REVIEW: WE M&P ...thingy

[e-luder]

Hello ASC.

Haven’t done a review in quite a while. I came across a neat little pistol on my recent trip out west and thought I may share my experience with it. so here’s a treat for anyone anxiously awaiting for the arrival of the new M&P Pistol.

Thanks to the Vancouver folks for donating this guy for a day of debauchery. You know who you are!

Anyways, hope you enjoy!



Technical spec sheet:

Hop-Up: ADJUSTABLE
Weight: 750 g
Length: 795 mm
Capacity: 21+1 rds
Power: 320 fps
Power Source: top/green/HFC134A
Blowback: YES
Shooting Mode: semi, auto

First Glance:

Let me start off by saying that I was a big fan of the RS M&P. The .45ACP model is super fun to shoot. I had hoped to find an airsoft replica.

My prayers and celebration were short lived when I found and bought a KWC replica. But I soon spiraled into a world of disappointment as the gun plagued me with a number of design flaws that hindered the performance of the pistol out of the box. I didn’t mind that it had no blowback but I did mind not being able to shoot it after a couple of stacks. Anyways, I digress.

Thankfully, the airsoft universe heard my call (I am sure others’ as well) and replied with a gas blowback pistol that boasts strong recoil power and good accuracy outputs. This is WE’s take on the M&P.

But does WE actually capture the look and feel of the standard PD issue pistol? Or is it another flop?

Well at first glance the pistol is a sight to behold. The black one anyways. The box is nothing fancy. Just a standard WE box with some crap on the cover.

The gun comes with four back straps that can interchanged, 2 of which are pink and the other two were black.

Details and Fabrication:

The WE’s M&P sports a polymer frame and a metal slide.

On further inspection, the gun looks pretty solid. I’m quite happy with the contours of this gun as they are well rounded off. The seam lines don’t show as much as pictures on the internet but that’s after my friend got to doing some to get them to blend in a little bit.

Lines on the gun are well defined and clearly etched. The grip texture is somewhat to be desired though as it’s smoothened out. It’s not as prominent as I like it to be but overall it feels alright at best.

The frame’s finish again is somewhat less desirable than I had hoped. It feels like some of the KSC Glocks’ heavyweight body finish. The slide is where you can tell that this is a gun made by WE. The finish and feel of it is the same as the other WE pistol slides, mainly like their newer 226 line. It’s not the best but it’s not the cheapest either. The thing that WILL make it look cheap is the dots on the irons. The green dots feel like they’ve been rushed or something.

This particular gun that I got is a tradeless gun. There is nothing etched onto the slide in terms of markings. This may take away from the realistic experience if you’re into that sort of thing like I am. But the slide sports rear serrations that are well made and has some nice contours it.

All you get in terms of markings are the WE embeds on the grip, the serial number located above the thumb rest and the markings on the barrel chamber. Personally, I hate WE trades. They’ve always bothered me but for some, it may not even matter.

The overall weight of the pistol is nearly 1.3 pounds, which is quite hefty. As with all airsoft pistol, most of the weight is carried in the rear with the magazine inserted. But the overall distribution of weight is pretty spread out. The muzzle doesn’t flip as much as some of my Glocks,SIGS or M9s and the gun kicks quite well.

The internal build quality of the gun is decent. Everything seemed pretty tight. The inner barrel doesn’t wobble as much as I expected. The potmetal used here is still the same old WE pot metal. It almost looks like the same stuff as they used to make their older hi-capa internals. I suppose it wouldn't make much sense to improve the composition of the metals they use from a budgetting perspective. But stil...

Features and Ergonomics:

This take on the M&P features an ambidextrous slide catch and adjustable backstraps.

The slide catch is… a slide catch. It works.

The back straps are interchangeable with different colors and different sizes (L,M,S). This is a feature also found on the RS version and provides the shooter with additional customizability in attaining the perfect grip on the gun.

Ergonomically, the gun mimics the real steal version by replicating the low profile slide and a higher beavertail contour. This helps reduce muzzle flipping by giving the shooter a more comfortable grip at a higher position thereby changing the axis in which the muzzle flips.

