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Double Eagle M81 AEP (USP AEP)
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Reviews
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Date product posted
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30232
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Fri May 23, 2008
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Description:
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Double Eagle M81 - H&K USP Automatic Electric Pistol
Author: Lengendsecko87
Published: 5/23/2008
Discuss this review in the Forums.
Table of Contents:
Real Steel History
Ordering
First impressions
Included
Gun first impressions
Externals
Trademarks
Magazines
Preparing gun for firing
Performance
Internals
Modifications
Pros/Cons
Overall
Real Steel History: Quoted From Wikipedia
The USP was originally built in .40 S&W and 9 mm Parabellum models, but later evolved into a .45 ACP variant and later spawned the USP Compact series, which is available in 9 mm Parabellum, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, and, exclusively to the Compact model, .357 SIG. Other variants of the standard USP include the USP Tactical, USP Expert, USP Match, and USP Elite.
One of the most important features of the USP is the mechanical recoil reduction system. This system is incorporated into the recoil/buffer spring assembly, located below the barrel. Designed primarily to buffer the slide and barrel and reduce recoil effects on the pistol components, the system also lowers the recoil forces felt by the shooter. The USP recoil reduction system is insensitive to ammunition types and does not require adjustment or maintenance. It functions effectively in all USP models. Using this same recoil reduction system, one of the related HK MK23 .45 ACP Special Operations Pistols fired more than 30,000 +P cartridges and 6,000 proof loads without damage to any major components. Abuse and function-testing of USPs have seen more than 24,000 rounds fired without a component failure.
Real-steel H&K USP .45-ACP - Surefire light attached.
Ordering:
I ordered this gun via PayPal/Phone order though Pointact Wholesale service (www.pointact.com) for a Review, and just because I wanted another gun. I ordered a Army R-85 and this gun and the price was reasonable. Service was fast and easy, and looks like the only U.S. based store that has the Double Eagle USP. They have this product under their Automatic Pistol (Metal Gear) section on their website priced at $35 before shipping. The only catch is that you must order at least $100 worth of products before you can place your order. They have no free shipping option, but have a very small shipping cost. They are located in Utah, and I am located in Washington and amazingly it only took TWO (2) days for the gun(s) to be received at my house. I am more than satisfied with the kind of Customer Support and all in this order. I plan on ordering from then again.
Thank You Pointact Wholesale!
First impressions:
When I first received the package, I opened up the big brown box of love and saw that there was an internal cut out picture of the USP. The box itself is a heavy little sucker though. This picture is a lot like the one on the box of my CYMA G18-C AEP. The box is mainly black, with the picture located on the right hand side. No where on the box does it say USP on it. It does say M81 in big bold grey letters, with in red, "V2" in about half the size. Faintly drawn is another side blueprint drawing of it, but is VERY hard to see. The box has a lot of information on it such as "Metal Gear and Frame" and Hop up and all the other fun graphics. As advertised on some places, it does come with a metal slide, a silencer and a metal gearbox with metal gears.
Here is a picture of the box. Nothing fancy aye?
[img width=576 height=768]http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c186/lengendsecko87/IMG_8488.jpg[/img]
Box open. This is literally before I even opened it. You can even see everything is still shrink wrapped.
Included:
I open the box to smell the standard Chinese Styrofoam shell, enclosed by a style of plastic as a heat shrink apparently. Included in the box is the gun of course, the charger, charger adapter, about 150 what seem to be .20g Bb's, the SOCOM style mock silencer, a speed loader, and a manual, small Allen wrench, and cleaning/un-jamming rod. You may ask "Where is the battery and the mag?", and the answer is inside the gun. Double Eagle saved up some room and used the "I'm putting it in the gun" method. Inside the gun is a "Ni-Mh 2/3NP 500mAh 7.2v" battery and a 28 round magazine. The manual is of decent quality, and has the standard safety along with amazingly no engrish. So it has been translated well if it was ever translated.
Here is a layout of everything that is included except for the box and manual.
The charger and the adapter shown. The charger charges at a 7.2v 250mAh rate. 
Here is the included SOCOM style Silencer. It isn't very long, and made out of plastic. The silencer disperses the sound by slightly muffling it. It is all plastic composition, and seam lines are visible. The orange is capped quite brightly, and cannot be removed unless you cover it up some way with such materials like spray paint, or electrical tape. 
Inside shot of the silencer shows that there is no foam or anything to help disperse the sound/"Gasses". It is just a small plastic tube. It should affect the shooting by adding a bit more range to the gun.
