Post by Spencerman Well, I have mentioned them many times before, and will no doubt cover some of the same points that I have already mentioned, and some points that maybe should also be in other threads, but I figured that now my photo skills are millions of times better than they were, here is my first review.
I love this gun. There is no getting away from that fact, and as such I wanted to start with it, as the Wa Shan models are still very unclear exactly as to how good or bad they are, or even who they are made by. I shall try to be as objective as I can, but I do love this gun, did I already mention that?, but there will no doubt be facts about it that some people will hate. The main obstacle will be the build material, but I shall come to that shortly. I would like to start with a couple of nice pictures so that you can all see the model. Here is what you get.
There is no fancy artwork on the box, just good old fashioned what it is text, just like the real counterparts used to be years ago, before they came in fancy plastic or wood carry or presentation cases. Now to show what is in it.
You get the gun (obviously) with one magazine. The magazine will hold 17 rounds. An instruction booklet, which isn't the most readable in the sense that there are not loads of gumpf, just basic how to do this, how to do that and an exploded diagram. All you really need to know. There is the loading tool. Depending on who you buy it from will determine how many rounds you get. I got 5 reusable ones, and 5 one use disposable rounds. Some sellers give you about 15 re usable rounds (on many guns 1 magazines worth). Now the reusable rounds, which all of you are familiar with, are similar to the MGC Sig P220 rounds, and I believe that the 220 rounds can be used without modification to the gun, and that they do in fact, work better than the original ones. The reusable rounds, many of you will not have ever seen. These are great. A modelgun blank as it were. Fire and forget, no having to hunt around and look for your brass, no long preparation times, and best part of all, no cleaning! I am sure that modelguns would become much more popular if these were easily available, I for one would buy them by the thousand (unless they were really dear)!! Here is a picture to show the gun and the rounds, the disposable ones have the white plastic primer and are a solid one piece case.
Now for a couple of shots of the gun so that you can see the engravings on both sides.
Now, my initial impression of this gun when I took it out of its box, is the same opinion that I have today. I liked it, a lot. I has a very nice heavy feel to it, rather solid, almost real feeling, kind of. The reason for this is that the construction is all metal. The slide is metal, the barrel is metal, and, yes, the frame is metal. Now this is the main stumbling point that this gun has, as I know that many of you who do not know this are probably now going, 'that is wrong'. It should be a plastic frame as the original is a polymer, and also should have a plastic magazine with steel inners, like the Tanaka model has, but the magazine also is solid metal (not solid as in you cant put ammo in it!). The good point is that this leaves a very real feel to the gun, as it is cold hard metal that you hold. Nice
. At first I thought, an all metal Glock??? That is rather wrong, but then I thought along the lines of, an all plastic Glock, that is just as wrong. I would rather have this metal model than the Tanaka plastic one.
One of the first guns that I got when I started collecting modelguns was a Tanaka Glock 18 (and I would have kept it if I had known then what I had) but I sold it within a fortnight as I was not happy with it. The Wa Shan is very far from perfect. It doesn't have the little Glock logo on the right hand side of the frame just behind the ejection port, which the Tanaka one has. It doesn't have the Glock logo on the grip on the left of the frame, which if memory serves me correctly, the Tanaka has. It has no engravings or etchings on the barrel, which it really should have. The magazine indicators (holes so that you can see how many bullets you have) are solid, so you cannot see how many you have left, but that is nothing that a small drill bit couldn't fix. The Glock logo at the bottom of the magazine, and on the bottom of the base plate, if you scroll back up you will see in the pictures, doesn't actually say Glock, it says Clock, as there is a very small break at the front of the G, making it a C and the other letters underlined by the return. You have to look pretty close to spot this. Despite all this, it is a really nice modelgun. The engraving is crisp and clear, not like you see in some pictures of it where it is crooked, and that Glock logo on the slide actually does say Glock. You can also see the base plate in this pic.
Another major point that this gun falls down on, is that the frame has no serial number. The part that I am referring to you can see in the picture is missing, is the silver strip just in front of the trigger guard that should have the serial number on it.
