Smith & Wesson M60 .38spl Chief's Speical - ArniesAirsoft

Author

Shao14

Misopethamenos

Registered: September 2004
Posts: 306,044

Review Date: 7/4/06

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: �80.00 | Rating: 8

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	Beautifully finished without seam anywhere, nice trademarks, concealable, revolver fun
Cons:	low ammo capacity, weak power, poor accuracy

Introduction

In modern day combat, revolvers have been superseded by semi-auto handguns as
the latter becomes more and more reliable with higher ammo capacity and
easier reloading, but revolvers still hold a dear place in the heart of any
firearm enthusiastic, and can still be seen among both law enforcement and
private hands. The main advantages of revolvers include its un-jammable
reliability, less maintenance requirement, and a classy and elegant look. In
the real steel world, the largest handgun caliber to date (the S&W .50
Magnum) is also chambered in only revolvers.

Although the main attraction of airsoft is to simulate (to some extent) the
excitement and realism of modern day military combat, there are a respectable
group of collectors that value the beauty of a replica more than its
performance, and to them, airsoft is simply incomplete without revolvers.

Tanaka is arguably THE brand when it comes down to revolvers. I owned a
Tanaka Colt SAA before, and it was absolutely stunning. Airsoft revolvers,
however, are not for everyone; especially if you are looking for a
"skirmishable" sidearm, you should probably look elsewhere first. The lack
of any blowback action and realistic weight can also trouble some people, but
the fun of watching that wheel rotate and reloading it can be exhilarating
(Ok, I promise no more Ocelet reference in this review). After owning a
dozen GBBs, I seem to have lost some interest in them simply because there's
not much new to be experienced. When the opportunity to expand my airsoft
armory came again, I craved for another revolver.

The decision for buying a Tanaka was easy since there wasn't really much
competition in the market of airsoft revolvers, but the choice of the S&W M60
wasn't made easily. Nevertheless, it was finally decided (one of the main
deciding factors was the weight, and I fear the respectively light weight
(unlike most GBBs, a gas airsoft revolver, heavy weight or not, usually only
weighs about slightly more than half that of the real steel counterpart)
might be more noticeable in larger revolvers, and the absolute lack of any
recoil/blowback action in a large revolver that's supposed to shake your
whole body when shooting is also more noticeable and troublesome to me), and
an order through WGC was quickly made. A week later, my shiny new revolver
was in my hand. In the rest of the review, the M60 will refer to the
Tanaka's airsoft replica unless otherwise explicitly specified.

The Good

Holding the M60, I am amazed again by Tanaka's craftsmanship. From the tip
of the barrel to the base of grip, the gun is made to near perfection. The
stainless finish looks so real that I honestly can not tell this is made
mostly out of ABS plastic. The term "seam" evidently does not exists in
Tanaka's dictionary for there's none to be found on this gun. I dare say
that a real steel wouldn't look any better than this though I have never held
a real steel one.

The S&W logo is beautifully and clearly replicated on the left side of the
frame, with "Tanaka Works" curved underneath it in small fonts. On the left
side of the 2" short barrel, there's the engraving of "SMITH & WESSON" and on
the other side, it says ".38 S.& W. SPL." On the right side of the frame
above the trigger guard, it has some mock markings that says:

MADE IN JAPAN
MARCAS REGISTRADAS
SMITH & WESSON
TANAKA A S G K

Swinging out the cylinder, one can find the text "MOD .36" hidden inside the
front of the frame (the M60 is the stainless version of the M36). While we
have the cylinder swung out, one can see five fake brass shell caps (that's
right, this gun is so small that the cylinder only have room for five
bullets) on the back. One of the caps have a hole to allow access to the gas
nozzle and it says "GAS" on it. Each of the other 4 caps says "R-P 38 SPL"
around the fake primer. The ejector rod is non-functional because of the
Pegasus gas system, which stores the gas in the cylinder instead of the grip
as some other gas revolvers. The cylinder can be rotated, but the rotating
part is only a shell, the middle part is the gas reservoir. My M60 is still
new, and the cylinder can not be spun freely because all the moving parts fit
with each other fairly tightly.

