View Single Post
Old March 3rd, 2016, 13:04   #3
Cliffradical
butthurt for not having a user title
 
Cliffradical's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Winnipeg
Buying within Canada is your safest, cheapest, bestest option. We can't share links to websites with you until you are Age Verified because you need to be over 18 years of age to purchase these things legally.
Once you are AVd, you get access to all of our specific retailer advice, as well as the Classifieds. Who knows, somebody might be selling exactly what you want, all put together!

The major brands you'll want to look at for a 1911 are Tokyo Marui (TM, top end, what you actually want), KJWorks (KJW, workhorse, practical, no frills), and WE (WE, best 'deal', dead-end for most upgrades, enjoy it for what it is).

A TM will grant you the best performance, best lifespan given the availability of replacement/ upgrade parts, you can possibly build a gold plated competition gun that matches your real one if you want. These are the standard for a serious 1911/ Hicapa/ 2011 build. Their cost easily eclipses other airsoft pistols (a competition Hicapa can exceed $1200), but compared to a real STI custom IPSC blaster ($5000 easily), cheap like borscht.

A KJW is a good standard for playing and plinking. Overall unremarkable, but in this case that's a good thing. Replacement parts exist, some upgrades suitable for a TM will work just fine. Magazines are (mostly) cross-compatible to TMs which make them a good choice for everyday use when you don't want to carry your $1K gat out into the mud-soaked wilderness. Can be had at competitive prices when they're in Canada.

A WE is a hard gun to openly recommend, just because they can be so variable. Some come out of the box shooting dimes, some apparently didn't get QCd at the factory. They tend to wear out and end up as bricks because of soft materials used in critical parts. Mags aren't compatible, upgrades that might work are often wasted on them because tolerances on many parts have so much slop.
THAT SAID, they can be great if you just enjoy them for what they are. I had a very nice nickel plated 1911 that rocked socks. It would never grow up to be a competition gun, but it went BANG when I pulled the trigger (with one of the mags anyway...) and it kept running even after I dropped it and shattered part of the ass end of the slide. I would buy another one if it wasn't for the magazines, frankly.
They are pretty inexpensive generally, and they boast a massive variety of available models. I know some guys who have bought WE guns and never had an issue. That seems like a bit of a lottery, though.


Accessories like suppressors, RDS units, lights/ lasers are pretty much vanity items in airsoft.

Lights can be very useful, but I'd recommend getting a pistol with an integrated rail if you're going to use one. Add-on rails tend to require modification for fitment or can be squishy and mushy.

Lasers are disallowed at many games because of dodgy or nonexistent measurement of the power output. Airsoft guns are hardly accurate enough to make use of one anyway, and a bb's flight trajectory is a curved one by necessity. Something you have if you like it, that's it really.

RDS sights are kickass additions if the added weight and bulk doesn't bother you. You get a gun, you get a sight mount, you mount the mount, then mount the sight. Research mount-to-frame compatibility for your specific gun before you buy.

Suppressors are (almost) good for nothing unfortunately. Most of the gas used in a GBBP is bled off to cycle the action, so it's not going to make your gun quieter. They can also cause problems with cycling because of the extra weight added to the outer barrel (like a real one x1000). They're mostly used to hide an extended inner barrel and look pretty while doing it, or purely for aesthetic purposes. You may need to do a fair bit of work to get a suppressed pistol to cycle correctly, or if you're lucky you'll just see increased wear on some components.

I hope that helps. Running into the "Get Age Verified, Noob" wall can be frustrating, but the process is pretty painless (costs some time and a doughnut) and it's one time only.

Welcome to Airsoft, good luck trying to keep money in your wallet!

Last edited by Cliffradical; March 3rd, 2016 at 13:08..
Cliffradical is offline   Reply With Quote