Gun first impressions:
This gun is heaver than I ever expected. The construction of the top half is metal, while the lower half is made mostly out of plastic with a few metal parts. My friend says the sights aren't the correct H&K sights, but Glock sights, but I have no insight on that. The sights are painted for easier use, and are non-removable due to the fact that they are cast right onto the upper slide. The orange tip is threaded, and allows the silencer provided to go on top. The orange tip is plastic though, and probably won't last under much stress. For such a low cost gun though I wouldn't of expected such features in it. The gun has no creaks, no brittle plastic, and everything fits together tightly.
Externals:
The externals on this pistol are amazingly of decent to high quality. Full metal slide is cast pretty well, along with a great ABS plastic lower receiver. The metal parts are included as followed: trigger, slide, hammer, gearbox (inside too), magazine and the fire selector. The plastic lower receiver houses the gearbox and seems to be made out of high quality ABS plastic. It feels so solid that if I were to throw it at a wall, it would only come out with a few dents or scratches. I believe that the quality of it is close to matching of the CYMA CM.030. The metal slide that comes equipped on the gun I think has the most weight. If this gun was to have a plastic slide, then it would weigh much less. The plastic silencer adapter used to attach the silencer (duh) comes threaded clockwise, or positively threaded. This allows the use of the positive threaded silencers or other things like tracers if needed. The only thing I don't like about it is that its is made out of plastic! It will wear much faster than the average metal threads and may not be able to be used after much on and off use of the plastic silencer. You CANNOT take the slide off with the silencer on however.
Left side view of the gun. 
Right side view of the gun. 
The bottom of the gun has where the Allen wrench goes. it seems like Double Eagle has manufactured this baby with some Locktite to allow it to not move and to keep the motor height at a wanted level.
Here is the hammer pulled all the way back. It is used to pull the upper slide off for hop up adjustment and battery removal/installation. It doesn't return in the correct position super fast, so no spring pistol type hammers.
Iron sights. Nothing special here. Painted with a white pant nicely, and is adequate for aiming. 
There is a 20mm rail on the bottom that can be used for attachments such as flashlights, lasers, and other things. No indent for ones like the Glock, but is still able to attach them. Lasers might not be as accurate though, so watch out.
The selector switch is made out of full metal. One dot means Semi-Automatic while 3 Dots mean Full-Automatic. It clicks very nicely. I noticed on mine though, without tightening the screw holding it on Full-Auto, that it might pop back up to Semi-Auto.
Trademarks:
This gun lacks real steel trademarks, but hey, its a low cost AEP clone and what can you expect. The trades are painted, so they could be panted over and done with your own trademarks or even engraving the real steel trades.
Here are the Double Eagle trademarks. No real steel trademarks. Double Eagle has seemed to make it a silver color print. These are not laser engraved. It also says USE 6mm BB BULLET, along with the gun's name of M81. 
Caliber 6mm. Standard Chinese cheapo trademarks. 
MADE IN CHINA. The safety is located right in front of this marking.
Magazines:
The magazines hold approximately 28-30 rounds. They are double stacked, and feed quite nice. The way to get them out of the pistol though is to push the lever down a bit to release it. You may see the little notch on the front that allows the gun to stay and feed. The gun only comes with one magazine, so I say stock up! They are thin too, so they are able to slip out of pockets on your vest or holster quite easily. If you have more than 2 though, you can stick the two you are not using together and they will fit better in a holster or vest.
Full metal magazines. Holds about 28-30 rounds each. Painted at a beautiful matte black color too. They are small and definitely important, so don't loose 'em!
Preparing gun for firing:
Well first off you can start charging the battery. The battery charges at a 250mAh rate, which means from totally dead state, it should be charged in about 2 hours. After you charge the batter you can load the magazine with the speed loader provided. It comes with a small do-hickey that enables loading to be a lot faster than regular. In my experience it really doesn't matter, because you're going to fill the magazine no matter what.
The battery is inserted in the front part of the gun, with the white arrow pointing down. After this is in, put the slide back on and go get'em tiger.
Here is the battery. Nothing special, and seems to be a lot like the CYMA battery included in their Glock AEP. Puts out what is needed to have the gearbox cycle, not much more.
Performance:
I love the performance of this pistol. The ROF is pretty decent. It compares very closely to my CYMA CM.030. The build quality of this pistol helps with the performance. I agree with the said performance on the box of 200fps, and It shows that it does shoot that hard. The only thing I do not like about shooting it is how small/thin the sights are. I would expect the ROF to be at about 11-12 rounds per second. This performance for a small little pistol in my opinion is actually quite amazing. The hop up for me is a little stubborn, and I can't seem to put it JUST right, but I can put it where it would be acceptable. Accuracy will be shown below. Max Range I would say for this using .20g Bb's would probably be around 80-100 feet. That is stretching a little. From those distances, it is almost all luck if you manage to hit something. The problem I have would be that Full Auto jams a little bit, and may cause double, triple or quadruple feeding. This may just be my gun, and maybe not yours (if you buy one).
