|
Statistics
|
| Users |
34,454 |
| Products |
477 |
| Reviews |
196 |
| Views |
10,406,241 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reviews
|
Views
|
Date product posted
|
|
0
|
47349
|
Sun March 8, 2009
|
|
 |
|
Recommended By
|
Average Price
|
Average Rating
|
|
No recommendations
|
None indicated
|
None indicated
|
|
|
|
|
|
Description:
|
HFC Sig Sauer P226 Full Metal GBB Discuss this review here
Table Of Contents
Intro/Real Steel History and Comparison
Package Contents
The Gun
Magazine
Performance
Long Term Durability/Reliability
Accuracy/Groupings
Summary
Intro / Real Steel History and Comparison
The Sig Sauer P226 is chambered for .40 caliber, but can be rechambered for 9mm or .357 sig. The .40 cal is an accurate and relatively hot round, but the P226 has enough weight and is well balanced enough that the recoil is very reasonable. The design is excellent, as with all of Sig Arms pistols, and if ever a firearm could be called "comfortable to shoot", this is it.
Left: Sig Sauer P226
Right: HFC P226 with Hogue grips
The Sig Sauer P226 is the standard sidearm of the Navy SEALS, and for good reason. It is chambered for the .40 cal S&W round, which has roughly the stopping power of the .45 cal the 1911 fires, while being smaller, lighter, and more accurate. The flight characteristics of the .40 cal slug are far superior to the .45, especially at slower speeds, and much, much better than the 9mm. In fact, the S&W .40 cal is arguably the most accurate commonly chambered round you can buy, with a load equivalent to a .357, and a slug just a bit smaller than a .45. The P226 also features a "3-dot" sight, instead of the "rear-v" sight featured on the 92F, which is a higher contrast and faster sight to use in combat situations. With a superior round and performance to the Beretta 92F, the P226 easily won the military trials to find a replacement for the 1911, however, in typical US military style, the 92F was chosen because it was cheaper, despite the fact that the 92Fs tested had slides and other parts break during testing. The SEALS chose the more expensive, but obviously superior, P226 over the 92F, for several reasons.
First, the build quality and reliability of the weapon was far superior. Ask anyone with firearms experience who makes the finest pistols in the world, and they will no doubt say Browning. However, ask a combat vet who has used one who makes the finest combat pistols in the world, and they will no doubt say Sig Sauer. They are reliable to a fault, require minimal maintenance, and the ergonomics of their design make them downright comfortable to shoot. With a decocking lever and no safety, combined with a double-action trigger with two seperate trigger weights, the P226 feature set obviously had combat in mind.
The ergonomics and controls, combined with the hotter and more accurate round, and the ease and comfort with which you can make even relatively long shots, the P226 was an obvious choice for a combat unit that was going to have to depend on their sidearm.
Package Contents
It comes in a case, which is nothing to write home about but a nice addition to the package, and 100 rounds of cheap, no-name ammo, which was gone before I took the pictures. The case is just thin plastic and I wouldn't put a real firearm in it, but it serves the purpose.
The Gun
Notable Features: All of the mechanisms on this gun work like the real steel, which is a major reason why I bought it. Not just for realism, but also because it makes it a very useful sidearm. There is no safety on this pistol, but with the double action trigger and the decocking lever, you don't need one. Most pistols, when you use them as sidearms, you want to cock and safety before you holster it, that way if you suddenly need to use it it's ready. Without a safety you wouldn't want to holster a cocked pistol, because you'll shoot yourself or someone else accidentally, especially if you are being rough with it, like you would be in a combat situation. The Sig P226 has the best of both worlds. When you are setting up, you cock the weapon to load a round in the chamber, and then use the decocking lever to drop the hammer. Now it is safe enough to toss around and be rough with (equivalent to having a safety on), but still ready to go at a moments notice simply by pulling the double-action trigger. You never have to worry about futzing with a safety when you need to make that quick shot and make it count, but you also don't have to worry about shooting yourself in the leg when you have to hit the dirt.
The gun is all metal, as advertised, and very sturdy. The weight is suprising, and it has a really good balance, helped out by the gas mag, which is just about the same weight as a real loaded mag. The build and finish are good, the slide action is clean, and the breakdown lever, slide release, and decocking lever all work just like the real steel.
There are no trademarks other than the manufacturers dummy logo, which looks similar to the SigArms logo, but has the model number (P175) instead.
Broken down, you can get to the hopup adjustment and barrel, as well as most other parts that require maintenance.
The grip is realistic, and as you can see above, I've added modified aftermarket grips by Hogue to mine. You can use any RS grips fitted to the P226 for this replica, I chose the Hogue combat grips, but there are a bunch of suitable replacements:
P226 Grips on Brownells
Grips by Hogue
The stock mainspring seat will get in the way if you try to put real steel grips on it, but you can replace it with a real steel mainspring seat for about $5, and then aftermarket grips require minimal modification.
