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Reviews
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Date of last review
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2
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47108
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5/1/06
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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Average Rating
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100% of reviewers
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£77.50
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9.5
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Misopethamenos
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Shao14
Misopethamenos
Registered: September 2004
Posts: 306,044
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Review Date: 22/11/05
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: £60.00
| Rating: 9
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Positive aspects of the product (pros):
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solid, accurate, nice blowback action on green gas.
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Cons:
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some plastic parts look cheap, can't be decocked without dry firing
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Introduction
I am not a big fan of double-stack 45s because I find the slender curve of the single stackers more attractive, and feels more comfortable to hold. When I first saw the WA Infinity Expert 4.3 ( http://www.wa-gunnet.co.jp/english/cool/img/wa-svbe(1.jpg ), however, I fell in love with her. Unfortunately, mundane issues such as money and class prevented us to be together. When I was about to give up hope for my chance with any double stackers, the new Tokyo Marui Hi-Capa 4.3 was born, and it re-ignited my passion and determination for a double stacker. Thanks to the dedicated people at Guns And Guys, I'm holding my first double stacker less than a week after.
This review is for the TM Hi-Capa 4.3 gas blowback airsoft pistol. Unless otherwise explicitly specify, I'll use Hi Capa to refer to the 4.3. TM released a 5.1 version of the Hi-Capa about a year ago, but I never owned nor even held one up close, so this review will not touch upon any comparisons between the two. I do, however, own the TM Sig Sauer P226, and this review will draw a lot of comparison between the P226 and the Hi Capa.
Without further ado, let the review begin.
In The Box
The Hi Capa came in the usual TM packaging. Nice black box with styrofoam cut outs to hold the gun and the mag securely in place. One can put the mag in the gun, and it'll still fit in the gun slot. A cleaning/un-jamming rod, a small bag of .2g BBs, and a stack of leaflets including manuals for both Hi Capa 4.3 and 5.1 and the usual TM catalog.
Picking Up The Gun
The Hi Capa has a nice heft to it especially for its relatively compact size. Even without the mag in, the gun still feels heavy. My TM P226 is about the same size as the Hi Capa, but the Hi Capa has more metal parts and feels a bit more heavier.
Shaking the gun a bit, the gun feels very solid, and only have minimum rattles that come with anything with moving parts.
Closer Inspection
Looking closely, the slide has a very nice matte black finish. Although the slide is plastic, it looks quite good, and I'd say it loooks better than the P226 (could've been just because the Hi Capa is newer). On the left side of the slide, the marking "OPS-Tactical .45" and some seemingly random numbers are engraved deeply. On the other side, it just says "Tactical .45" under the ejection port.
The fixed front and rear sights are metal. The front sight has a nicely painted white dot, but nothing on the rear sights. It is very easy to line up the sights.
The outer barrel and ejection port are also plastic, but looks worse than the slide. ".45 ACP" is written on the ejection port in small font.
Below the slide is a metal rail and all the levers and buttons. Specifically, the slide stop, thumb safety, grip safety, hammer, and the mag release are all metal with quite good finish and are in the usual position of a 1911. However, one can still see a tiny bit of seam line under the rail and even at the end of the grip safety.
The trigger guard, pistol grip, and the trigger are, unfortunately, plastic, and pretty poor looking plastic at that with visible seam lines at the right places except under the trigger guard (TM did a good job hiding the seam there). Luckily, on the side of the grip, there's nicely finished non-slippery pattern, but it doesn't quite save the cheap looking trigger guard and trigger.
Near the bottom of the grip, it says "OPS-M.R.P". I've been told unofficially that it stands for "Marui Race Pistol". Personally, I prefer "Marine Recon Platoon". There's also a lanyard loop at the base of the grip
The magazine (is of course made of metal) is a bit fatter than that of the P226, but not too much longer (about just a few mm longer). On the back of the mag, it says
RESTRICTED 15820 FOR EXPORT/
2133 FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ONLY
TOKYO MARUI MADE IN JAPAN
Enough With The Looks, How Does It Perform?
Amazing pretty much about sums it up for the performance. Oh, you want more details of my intimate actions with the Hi Capa? Fine, I have nothing to be ashamed of.
Racking the slide is smooth and it locks back nicely when an empty mag is in the mag well. The slide stop is too far forward to my liking, and I can't operate it with my shooting hand without shifting my grip. The thumb safety on the other hand is very easily accessible, and locks both the slide and trigger when the hammer is cocked. The thumb safety can not be engaged if the hammer is lowered (not even in the half cocked position).
The mag holds a max of 28 BBs if you push the BBs in from the top, if you like to load the BBs from the bottom gap, you can only stuff in 27, and you'll have to load the last one from the top.
To warm up, I gased the mag with 134a gas, and it took about 10 seconds to fill up the mag. The action is quick and smooth when using 134a gas, but there's really nothing special about it. In fact, pretty mediocre by my standard, which is running the P226 on green. I was able to shoot more than 3 and half mags on one fill of 134a gas, but the slide failed to lock back on the third mag. I was shooting in room temperature (about 21 degrees Celsius) at slow rate of roughly 1 shot per second. The accuracy is pretty good from just off hand shooting, at about 15 feet, a few of the BBs went through the same hole on the paper target.
After that, I decided to take the action to the next level, and fill the mag with green this time. If TM's recent record is any indication, the Hi Capa should do just fine on green, and I'm not worried at all. Now the gun came alive in my hand. The muzzle report is much louder, and each blowback vibrates my arm slightly. Now I'm in business. I got off a couple shots more than 2 mags of BBs on one charge of green gas with the same paced shots in the same surrounding conditions.
