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Sat November 22, 2008
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Description:
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Review: Tokyo Marui M1911A1 Government GBB
Author: Dr Burke
Published:11-22-2008
Discuss this review in the forums.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Retailers/Ordering
History
First Impressions
Appearance
Performance
Takedown
Accessories
Pros and Cons
Overall
Please take note that I haven't altered, modified, or upgraded this gun in any way.
Also, I may refer to this gun as a 1911, M1911, or a 1911A1. It is all the same weapon.
Intro
I have been wanting a new gun for a year now. Been on and off, like the usual person, of different guns. I contacted Mr.Danny 518 and throughout the year, he has been giving suggestions to me on what he thinks would make me happy. Finally, the last week or so, I’ve came down to two guns: The Echo 1 M4 RIS or the TM M1911. Airsoft Atlanta had finally gotten in the TM 1911A1 a month or so before I had made my decision. The day before I went to Airsoft Atlanta, I had been talking to Spartan 324 and I had been leaning towards the E1 M4 RIS. He managed to take my sights off of it and turn in on the M1911 because he knew that's what I wanted. Anyways, I went there and I held it. It was like God himself had handed down Browning’s creation, in airsoft form of course. 5 minutes later and $150 out of my wallet, I was out of the store.
Retailers/Ordering
Not many retailers have this gun in stock a lot. I believe because it’s an older model Tokyo Marui, but I can’t be for certain. It just so happened that Airsoft Atlanta got it in just as the new season started (schools out, that’s a season for me!). Anyways, I went down there and decided I liked it (as stated above) so after I bought it the total came to be $158 because I had to buy the Airsoft Innovations Gas Gun Starter Kit (comes with the adaptor for the propane tank, a duster adaptor for Can ‘O Air’s [computer air canisters], a bottle of Silicon Oil, and instructions). Overall, Airsoft Atlanta is a great retailer and will not disappoint you.
History:
“The M1911 is a single-action, semiautomatic handgun chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. It was designed by John M. Browning, and was the standard-issue side arm for the United States armed forces from 1911 to 1985, and is still carried by some U.S. forces. It was widely used in World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Its formal designation as of 1940 was Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911 for the original Model of 1911 or Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911A1 for the M1911A1, adopted in 1924. The designation changed to Pistol, Caliber .45, Automatic, M1911A1 in the Vietnam era. In total, the United States procured around 2.7 million M1911 and M1911A1 pistols during its service life.”
Stolen from Wiki.
First Impressions:
As this was my first gas blowback gun, I didn’t really know what to expect. I had never handled one before. When the salesman at Airsoft Atlanta handed me the gun, it was heavy as hell. At least to me. Then I played around with it. It weighed about 3 pounds, with the magazine in. The magazine weighed a lot by itself. The frame was plastic, but I couldn’t really notice until I tapped it and listened. The grips had a nice, textured feeling. The orange tip looks hideous, but I’m willing to trade it with God’s creation sent through Browning. The gun is a single action gun, meaning that you must rack the slide before you shoot. All safeties worked flawlessly (more on that later).
Appearance
In short? Big, mean, and you don’t want to be on the other end of this gun. Though it is plastic mainly, just let your friends hear the violent snap of the slide and they’ll be sure to drop in a firefight. Everything is perfect. The weight is evenly balanced. The majority of the weight comes from the internals that are mainly metal. There are lead weights in the grips. I haven’t taken them out though. Since this weapon is the A1, it has the shorter trigger and a curve on the bottom of the grip. The finish of the gun is very nice. No seam lines or anything. Very smooth, very nice. At first glance, it looks like metal, no joke. It is so well made. Tokyo Marui really cares about their customers.
Now for a more in-depth look at it.
Grips- The grips are a triangled staggered pattern. They very rugged, and are meant to be handled when your hands are sweaty and such. There aren’t any seam lines or marks or anything, just pure b-e-autiful grips.
Trigger Guard, Trigger, and Mag Release
It is large, and wide. The will fit any type of gloves you have for it, no matter how large your hands are. Just another feature brought to you by Browning himself. The trigger is metal with the grips’ triangular shape at where the tip of your finger would be. It’s a very short, crisp trigger pull. The mag release is on the left side of the gun, where your thumb would naturally lay. It’s a stiff pull, which is good, but it will wear down over time, but either way the magazine won’t come out unless you want it to.
