Picked up an M1 today, and overall, pretty happy with it.
I was keen on a paratrooper as well, but after seeing one in the flesh, have gone a bit cold.
There is quite a bit of slop in the folding stock. It doesn’t have pins to lock in place, it just pivots extended / retracted…and moves too easily. And, the very rear stock piece moves around the same. It feels wobbly and unstable, in the shoulder…
Thats a shame, because it does look the goods…
Maybe when it eventually goes on sale…
Anyway, the wood stock M1 is very solid. No movement or flex, the metal captures the “old wood and metal feel”, of older rifles.
It feels quite light, which makes sense, as it was meant to be a lighter weapon, for the military support folk. The 12g co2 bulb screws into the magazine, and the whole setup is essentially a big GBB pistol, in a rifle frame. One bulb should be good for about 50-60 shots…though, as per pistols, power is maximum at start, and drops off with each successive shot.
I normally disable blowback for wear reduction, however this is intergral in the action and cant be disabled. It doesn’t lock back on empty, and continues to cycle. You can push the pin in, on top of the action, to lock it in place.
Rear sights are adjustable.
The Mag holds around 15 gels, hard gels are a must, and its semi auto only.
Its not going to be a game-day blaster, with a mag capacity like that, but i imagine most people would buy it as they want the period piece.
I do like the fact thats its smaller, it definately feels lighter and more compact.
Performance wise, expect big numbers, but with associated inaccuracy…
From a fresh bulb, the first few shots were 400-450+ fps…and all over the place.
As more shots were fired, it settled down to the 350-380 fps, before dropping off. Accuracy improved as it settled down to the lower figures.
All in all, im pretty happy with it.
If you want a decent gameday blaster, get a tuned 300fps blaster, with good internals, and a large magazine.
If you are getting one of these, you obviously want the WW2 era stuff…!
I’m chugging chesty cough syrup in the mornings and dry coughs syrup for nights because my sides are just ripped and beat up from the near constant coughing…
Don’t suppose you got one of those refillable 12g canisters? To try it on green gas, see how that performs.
Imagine rocking one in CQB, ppl will defo call their hits then😂
That’s the disappointing part about all these gas replicas (or any really) is they hit hard but have almost 0 accuracy as a result with the mush we have to use
Nice review, I picked up mine today as well. Don’t expect to see these on sale any time soon, there are only 100 of each in the country. WAT already sold a batch to a dealer in SA.
I also got the full wood stock, didn’t really even look at the para version.
You rippa, thanks. Hopefully they’ll have some in stock by the time my data card shows up. Will save a bit of a hassle, having these already on SAPol’s books.
