feet.)
While doing the full-auto accuracy tests one thing really jumped out at me. This was the rate of fire. I know that this was supposed to have fifteen shots per second, but I didn't expect it to shoot this fast. When I went to shoot the ten shots I probably dry-fired five or six times. I squeezed the trigger and then all of a sudden I heard the clank of a dry-fire. The bb’s come out like a water out of a hose. A quick squeeze and five will come out. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of a thirty-round hose from this.
The effective range I came to was 120 feet. By effective I mean that a non-moving person will get hit most of the time. Or in other words, the bb will hit them unless the bb has a defect or there is a sudden gust of wind. Also, the person must be able to feel it at this distance, so 120 feet is that distance for this gun. I hit my man-sized target nine out of ten times on semi and full auto. Also, this is the distance the bb begins to float at on the default hop-up setting. When changed the bb will not float, but will go down sooner. This brings us to maximum range.
On the default setting the pistol has a maximum range of 150 feet. Maximum range is the distance the bb reaches when it hits the ground. With the hopup turned all the way up after fifty feet the bb will shoot up probably somewhere into one hundred feet in the air. It will land at 200 feet or so depending on wind, but you will never get a kill. In fact, on maximum hopup a .25 bb is severely overhopped. This setting could probably take the .43 gram bb’s. On what I found to be the best setting (one click less than stock) the bb began to drop at 120 feet and fell slowly to 150 feet. I measured all of these distances with a tape measure.
Durability
As I said before, this gun is very heavy. This helps with thee durability. It feels very sturdy, no shakes, rattles, or creaks. It is very well put together and there is only one crease. This is hardly noticeable and it goes around the frame. Unless you are really looking you will not even notice it.
Even though the slide comes off there is still no rattle or shake at the slide. There is a lot of metal inside the gun. This includes the gears and the metal surrounding the gearbox. There is also a serial number cut into metal underneath the slide. The plastic is very sturdy and will not bend. Also, TM decided to be nice and give metal magazines.
The entire magazine is cold, hard metal and weighs a decent amount for the size of it. Also, the battery will not bend under my pressure. In short, this gun could take a beating and come out fine.
Miscellaneous
Here’s where I give information that doesn’t fit into other categories. First of all the magazine is all-metal, holds thirty rounds, and is single load. It is loaded by pushing bb’s into the top.
The safety on the gun is a small square on the right side from the back. It is directly above the trigger guard. Up means off, down means on. The other safety is the trigger safety, This makes you squeeze the entire trigger as opposed to just one half. It looks like the trigger is split in half with a jut in the middle. Unless you squeeze the jut the trigger will not pull.
The sights on this gun are excellent. No fidgeting around with how to line them up. Just line ‘em up and shoot. The front sight has a white dot in it and the back sight has a white square lining the opening in the sight. This is very helpful, especially in dark conditions.
Batteries are very easy to charge on this gun. Just plug it in, come back whenever you feel like after an hour and a half or so, then unplug and you are good to go. No setting clocks to make sure your battery doesn't burn out because the charger shuts off when the battery is fully charged. You can tell when it is fully charged because the charger has a red LED light that shines while charging, and turns off when it is done. The battery is Ni-Cd 7.2 volts at 200 mAh. It lasts for around 350-400 shots. The way to change the battery goes like this. First, push a rounded square on the back of the slide. Then pull the slide off. On the left in front of the hopup adjuster there is a square. Pull it back and the battery pops out.
Grab the battery from under the barrel and slide in a new one. It goes in on a slant. There is an arrow on the positive edge of the battery. The arrow should point down and the positive side is on the left. Push down until you hear a click, and then it is in. Put the slide back on by putting the front in place first and then push down on the back of the slide. It should click into place. There, the battery is changed. If you get good enough this takes under ten seconds.
I found the ideal hopup setting to be one less than default. The hopup adjuster is located on the left side of the gun. The slide must be taken off to adjust the hopup. The hopup adjuster is a circle with thick lines in the middle. Arrows show you that clockwise turns the hopup up and counterclockwise turns the hopup down.
The selector switch is a circle with a line coming out of it. It is located in the back of the slide on the left side. Up means semi-auto and down means full-auto. The orange tip is painted on. It is very thin and could most likely easily be scraped off. I would take mine off, but I don't want to get this awesome pistol taken away by the police.
Problems
Well, I made this section for you AEP haters and gas lovers and people that just want to hear the facts. There are a few problems with this gun, but there is no huge bug that makes the $120 not worthwhile. It is just a few minor things.
First, there is no discharger. That is a potential problem, but there is probably a discharger that fits it somewhere. This means you will have to use the battery to the very end even when the shots are crap.
Second, when firing on semi-auto the trigger has to go fully back to the starting position. This is only a problem when you are thinking about being careful. This only happened a few times in my accuracy tests. I went to pull the trigger and nothing came out because I had not let the trigger go back to starting position.