Hammer
It is the only version Browning ever had on the weapon. It is also one of the many safeties on board the weapon. There are three positions for the hammer: down, half cock, and cocked. In the half cocked position, you cannot fire the weapon. It is a simply another feature, that is not on the real steel M1911A1. You can decock this weapon (down to the half cock position). What you do is while holding the gun, pull the hammer all the way back and press the trigger. Follow the hammer down to the HC position.
http://s206.photobucket.com/albums/bb208/Dr-Burke/?action=view¤t=Movie13.flv
Safeties
There are three on the gun, two of which are on the real steel. The first one, is the on frame safety. It is accessible with your thumb, and it goes two ways (obviously). Up is in safe, and block the slide interior and exteriorly from moving. The second is the grip safety. You press it in when you go to fire it, thus making sure that it cannot fire when your palm is not centered on the back grip. The third one is the half cock position, which we have previously talked about.
Both safties
Slide Lock
The slide lock is what keeps the breech open when the gun is out of ammunition. I am happy to report that is works perfectly every time. Though four out of ten times the slide lock will randomly engage with gas and bb’s still in the magazine. That doesn’t bother me because I love the slide locked back on .45’s, and it’s just telling me that it works.
Hop up
The hop up on this gun is located on the outer barrel casing, on the left side of it. It is a dial type, and does very good, since it is after all a Marui. Turn it down, it goes down, and vice versa. There is also a little marking, saying where the middle of the hop up goes and labeling that it is indeed a hop up. Took me a while to find this, but I did. Not very noticeable, though.
Chamber
Since this is a replica of a real steel firearm, the shell has to eject out of the gun. On this 1911, it is replicated perfectly. You can open it and see everything. You can also put a BB manually inside the barrel (and replay the part in Deja Vu... good times, good times...). Also, when the mag is out and there is a BB in, when the slide is pulled back, the BB will eject out of the barrel and out of the gun via the magazine well.
Sights
The sights are the standard kind. Nothing really exciting here. Since the orange tip covers over the front sight, it’s actually easier to find my front sight (though I woulda just painted it white). All thanks to American Customs! [/sarcasm].
Magazine
The mag is a double staggered stack, “claiming” to hold around 22 pellets and hold enough gas to run through a mag’s worth. I’ve only been able to run though 20 pellets with 5-8 seconds of a charge. I’ve also had my mag jam up a lot. The mag wouldn’t feed the BB’s up into the nozzle. They somehow get jammed up in the mag. Silicon lube has had no effect on this as of now. I have not tried better quality BB's, but it should clear the jamming. Also, although you have 20 rounds, you can burn though 2 or 3 pellets in a second. Even though that’d induce the “cool down effect” (when the gas gets really cold because you’ve been firing too fast), you still do that under fire. Two or three extra mags would do you some good.
Barrels-
Inner Barrel
The inner barrel is made up of a brass material. I ain't too sure if it is brass, but it sure looks like it. You may want to judge for yourself instead of taking my opinion.
OoOoO looks like a double barrel :P
Outer Barrel
The outer barrel is made of plastic, but of strong ABS plastic that is expected of Tokyo Marui. I have no worries of it snapping or breaking, but if it does, I’m ready to replace it with a threaded outer barrel.
Trademarks
Because this is Marui, it is a fully trademarked pistol. US Customs usually burns them off or covers them or does something to them so you cannot have a trademarked weapon (because they're not licensed in Japan but here they do, and Cybergun has most of the companies' rights). I have a fully trademarked weapon that looks exactly like a .45 if it wasn’t for the orange tip. Deal!
Range, Accuracy and FPS tests
Range
Let me be the first to tell you that this gun can go far, and can hit hard. I was able to pull off 120+ ranges with Crosman .20 BB's and a magazine full of propane.
Accuracy
Accuracy is great on this pistol. I am able to keep a 2" grouping when I was stabilized on my deck rail, but when I went freehand, the accuracy suffered but managed to stay on the target for the most part. I had completely cleaned the gun before I did the tests.
The stabilized shots landed right on target, the other freehanded shots, well I think you can tell where they went.... :P
Ignore the "freehanded" marking on the bottom of the page. I was gonna do it freehanded but I decided to do the first four shots stabilized...
Velocity
The FPS is simply to tell you how fast the BB is getting to your unlucky victim. So many people have mistaken that the FPS means everything about a gun (generally the new players).