The grip covers are imitation wood, and it looks remarkably nice. In the
photo above, you can hardly tell it's fake wood comparing to the wooden
coffee table top. On the top of each grip panel, there's a small medallion
of S&W logo (WGC flipped them over when shipping, and some of the pictures
above were taken before I flipped them back). Again the logo on the medallion
is painstakingly replicated, and it couldn't look any better.

Unlike any GBBs, there is no magazine nor slide, which are usually sources of
some rattles when shaking a GBB. The M60 has zero rattle. You can shake the
gun anyway you want, and it just doesn't make any sound at all. In my SAA,
there's a small part inside the gas reservoir in the cylinder that rattles a
bit when shaking the gun, but the M60 has none of that.

Weighing at a pitiful 350g, I was afraid that this gun might feel like a
cheap springer. Boy, am I glad I was wrong! The small size of the gun (the
smallest packaging box I've ever seen for an airsoft gun) doesn't make the
light weight too noticeable.

The Bad

The performance of the gun is not as impressive as its looks. Before I get
into that, however, let me briefly explain the basic functionalities and
moving parts of the gun, but if you are already familiar with this type of
Tanaka revolvers, feel free to skip the next four paragraphs.

To load the gun with gas and BBs, one needs to swing out the cylinder. The
manual is written completely in Japanese, but there are lots of comic style
pictures, and from the pictures, it clearly suggests the gun needs to have
it's hammer down and trigger in DA position before the cylinder shall be
swung out. Once the gun is in that state, pushing the cylinder release
button forward will allow the cylinder to be pushed out to the left.
Unfortunately, one can not "swing" the cylinder out with a cool flick of the
wrist like in some movies because the axis is pretty tight, and one needs to
push the cylinder out with the other hand while holding the release button
forward. More use might loosen up the cylinder a bit, but I'll have to wait
and see.

Most of the Tanaka revolvers are known for the Pegasus system which stores
the gas in the cylinder instead of the grip. To charge the gas, one first
swings out the cylinder, and then rotates the cylinder shell until the hole
in the fake shall cap lines up with the gas nozzle of the reservoir. Even
though the cylinder is swung out, it can not be taken off, and one still
needs to use the included gas nozzle extender/adaptor to charge the gun with
regular gas cans. It is easier, however, to line up the gas can, the
extender, and the cylinder than for the SAA (whose cylinder does not swing
out), and there's not much spill if any at all when charging(unlike the case
for the SAA).

The BBs are loaded from the front of the cylinder. One simply pushes 5 BBs
into each of the holes in the front. What? Five is not enough? The gun does
provide a "clever" way for one to load 5 more. Before you load any BB, if
you rotate the cylinder shell, you'll see a BB sized hole hidden underneath
the holes in the front of the cylinder, and you can line up any of the holes
in the front of the cylinder shell with this hidden hole, and push 5 BBs into
the hidden inner chamber either by hand or by using an included loading tube,
and then load 5 BBs in the holes of the cylinder shell (making the total
capacity 10). The hidden inner chamber is spring loaded, and when the BB in
the outer cylinder shell is shot out, a BB from the inner chamber would be
pushed into the outer shell as the cylinder rotates across that hole opening.
the holes on the outer cylinder shell has rubber o-ring in each of them to
prevent BB from falling out. This design is quite ingenious with one minor
flaw, it's easily broken if one tries to push 6 BBs into the inner chamber as
I did. The spring in the inner chamber seems to have stuck back, and now the
BBs I push into the inner chamber can not be pushed out automatically. I
think this can be easily fixed if I dissemble the cylinder, but I'll need a
tiny screw driver (the type that is used for eye glasses screws) for the job.
I haven't got the tools or the motivation to fix this since I prefer to load
just 5 rounds each time.