Another problem that I encountered with this model was the grip plates. They fall off. They are basically a plastic piece stuck onto the metal frame with double sided sticky tape. This is however, something that is easily fixed with a little superglue.
Now, here is something that I am sure that many of you will love about this modelgun.
No visible barrel blockage. There is a blockage there, nearer to the chamber, which blocks about three quarters of the barrel, then tapers out to the front to prevent you from trying to drill it out I guess. There is no bar, and unless you point something like a surefire down the end, you will not see the blockage.
On the inside everything is exactly what you would expect to see.
Except for one little detail that bothers me. The barrel does not correctly locate into the slide. This is acceptable obviously as it is a model, and there is no real need for it to do so, but this is what I mean. You will see that with the slide removed, the barrel pops up into its correct position, yet when it is located back onto the frame, it sinks down.
On the last picture there, you can see, as with all Wa Shan models (that I have ever encountered) there is no paintwork. What I mean by that, is that there is no white sight markings, there are no red loaded indicators or anything like that. Again, it is something that would be easily rectified with a little white or red paint. I am not sure what sort would be best, but it cant be too hard to correct that.
Now, as I am sure that I have mentioned before, I love this gun, so much so that I have two of them. Here they are:
You will notice that if you look at the frame, they both have a different texture to them, they also have different stripping levers, as one has the correct two grooved type, and the other has a simple plain solid one. They also have differently constructed barrels. The markings inside are different as is the finish on the end. This is a minor difference and does not really bother me too much, although it does lead me to wonder if this could lead to why some people think they are crap and others like them, perhaps they had got a part that was no good, whereas on another model it was fine? You will also notice that one of my Glocks has a silver bit poking out of the end. This is covered in the modifications section, but basically it is a full auto selector switch which will allow the gun to fire, quite surprisingly, in full auto. The version that I have is made specifically for this model and is permanently set to full auto, and is not switchable, but it is based on a real aftermarket component available for the Glock 17 in America.
There is however one point that really does annoy me about this gun, I guess that it should go in the things that bug me section. On the right hand side of the frame, just above the grip plates is the manufacturers stamp. Now, this is usually acceptable as it is normally in keeping with the gun. Not on this one. It actually uses the word TOY. Han San Toys Co Ltd. They cannot even decide on what the company is called. Han San, Wa Shan??? Make your minds up. The other thing is that this is certainly NOT a toy. It is a model, and there is a very big difference. I would not give one of these to my Nephew and say go and play, no way on earth. I would let him use it certainly, but plastic six shooters are for playing with, toys, not something like this!
Now for a couple of pictures showing the internal components of the gun. To strip the gun is the same as to strip the real one, press down on the catch in the centre of the frame and the slide and barrel assembly will slide forwards a few mm's, then just slide it forward by hand to slide it from the frame.
In conclusion, there are many bad points about this model, hopefully I have highlighted them all, but the end result is that I love it. It is a good solid heavy realistic feeling model.
Incidentally, I think that the first gun that I ever ever owned, had the FS mountain logo on the grips, and that was a 1911, refer back to the first picture and you will see it on the box in the bottom left hand side. It was certainly a different model than the 1911 that I have now, but that would be a different thread.
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Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:37 am
Or, more than likely, the ban on newly manufactured modelguns in Taiwan dried up the availability of them. 
just didn't get round to buying one before the vcr came in. 
I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, I wish I'd bought one myself now! 
Very nice with a lot of pics! 
just didn't get round to buying one before the vcr came in.
The disposeable rounds are exactly the same as the reuseable ones, except that you dont need to bother to find them, clean them, seal them, load them etc. They are obviously made of a rather thin material as the cartridge case does deform quite badly once fired, making any possible reloading of it impossible. The outer case is clearly cast in two halves as you can see the cast lines, but these do not seperate. The internals comprise of the white plastic 'primer' section and a white plastic inner piston section. The charge is obviously contained between the two. The dispoesable round is pretty much the same component wise as the reuseable ones apart from the outer casing and how it does not seperate, and of course the construction parts are not made so hard wearing as they are not for reuse. It is also for this reason that the rounds are very light compared to the reuseable ones.