To Test The Accuracy
I set up to paper targets at about 30 feet, which is the longest diagonal across rooms in my flat. I emptied the Hi Capa into one target first, and then the P226 into the other side by side. Both were running on green, using .2g BBs, in room temperature (about 21 degrees C), standing, using two hand grips, and shooting at about 1 shot per second. The following are pictures of the targets.
 
From the pictures, you can see the grouping of the Hi Capa was slightly worse than that of the P226, but not by much at all, and it could've easily been my human error in shooting, and I would say the Hi Capa's accuracy is just as outstanding as the P226's.
At 15 feet, you can hardly see any difference between the two.
The hop up is adjustable, but requires one to take off the slide to access the hop up adjust dial. The Hi Capa came with hop up set at about 3/4 of the max range, and it's already shooting straight with .2g BBs, so I didn't make any more adjustment.
Need For Power?
I have no chrono nor even a coke can at the moment, but do have some cardboard boxes lying around. Just to give you some ideas, I shot the Hi Capa and the P226 side by side at a cardboard box at close range (about a foot away) running on green, and both penetrated one side of the box without problem, and the Hi Capa made a tiny dent on the other side of the box while the P226 didn't make much of anything on the other side. So it seems the Hi Capa shoots just slightly higher than the P226, but probably not even 20 fps higher, is my guess.
What To Do After The Shooting?
Well, shoot some more, ok, you've done that also, and now you want to store the gun away. Being a single action pistol without any decocking lever, one may attempt to decock it by thumb, but unfortunately, the Hi Capa can not be decocked by thumb, i.e. holding the hammer by thumb, then while pulling back the trigger, release the hammer slowly. That way, the hammer will only go to half cocked position. To decock it fully, one needs to just shoot it without the mag in or with a gas-empty mag.
What More Do You Want?
A tac light, you say? yes, the rail is standard 20 mm rail, but it took me quite an effort to fit my KA M3 replica onto the rail (and now I'm having difficulty to take it off). The Hi Capa certainly looks meaner with the M3.
Stripping the Hi Capa is also straight forward, especially to those who has the experience with the 5.1. Take out the mag, disengage the safety if it's on, hold the slide back for about 1.5 inch to line up the notch on the slide with the slide stop, and push the slide stop out of the left side. Now the barrel slide assembly can be slided out forward. To get the barrel out, first hold back the recoil spring, and slide back the recoil spring stop, now the recoil spring rod can be slided back out from under the slide. Slide the barrel forward out.
Conclusion
Here's a summary for the lazy folks who skipped down here to read the punch line. The TM Hi Capa certainly lives up to almost all my expectations. A shame about the poor finish on the trigger guard, the trigger, and the outer barrel, but it excels in almost all other aspects one can ask for a GBB. Keep in mind, this is the first day of my acquaintance with the Hi Capa, so I couldn't comment on the durability issues, but looking at my months old abused P226, I'm not too worried about that. Maybe I'll give an update in a few months. And if you ask me for a recommendation between the Hi Capa and the P226, I'd still say just get both or the one you like the look better because there's really not much performance difference.
------------------------------
SEARCH FUNDY Member My Airsoft Gallery
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Chrissyg
Air Cav!
Registered: March 2005
Location: Ultimate Wargames.
Posts: 4,180
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Review Date: 5/1/06
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: £95.00
| Rating: 10
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Positive aspects of the product (pros):
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crisp, fast blowback, good mag capacity and gas efficiency, heavy,
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Cons:
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slide catch a little hard to reach
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Well, I walked into Combat South store on the day after my birthday to decide which out of 3 pistols I was going to get. It was out of the TM Sig P226, TM Hi Capa 4.3 and the 5.1
I asked to have some shots with each gun to try them out.
Immediately the quality (seam lines) of the P226 put me off that one quite a lot and it would take quite an impressive shot to change my mind on it.
The 5.1 Hi Capa was nice, but seemed more plasticy to me than the 4.3 and weighed around the same. So I was pretty sure it would be between those two.
The P226 was a nicer gun to shoot than the 5.1 so I put the 5.1 out of my mind and had to decide which of the 4.3 and P226 I was going to buy. Then I got to firing the 4.3 and after I had fired the first shot, the first thing I said after that was "Yep, im buying this gun".
Its literally THAT nice to shoot.
Now onto some details of the 4.3
The box:
Normal TM stuff inside, space for a spare mag in the box as with most TM pistols. Inside the plastic bag was a 5.1 manual which was the main manual, and a 4.3 manual which just tells you about the stuff that is different to the 5.1
Included were also 5 paper targets and the new(ish) TM catalogue.
Picking the gun up after having been in the car for the last 2 hours as I was traveling back from Portsmouth, I was itching to get it out of the box and fire it.
I gassed up the mag and loaded 29+1 bbs, inserted the mag and racked the slide.
It makes a nice noise, obviously not quite as nice as my KWA Glock 19 not having a metal slide and all, but pleasing for a plastic slided model.
Well onto firing, I pull the trigger, and boom. Compared to my Glock 19 the hi capa makes one hell of a noise and unlike my glock 19, it only makes on sound. (My glock makes a sound traveling back and the forward again.) But you only hear the boom of the shot.
The hop up is superb, no other word to describe it, it ranges around the same as my M15 on Abbey Predator Ultra Gas.
A quick video here of the 4.3 (sorry about the M15):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6400858881069398075&q=Chrissyg
Hopefully that video explains WHY its such a beast of a gun.
Overall, its definitely worth the money, and go and buy yourself one! You know you want to!
Lastly, just a couple of photos:
Cheers
Chris
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†RIP Kenny† - You will be greatly misssed by the UW community, but always in our hearts.
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Registered: September 2004