Push the cylinder back in the frame, and we are lock and loaded. The trigger
has both single action and double action positions. In DA, the hammer starts
at the down position, and as one pulls the trigger back, the hammer is
automatically raised by an internal lever connected to the trigger, and the
cylinder is rotating to line up the next round with the barrel. When the
trigger reaches all the way back, the next round in the cylinder is lined up
with the barrel and the hammer falls down to strike the gas release valve to
push the BB out. (In theory, if someone points the gun at you with the
trigger in the DA position, and if you grab the cylinder and prevent it from
rotating, it would also prevent the trigger from being pulled back to
discharge the gun. This technique might damage the gun, and would fail in
which case. Not recommended to try anytime anywhere.) The DA trigger pull
is quite long and heavy, but it is very smooth, and it does not seem to
affect the accuracy (however much there is, see below). One can also
manually pulls back the hammer, and this will cause the cylinder to rotate to
the next round position, and automatically set the trigger back to the SA
position. The SA trigger pull is extremely short, but it does require a
deliberate tap, and it will not misfire by merely shaking the gun without
touching the trigger. The cocked hammer can be manually lowered by holding
the hammer back while pulling the trigger, and then slowly release the hammer
forward while keeping the trigger pulled back.

So, finally, how does this baby shoot? Well, in cool room temperature (about
20 degrees C), with 134a, it makes a mild crack, and it couldn't even
penetrate one side of a cardboard box (yea, this is not very scientific, and
cardboard box strength and thickness vary greatly. It merely provides some
comparison with below). Switching to green gas, the muzzle report is
noticeably louder, and it is able to penetrate one side of the same box, but
makes only a tiny dent on the other side. My KSC metal upgraded G17,
however, shoots right through both sides of the box on green (the G17 is also
known to shoot right through both sides of a coke can on green as well). The
TM P226 on green can't penetrate both side of the box, but can make a much
bigger dent/cut on the other side of the box. If I have to guess, I'd say
the M60 shoots around 230 fps with .2g on green in room temperature. That's
all right for this small gun.

The accuracy is passable at 15 feet range, and I can hit a letter size paper
without much difficulty (see picture below). SA or DA doesn't seem to affect
the accuracy much since the DA pull is so smooth. The sights are low and not
that easy to use, however. One can shoot much faster on DA by pulling the
trigger as fast as one can (how fast can one shoot a real steel revolver?
Pretty damn fast
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8126481914955758553&q=revolver&pl=true
), but make sure to return the trigger all the way forward before pulling it
back again. Unlike the SAA, this gun (or any of the modern DA revolvers) can
not be fanned.
Below are targets of two tests. Both using green gas at around 67 degree F, from 15 ft. 10 shots each, standing two-hand grip style, paced shots. The first uses SA pull and the second uses DA pull. Paper is normal letter size paper (8"x11"). Point of aim is the center of the paper.

http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/forums/uploads/1144434268/gallery_875_9_25265.jpg

Move a bit further to 21 feet, I can only hit the same sized paper about half
of the time. Using .25g BB doesn't seem to improve accuracy either. No
range test was carried out since I already have trouble hitting the paper at
21 feet.

The gas efficiency is pretty good as it usually is for NBBs, and at this low
capacity, you'll do a lot of reloading BBs before you'll need to recharge
gas, and this is probably the least of anyone's concern. I didn't really
bother to keep count, but it's somewhere near 100 shots per charge for green
gas, and slightly higher for 134a.

The Ugly

Now this is mostly subjective. Some people like the look of snub nose
revolvers while others don't. So some people may say it's ugly while others
disagree, and I'll leave it up to you to decide your own aesthetic taste.
The small grip doesn't feel too comfortable to me. Nowadays, Smith&Wesson
doesn't even make this type of grip anymore. I'll see if I can fit a more
ergonomic modern day polymer grip on it if I get the chance.

Conclusion

It is hard to rate this gun with one number because it depends heavily on
what you are looking for in an airsoft gun. If you are looking for
performance, you can start looking elsewhere. But if you are looking for a
masterfully crafted, fun, concealable, and classy wheel gun for either
display, or role-play purposes, this is an excellent choice.

http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/forums/uploads/1144434268/gallery_875_9_96149.jpg

http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/forums/uploads/1144434268/gallery_875_9_39086.jpg

A quick update: (geez, didn't realize this review got this long.) Tried to dissemble the cylinder, but the pin and screws holding it are very very tight, and I couldn't unscrew them. I did fixed the jammed loading spring in the hidden BB chamber by sticking a bent paper clip in it to unjam it. Lastly, although you can not "flip" the cylinder out, you can "flip" it back in easily.

------------------------------
SEARCH FUNDY Member My Airsoft Gallery