Mainspring Seat on Brownells
With a RS mainspring seat, the only thing that doesn fit right are the holes for the screws. On the RS, the body is countersunk for the screw holes, so the holes in the grips are countersunk as well. On the HFC they are raised, so you have to dremel off some of the raised part inside of the grip to that it will seat properly. Be careful not to dremel off too much and leave a hole large enough for the screws to fall through. It should be pretty apparent how to do this with the grip in front of you. You may also need to dremel a bit out of the back of the grip to get it to seat around the back of the frame, but very little, if any.
Magazine
The magazine is standard for GBB semi-autos, from what I can tell, and is sturdy and well made. It holds 22 rounds double-stacked, and a full load of gas will fire for than one magazine, although sometimes it stops a few rounds short of two. As cheap as propane is, I generally use one fill per magazine of ammo, and either refill or dump the excess and then refill when I reload. KJW P226 magazines are fully compatible, and are much easier to find than the HFC mags.
The valves are sturdy and hold their seal well. The very first thing I did upon opening the box was lubricate the valves with silicone, to ensure they continue to hold their seal well, and I would recommend that with any gas pistol.
Performance
The first thing that took me by suprise was how much this thing kicked. Between the weight of the gun itself and the kick the first time I fired, I did a double take to make sure I was shooting an airsoft pistol. The action is really nice.
I fired about 200 rounds at targets between 10-20 feet, and the power and accuracy right out of the box was great. The three dot sight is one of my favorite types, very easy to use and very easy to see, even in low light, and it shoots pretty much where you aim at shorter distances. I intend to put some glow-paint on the sights, to make them visible at night. I had no feeding problems with the magazine, using cheap 0.2g ammo and propane with the Madbull adapter.
PMC results have it running at about 355-360 fps. The exit from the back of the can side is clean (no tearing to suggest being close to the penetration threshold), but on the bottom it doesn't even split (let alone penetrate) the metal, putting it on the lower end of somewhere between 340 fps and 385 fps.
Side and bottom of can
Long Term Durability/Reliability
I've had this gun for over 6 months now, and have skirmished it a bunch of times. There have been a few parts that wore, including the recoil spring guide, which I replaced with a Guarder steel recoil spring guide, intended for a TM P226. After 4k-5k rounds, the post that the valve knocker pivots on broke off of the hammer mech casing, which is made of potted aluminium. For some this may mean the gun is inoperable, but I simply opened it up, drilled out a hole to put a replacement post in, and found a small steel post to replace it with. I don't know if this part broke because green gas is too hot for it, or because I haven't been careful with letting the gun be tossed around and being rough with it during skirmishes. There may be an aftermarket replacement part for it, but I didn't bother looking for one, I simply found a part at the local hardware store to replace it. This would fall under what I would call expected wear on such a low-dollar pistol. Otherwise, this gun has been entirely reliable, and has had no problems.
I am looking into replacing the piston lid with an aftermarket piston head and an improved loading nozzle/chamber intended for the TM P226, and possibly a tightbore, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Parts that should probably be replaced:
Recoil Spring Guide
Sears and other hammer mech parts that wear
Recoil/hammer spring for stiffer action
Accuracy/Groupings
The following targets are standard precision-shooting 1-inch bullseye targets. They were taped to a cardboard box sideways so that they would both fit on the box, so if they look sideways, it's because they were when I shot at them. All shots were taken seated, with my arms resting on a table, aimed, with no time limit between them, using Stealth 0.25g BBs.
Groupings at 21 feet (7 yards)
Groupings at 45 feet (15 yards)
As you can see, with ~2" groupings at ~20 feet, and ~4"-5" groupings at ~50 feet, the accuracy on this pistol is pretty good stock. The only non-stock parts in or on the gun at the time of the test are some Hogue grips and a steel recoil spring guide, neither of which affect accuracy. In the field, I can get torso shots at 50-70 feet if I'm aiming, and I can hit people with a snap shot at 20-40 feet.
Summary
Overall, I'd call this a good buy. For $85 on the Evike eBay store, it is an all metal GBB pistol that is able to take green gas right out of the box. It is accurate, has fast and very realistic action, and seems to be very sturdy. The magazines are compatible with KJW magazines, and possibly TM magazines, since both the HFC and the KJW are based on the TM design. TM aftermarket parts fit it, as do many real steel parts.
After having skirmished this gun a half-dozen or so times, I'm going to have to give the HFC P226 Full Metal GBB a 4 out of 5 stars. Build quality could be better, a lot of the parts are made of potted aluminium and will need to be replaced as they wear out, but I think that's true of most GBBs out of the box.
ryanm
|
|
|
|
|
Hardcore
|
|
Posts: 8,597
Registered: January 2007
Location: West Jordan, UT
|
|
|
|
;)
