Reviewed By Hakaida

The Maruzen Company recently released a new fixed slide version of the famous Walther P99. The "Bond Gun" is now available in both non blowback and blowback versions. Where the blowback version fell short on expectations because of it's "in-ability" to shoot anything but HFC134a gas, the fixed slide seems to love Green gas. The gun appears to have been made to compete with the Marui MK23 Socom Set. It comes in a hard plastic case with a silencer and light unit. There are actually a lot of metal parts on the gun, including parts of the light unit and the silencer with the majority of the weight in the magazine.

Appearance:

The P99 looks awesome straight out of the case. The barrel has internal threading for the silencer keeping the "stock" look to the front of the gun when it's not connected. The silencer also comes with all the Walther trademarks on it for an even more authentic look. The only drawback to the gun is that the light has 2 metal toggle switches to activate it. This allows the light to be ambidextrous. Note..both switches have to be in the "up" position to be turned on.

Maruzen has licensed the trademark from Walther so the gun comes with trademarks in all the right places including the Walther "Ribbon" on the front of the slide. Even the magazine and the light have "Walther" on it.

As I said earlier, most of the weight in the gun seems to come from the magazine. However, the gun does seem to balance quite well with the silencer and light attached.

A feature that I found pretty cool was that although it's totally un-necessary, the gun still has the little pin that comes out the back of the slide to indicate that the gun is ready to be fired. However, because it's an internal hammer, it cannot be "pre-cocked" so the indicator will only be visible for a second as the gun is being fired.

The sights have clearly painted white dots on them for easier alignment and target acquisition. The silencer works fairly well to "muffle" the shots.

Performance:

For a Non-blowback, the P99 shoots fairly easily. The trigger pull is extremely light for a double action making double taps and sustaining cover fire much easier. Velocity started from 395 f.p.s. with green gas and .2 gram bb's. This was with a relatively cool magazine (we didn't have a chance to warm it up before testing it). With Abbey Predator Gas it shot 350 f.p.s. and stayed that way for most of the magazine. What really impressed me was that the magazine emptied all 27 shots and was still able to put out another full with gradual reduction in velocity.

The hop up is easier to adjust than the Socom, with no disassembly required. There's a small hole in the rear of the ejection port where you can see a small flat head screw.

However, the socom does have two advantages over the P99 only because the LAM unit is easier to remove than the P99's light. The Socom has a wheel that can be easily turned by hand where as the P99 requires tools. Also, if you call this an advantage, the MK23 magazines hold 28 shots and the P99 holds 27. Most will argue that the extra shot may be the difference some day. I say that if you are at the point where you have to make your last bb count, you have other things to worry about.

Accuracy is great with this gun. The lightweight trigger pull allows you to keep the gun on target easier than with most non-blowbacks including the Socom.

Most of us that tested the gun on our CQB field were very happy with the accuracy and rate of fire. From across our field (about 45 feet) we were able to put 10 out of 10 bb's into our intended target (we were being cheap and used an empty green gas can for our target).

The light unit comes with a decent lamp but can easily accept the Surefire 3p replacement lamp for more power. It uses the standard 123a lithium batteries as most tactical lights making it easy to replace.

I was surprised to see just how good the P99 Fixed slide performed. The accuracy is better than any airsoft handgun I've had a chance to review so far. The easy trigger pull puts it well above all the other non-blowback guns currently on the market when it comes to rate of fire.

The silencer works effectively to reduce the muzzle noise and the combat sights are easy to use during a game. The grip is very comfortable to hold on to and makes it even easier to shoot. I would definitely say that this will be on most Players' Christmas lists this year as it appears to be the new item on the "HOT LIST".

Till next time, play safe and be responsible.

Hakaida