Anyways, since I am too cheap to by a real chrono, I stick to the Poor Man's Chrono, first listed here. Basically you get a new soda can (Must be a Coke can, or one of their brands) and you shoot the can. If it goes through certain sides, how far it goes into the can and where you shot the can at determines the FPS of the gun. This weapon did really well, and I did not expect it to do this good.
Entry hole.
Exit hole.
Pierced the bottom. Yes, it did.
Banged it up pretty good, but no dice for the top.
Because it did successfully go through both sides, and the bottom, according to Redwolfairsoft.com, that leaves this .45 at... *drumroll please*
420-450 FPS!
BUT WAIT! Booligan from the forums corrected the FPS down to about 350-ish (which is still great for a TM GBB pistol). Here is what he said:
"PMC (Poor Mans Chrono) results are off. It didn't penetrate the bottom, it only dented and cracked it. It only counts if it goes clean through. Your results show 350-370, but if you look at the side, it's not a clean punch through. Yes, it makes it through, but it wasn't with TOO much momentum.
Looking at the pics, I would guesstimate about 345-350ish FPS, based on the pics."
I am not sure what he meant by this: "Yes, it makes it through, but it wasn't with TOO much momentum." But he's more knowledgeable than I, plus he is one of our senior members here at ASR, so that makes him correct in all respects. Thanks Booligan!
Takedown
Takedown on a airsoft gun is necessary to keep it up to par and to make sure things are running as smoothly as possible. On this model of the .45, it is very close to its real steel counterpart.
First what you want to do is make sure the mag isn't in the weapon, and the slide has been racked.
Next, rack the slide once more, but when you bring it back, stop at the first half circular hole on the slide.
On the reverse side, you see a little dot. While still holding the slide, push the dot in.
Now proceed to take off the slide of the gun.
From there, you can pull the spring you see forward toward the front of the gun, then remove it. Next, at the very front of the gun, you should see a little circle under the barrel with a rough surface. Push that in, catching it from where you just removed the spring at. Then, take your handy loading tool I showed you and locate the end with the funky ends (looks like they're waving kinda). Put these two... "things" around the black circle in front of the barrel and turn right (or left, depending if you're holding the barrel up side down). Now, simply just push the cap up. Now you can freely take out the outer barrel assembly.
To take separate the outer barrel from the inner barrel, first separate the outer barrel from everything else. Locate on the outer barrel the part that looks like it's a latch (opposite from the hop up).
Now just grab the bottom part of the outer barrel (where the hop up is at) and tug. It takes a little force to take out.
I know the pictures are dark. Even though it's early in the morning at 90 degrees, my camera still favors the flash :P
Accessories
It’s a Tokyo Marui. There are millions and millions of things to get and do to this gun. Wether it be get a full metal body kit, to a threaded outer barrel, to a tightbore inner barrel, to better recoil springs, it’s up to you. Personally, I’m keeping it the way it is until I see it needs to be upgraded. People have made golden dualies out of this, have made the infamous Hitman Silver/Hard Ballers out of this, etc. etc. The list goes on. Anyways, whatever you need, look around, because I guarantee it someone has it.
Pros
+Great finish
+Great power and accuracy
+Perfect range (120+)
+Comfortable to handle
+Lots of metal parts
+Disassembles just like the real deal
+Spare parts readily available
+It’s an M1911A1
+One of the best replica's
+Trademarks
+It’s a Tokyo Marui, you’re getting the best quality wise.
Cons
-Gas consumption worst than a Escalade
-Plastic barrel
-Massive orange tip
-Magazine jams up
-Propane smells like booty but it’s not its fault
-Mag is kinda hard to fill
Overall
Seriously, this is my favorite gun. Although this is my first gas gun, I’m in love with it. I’ve always been a fan of the .45, and this is not an exception. All my friends are drooling over it, asking to use it over and over again. Another thing I love about this is the fact that it’s a Tokyo Marui. The best of the best. I know this gun will not fail on me. And with a little love and care, yours can be the best little .45 you’ve ever put into your collection. Definitely a winner.
Thanks to: Spartan324, Mr.Danny518, Airsoft Atlanta, and Booligan for correcting the PMC results.
Now for some hott pictures!
.45 by the poolside... *sigh*
Discuss this review in the forums.
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Review Administrator
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Posts: 2,539
Registered: February 2004
Location: Wisconsin
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