Changing the back straps is relatively simple. It’s locked in at the top and bottom of the grip. The bottom can be unscrewed while the top of the backstrap contains a tab that locks it into place once the bottom screw is tightened.

It’s a nice feature.

All the hand controls are easy to access. My hands are medium sized so on some of the larger pistols I have, sometimes I can’t reach the slide catch unless it's been changed to an extended version. But on the M&P, it’s a breeze.

Overall, the gun is very comfortable to hold. With varying grip sizes, it can easily tailor to your specifications. It may not be as nice as the other pistol like KWA’s HK45 but it is more comfortable than most of the pistols I own.

The hop up adjust is inside the slide like most WE GBBs and can be accessed once the slide is removed. The takedown lever is a swivel lock just like the one found on the SIG 226. The adjust itself is designed like the Marui style hop-up adjust.

The other thing that I love about this gun is the trigger. The trigger has a nice curve for your finger to rest on and not slip. The trigger guard is nice and spaced so that even with gloved hands, you can easily put a finger on the trigger and blast'em, so to speak. The weight of the pull is pretty light. If I had to compare it to something, the weight of the pull is probably close to KWA's USP line.

Performance:

On Power

Here are the readings that came out of the chrony test. I was using Bastard's 20’s with propane with a room temperature of about 20 degrees.

Shot1: 330 FPS
Shot2: 335 FPS
Shot3 321 FPS
Shot4: 327 FPS
Shot5: 310 FPS
Shot6: 300 FPS
Shot7: 317 FPS
Shot8: 315 FPS
Shot9: 315FPS
Shot10: 315FPS

Pretty good readings. It seems to take a few shots for the FPS output to stabilize but once it did, it remained consistent. The one drawback I find is that the WE mag is very prone to cool downs. After 10 shots, I felt the magazine and it was very cold. But despite its drastic change in temperature, the gun was still able to put out a decent amount of FPS and consistently stay at the same FPS range…, which is very weird behavior.

On Accuracy:

Accuracy wise, the gun is somewhat sporadic. It wasn’t able to produce a consistent grouping at 20feet. Two groups were observed and produced two different shot outputs. One set veered to the top-left with 4-6in groupings, the the other grouping veered to the bottom left corner with 2-5in groups.

I don't exactly know what causes this as 20feet is not a lot of distance and the hop up wouldn't be used much.

...weird.

On gas consumption:

The magazine of WE’s M&P holds about 20+1 rounds. The magazine is apparently new to the WE line and is made specifically for the M&P. It has weird problems though. Sometimes the magazine won’t fill up all way. This is evident as on one fill, I can get half a stack while the next fill I can get a full stack + 3 shots off.

I wasn't allowed to takedown the gun, but i suspect something may be off in the mag or the slide assembly. If their piston head is anything like their Hi-capa piston head, I would I'd buy a new one just to improve the gas efficiently.

Overall though, I was able to get one and a half stack on a single fills most of the times it worked.

Other stuff:

The gun’s pointability is really easy. As mentioned above, the beavertail and weight distribution really helps with minimizing the muzzle’s tendency to flip.

This doesn’t mean that gun doesn’t have good blowback. In fact, it has great blowback. But I find that the barrel doesn’t flip as much as the other pistols I have compared it to.


Upgrades:

Well…

It’s fairly new so there’s nothing you can buy just yet. But wouldn’t hurt to buy something to help with the accuracy inconsistency to get tighter groupings.

…and maybe some better looking sights than the one it comes with.

Final Summation:

Pros:
-Good external quality
-budget friendly
-decent and stable power
-ergonomically sound

CONS:
-issues with magazine
-inconsistent accuracy results
-cooldown time is short
-no trades!?

WE’s iteration on the M&P is a pretty decent investment. It’s game ready out of the box…While my experience with it isn’t my best experience with a GBB pistol, I still had fun trying it out.

Should you buy it!? I’m 50/50 on that. It’d probably be a neat pistol once you give'er a little lovin’.

-e