Also, on semi-auto sometimes the first shot will not come out. The trigger will be pulled, but no bb will come out.
This is the biggest problem I found though. While pushing bb’s into the magazine they will sometimes get scraped. This throws off the accuracy because the bb's have slight defects.
I don’t see having no blowback as a problem because when you are shooting this you don’t even notice. Also, with blowback you would most likely severely injure yourself because of the rate of fire and this would decrease the accuracy. I didn’t see anything else wrong so far, but there may be in the future.
Upgrades
A lot of people are already looking for upgrades for their AEP’s.
- AEP Long Magazine( This cannot be bought yet, but should be out soon according to info from the Black Hole show.) This holds 100 rounds and functions as a midcap. The bottom half will be full sized.
- AEP Flashlight Attachment: Just heard about this in Black Hole Updates. I don't have any info on this. All I have is the picture from above. I don't even have an idea on when this will come out.
- X-Fire Tightbore: This is a 6.05 mm tightbore by X-Fire. It came out a few weeks ago. IT supposedly increases accuracy by 1.5 cm on both semi and full auto, as well as increasing the fps by 2. It retails at around $25.
- X-Fire Piston Head: This also came out in the last few weeks. It's a new piston head and should increase the fps by around 10. It's made of Delrin and has added 3 more air ports. It retails at around $13
- X-Fire Silencer Adaptor Kit: This allows you to attach either a silencer or a 6" or 7" compensator. The compensators are from the TM gas Hi Caps 5.1 series. I'm unsure about the silencer. It also comes with a 6" barrel and all the pieces to attach the above items. The only problems are 1. It will slow down battery changing time because the slide must now go over the metal on the barrel and 2. It requires some cutting of the frame. I'm not sure if the 6" barrel can be substituted for a tightbore. This is selling for around $50.
- Quick Attachment: This serves the sam purpose as the silencer kit, but with some differences. It is only the attachment part and does not come with the other pieces. This means that the tightbore can definitely be used. It also requires some cutting of the frame. The other downside to this is that it can't take the heavier silencers. This retails at around $10.
- X-Fire 6 Inch Barrel: This is relatively new barrel. The extra length should help the stats, but I don't really have any information on this. The retail price is around $20.
- Hi Capa 5.1 Compensator: This is not specifically for the AEP, but it does fit. It is made by Tokyo Marui and will fit the AEP if you have the silencer adaptor kit. It retails at around $25 http://www.x-fire.org/handgun/hicapa/com/e.main.html
- G18c Rubber Hand Grips: These rubber hand grips by from Freedom Art will make the already comfortable G18c even more comfortable. Just pull out the plastic ones and put these in. They retail at around $15.
- Laylax is coming out with an inner barrel as well as, and much more importantly, A SPRING! This should be coming out in February and there are no other details right now.
- Freedom Art Rail: Freedom Art came out with a rail that goes on top of the slide. This lets you mount a red dot, mini-M203 launcher, and many other things. Just take off the back sight and screw in the rail and you're ready to add things on. It will retail at around $25.
- Try-X Scope Mount: This a new scope mount by Smokies. It is made of aluminum so it should be quite durable. Even though it is quite bulky, the battery can still be changed, and the mount comes on and off quite easily with an allen wrench. It should be hitting stores soon and should retail around $30.
- PDI Hi-Speed Cylinder: This is a new cylinder that allows the gun to shooter harder, faster, and more an more accurately. Four holes are cut into it, allowing more air to come out and this cycles the piston faster. It costs about $10. When combined with other pieces it greatly improves accuracy and velocity as shown in X-Fire's testing.
- Smokies Battery Adapter: Finally, for those who want more than just 200 mah on their AEP battery. Smokies has mae an adapter that allows a larger 7.2v battery to be used externally with the AEP. You can choose to place the battery on a mount somewhere on the gun or put it on a power cord like a lanyard. Either way shouldn't interfere with any mobility issues. It retails at around $25.
Due to the popularity of this gun I’m sure that there will be more and more upgrades ranging from springs and gears to batteries and LAM kits. With ASR’s permission I’d like to continue this section as new products come out as I will be buying some of them.
Summary
This gun is worth the $120 I paid for it. It serves its purpose and is deadly within 100 feet. It also works in the cold unlike GBB's and NBB's. I think this is a great choice for people that live in the cold and can’t use gas pistols. This is also a great sidearm for anyone that doesn’t want to spend money on gas.
Pros:
- Works in cold
- Good ROF
- Very heavy and detailed
- Seems extremely durable
- Great accuracy to 120 feet
- It’s small and doesn’t need gas
- All-metal magazine
Cons:
- Only 200mAh battery
- Underpowered
- No discharger
- No blowback
- Magazine not full sized
I believe that this is a great gun, not only for those in the cold, but for anyone. It was definitely worth my $120. If you are sitting on the fence I hope you get blown over by the wind and fall on the AEP side. These are great guns.
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