Umarex Tactical Force Combat CO2 Airsoft Gun Review

The Umarex Tactical Force Combat is a GBB (Gas Blow-Back) airsoft pistol. It’s mostly made of metal, with the exception of the grip, and in many ways resembles a Glock. It requires standard 12 gram CO2 cartridges to operate.

The Tactical Force Combat is a GBB (Gas Blow-Back), as mentioned before, meaning that the slide jolts backwards every time you pull the trigger, just like a real gun. However, the Combat’s slide only blows-back about 3/4 of an inch, making it look and feel less realistic. It’s also a little clunky, meaning that the slide doesn’t blow back in a single, smooth motion; it’s almost feels like the slide is shuttering back and forth. This not only makes the gun feel sluggish, it makes more difficult to keep your sights on target when you’re shooting.

GBB’s are known for their ability to “shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger”, but the Tactical Force Combat can easily malfunction when being shot too fast. Often times it will dry fire and then fire two BBs on your next shot if you shoot too rapidly. This isn’t a huge deal, it just forces you to slow down and take your time, which is usually a good thing anyway. However, it’s still a hassle for the times that it’s necessary to put BBs down range at a fast pace.

The Combat also isn’t one of the more accurate pistols out there. At 15-20ft with .20 gram BBs it can hit a 12-inch Gel Trap with decent consistency. However, at ranges over 25 feet, the BB starts to sink and is very inaccurate.

The sights are both good and bad. The front sight consists of a little white rod stuck through a standard black blade front sight, giving you a sort of white-dot sight. The back sights are made of a little bent green rod that is also stuck through a standard back sight, giving you a sort of green-dot sight. The contrast of green on white dots makes aiming and acquiring targets easy and fast. However, if you looked at the sights from the side, the green and white rods stick all the way through the standard sights, popping out the other side, making them look sloppy. But this is only a cosmetic issue, and doesn’t effect performance.

The Combat boosts a impressive 400FPS (Feet Per Second) with .12 gram BBs, and averages between 350 and 380FPS with .20 gram BBs, depending on how new the CO2 cartridge is. Although .12 gram BBs have higher velocity, I’d recommend only using .20 gram BBs because they’re much more accurate.

Through all the downsides, the Combat gets extremely good shots-per-CO2. The blow-back starts wearing down after about 8-10 magazines and the slide stops being blown back far enough for the slide lock to catch, but it still shoots BBs consistently up until 14-16 magazines. This is great if you’re planning on using it in a airsoft war, minimizing downtime.

To put the CO2 cartridge into the gun you simply press a button on the bottom of the gun, directly behind the magazine, which releases the part of the grip, revealing a small compartment. From there, you fit the cartridge into the compartment and screw it in.

The magazine is just like any other GBB magazine. There’s a little metal lever on the side of the magazine that you pull down to the bottom and lock in place. Once locked in place, you pour BBs into a small hole near the bottom of the magazine and then unlock the metal piece, putting tension on the BBs. The magazine holds 15 rounds and is full metal, making it both durable and relatively high-capacity.

One of the more notable issues it the safety. Instead of simply sliding the switch back and forth, in order switch between “fire” and “safe” you must push the switch inwards and then back/forward. It’s very difficult to do this with one finger, forcing you to hold the gun in one hand while trying to manipulate the safety with the other. However, after switching between fire and safe multiple times, it starts to loosen up.

The last thing worth noting is some of the little details. On the trigger itself there’s a mock safety, it looks like a smaller trigger coming out of the normal trigger, which on a real gun you press down along with the trigger to fire; although it doesn’t do anything on this gun, and is just for show. Another cool feature is the slide lock. As soon as you’ve discharged the last round, the slide stays back, indicating you’ve run out of ammo.

In a wrap, the Tactical Force Combat pistol has a lot of issues, but also has potential. It’s great for CQB, but fails to stay consistent at long ranges. It also has a large magazine, and features very good shots-per-cartridge. The blow-back is a neat feature, but ultimately reduces accuracy. It’s really not a bad gun, but just not one of the best.

Walther Special Operations P99 Airsoft Gun Review

The Walther P99 is a very iconic gun used world-wide; from James Bond to the German police to the latest Modern Warfare game. The Walther P99 airsoft gun is obviously a replica of the real thing. It comes with a silencer, extra magazine, and a larger grip replacement.

The main thing people notice when they look at the Walther P99 airsoft gun is the silencer. It’s suppose to be a “mock” silencer that’s just for show, but there’s a noticeably quieter sound when you shoot with the silencer on oppose to off. The silencer is removable (it simply screws on and off) but when you take it off, there’s a one-inch long orange tip that doubles as the thing that the silencer screws onto. It looks absolutely terrible, but it doesn’t effect performance. Also, the silencer completely obstructs the iron sights, making aiming much harder.

The orange tip doubling as the thing that the silencer screws onto  is an all-out design flaw/shortcut that Umarex (the manufacturer of this gun) took because it’s much cheaper to produce this way. Not only does the tip look horrible when the silencer is taken off, but it’s also very weak because it’s only made of plastic. This causes the silencer to break right off the gun, taking the orange tip with it, if you are at all rough with it.

Even if you manage not to break your silencer, it makes the whole gun very inaccurate. Because the silencer isn’t properly anchored to the gun, if you even slightly bump it it will bend a little bit and send BBs flying in every-which direction.

With the silencer taken off, the Walther P99 airsoft pistol is pretty accurate with .20 gram BBs. Even in the wind, it can hit a 12 inch gel target from 30 feet away with good consistency. And the sights are exactly like the ones on the real P99 which adds to the realism.

The magazines that come with the Walther P99 are really good. They hold 15 rounds and have a 100 round reservoir. The reservoir makes reloading time much quicker, since you can reload right from the magazine itself. Although, they are made completely out of light plastic, which makes them less durable and feel cheap.

The larger grip that the Walther P99 comes with is great for people with large hands. To replace the normal sized grip with the bigger one all you have to do is remove a pin and the grip will come right off, then you can just push the other one right on and put the pin back in. The larger grip makes the whole grip much bigger, although it isn’t flush with the rest of the gun and looks kind of stupid with a considerable gap between the grip and the handle. It’s sturdy and does the job, though.

The safety is absolutely ridicules. It’s a tiny little half-circle that you have to pinch with your index finger and thumb and turn to select “fire” or “safe”. If you need to take the gun out and start shooting in a timely manner, which you usually have to do with sidearms, it takes over three extra seconds to hold the P99 in one hand and turn off the safety with the other. This wasted time can result in you being tagged in a airsoft skirmish.

The last thing that’s worth noting about the Walther P99 is a little red dot on the back of the gun that pops up when there’s a BB in the chamber and goes back down when there’s not. This kind of makes the gun look even more like a toy, but the red warning dot can be helpful if you just pick the gun up and don’t know if it’s loaded. Personally, I like this feature.

To wrap things up, the Walther P99 Special Operations airsoft pistol is a okay spring pistol. The silencer looks cool, but really doesn’t serve much purpose and is very easy to break. And the magazines are really the highlight of the whole gun. I would think of this gun more as “just for show” kind or gun (like a airsoft revolver); it truly doesn’t have much useability, but it’s unique and different. For the $20 that it costs, though, as long as you’re very gentle with the silencer, it’s worth the buy.

Specs:
Feet Per Second: 300
Accuracy: Bad with the suppressor, Moderately accurate without it
Power: Spring (you must pull back the slide before every shot)
Caliber: 6mm
Recommended BB Weight: .20 grams
Magazine Capacity: 15 BBs
Manufacture: Umarex