I did do some accuracy tests today. Here is the setup.
Fully Charged Battery
Semi-Automatic
TSD .20 High Precision Bb's Provided by PointAct
Sticky Target
25 Feet Indoors - No breeze 
50 Feet Outdoors - Slight breeze
Performance Tests: Sources Of Error
Well, Airsoft isn't the most wind friendly thing in the world. A lot of variables come into effect when you are trying to be very accurate with a small airsoft bb weight not even a gram. Here is a list of some things that might be a source of error.
Hop-Up - Hop up is a great thing, but is adjustable to what your needs are. The accuracy could have been effect by having too much or too little hop, knocking the accuracy off on the Y-Axis. Also, hop up isn't always the same. Hop up can sometimes be very inconsistent and cause a variation of results. At the time of taking the results my hop up was being very difficult, because I could not get it quite right along with the lack of bright lights to adjust it correctly.
Wind - Outdoor shooting can always some effect on your shot results. Wind effects airsofter's very much because we are using a spherical ball weight not even a gram and can be tossed in the wind quite easily. Sometimes if you use the best weight you can enable almost no effect to as much as almost 20 feet off your target. At the taking of the shooting, there was some winds up here in the state of Washington and caused some of the bb's to fly off their line of fire and go somewhere else.
Internals:
The internals of this gun are quite astounding for a Double Eagle. I would never of expected such quality from such a company. More of the internals are discussed below.
What looks like a brass barrel is shown. I expected it to be a lot like the Glock 18C, but it isn't. On the box it says "Smooth Bore Copper 105mm" for the barrel, but I would still expect that it is brass. It is still a nice barrel none the less. The top of it (Exit end) looks to have adequate crowning, and seems to be cut nice. The bucking looks a lot like a Guarder 50% hop up bucking, and seems to be made out of a decent type of Silicone. The gears I have not looked at, but had a glimpse and seem to be well lubed. The hop up arm is a lot like a V or H hop up, and may cause better accuracy compared to the standard hop up nub/arm. The O-Ring system in this gun is quite good and provides a good compression. My only concern is that the upper was dry, when in the CYMA it was actually greased.
Hop up adjustment is located here. The little white-type circular thing adjusts the hop up. Quite effective compared to my Glock18C.
Here is where the battery terminals must touch to be able to run. this is a different color to the CYMA one, but feels brittle. That's in my opinion though. It doesn't seem like it will break anytime soon. I like the silver or whatever plated metal, if its copper inside that is.
Modifications:
The only modification I would recommend would be to modify G18C 100 Round hi-caps (Cyma or Tokyo Marui) to be able to be used by the USP. This should clear up the only 30 round use and make it so you are able to use 100 round hi-caps with this beast. The following link at the end of this section has a topic here on Airsoft Retreat that shows a step by step instruction to how to do it.
Another modification you could attempt is to take a regular AEG hop up bucking and cutting it to the correct size to be used in the USP. A new set of o-rings could help none the less.
http://www.airsoftretreat.com/forums/index.php?topic=37719.0
Pros:
Metal Slide
Realistic Weight
Painted Sights
Metal Gears
Silicone Hop up Bucking
Good Battery
Nice Barrel
Decent 7.2v Battery
Silencer
Good Price
Cons:
Weight (may be too heavy for some)
Weird Hop Up
Fire Selector Moving
No Double Eagle brand High-Cap mags available
Chinese made
Relatively bad seals
Not the best trademarks
Overall:
This is a great gun. Nothing really bothered me much about the gun except for the hop up. The great metal slide and such give this gun a great weight. I would recommend this gun to anyone looking for a sidearm and is tired of everyone having the CYMA CM.030 Glock AEP and want something different. The build quality of the gun is almost amazing compared to many of Double Eagle's other guns. It seems that China is stepping up in the airsoft community and wants to provide a lot of quality products.
I would just like to give a special thank you to Point Act that provided me with the gun and just the order in General. They have made it possible for another rare product to be reviewed!
Special thanks to..
Pointact Wholesale Service (www.pointact.com)
Kyle - Editor/Friend
Booligan - ASR Contributer
www.wikipedia.com
This is how it roll's.
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Review Administrator
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Posts: 2,539
Registered: February 2004
Location: Wisconsin
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