Post by Spencerman For my second review I thought that I would continue with my favourite, and possibly least known modelgun manufacturer, Wa Shan, by doing a review on the M9 'Dolphin'.
I am sure that you are all aware, but I shall cover the basics anyway, that the M9 is the military designated veriant of the M92, and that the phrase 'dolphin' is given by Beretta to the fully auto switchable variants of thier guns. I dont know why, I see no connection between Flipper and a machine gun myself, but there it is.
Here is the box, not a musical box, but a rather plain box, similr to the Glock one, and again resembling the kind of packaging that you would find sucha gun presented in a few years ago.
Now, lets see exactly what is inside the box...
Once again, you get the gun, again this is quite obvious. You get 1 magazine. A manual with less sheets than the Bounty advert, covering the bare essentials, spray diagram etc. Once again, who you buy this from determines how many rounds you get with it. I got half a dozen of those fantastic disposeable rounds (I will do a review on those seperatly soon, as they are great) and the same number of re-useable ones. Soem places give you a full magazines worth, in this case, 15 rounds. You also get the loading tool. Next I guess I should show the gun both sides, so that you can see the markings.
Now, this gun has many flaws, many more than the Glock, so I shall cover what I found shortly, but I dont belive in starting a review with the bad points, that would just put you off the gun, so I shall start with a few plus points. The first, and most obvious, is that the gun is full metal. This gives you a nice cold feel and a solidness about it. On a negative point, the gun is black, painted black just like any Bruni or Reck Beretta you may have owned, but there is a good side to this also. The gun is not styled and does not work like the above mentioned Blank guns, so the reality of the piece is far greater. The barrel is, as you would expect, floating, although unlike the MGC version it does not have the correct ejection port/barrel locating lugs, and is all concealed like the blank versions.
It also doesnt have the little block on the rear of the gun that moves up when the trigger is pulled (I do not know the part name), just in front of the rear sight.
The location of the ejection port is in the correct place, whereas if you look on blank guns it is set much further back.
The markings as you can see are not quite correct. It does have a sort of Beretta logo on the grip, but it is wrong, not quite right, but not miles away either.
The barrel is a point of much dissapointment, as it is far too thin for a 9mm. This is something that I rectified on my version because it bugged me so much by fitting an insert. On a big plus point it did make a beautiful clink noise when the slide was drawn back. You can see that in the next picture.
The good news is that there is no barrel blockage, unlike the MGC version.
Now, the really good point of this model is that it is reliable, out of the box. It fires really well, and I believe that it can use the MGC P220 rounds without modification. It also fire full auto. For those who are not familiar with this model, the instructions do not show this, but you have a safety switch on the left of the slide, and a selector on the right. In order to switch from single shot to full auto, you have to pull the switch out to the right and drop it down. To switch back you have to pull it out to the right and push it up. I had a problem with mine here, as the screw sheared off and popped out, making it awkward for me to change the settings. I can rectify this with a longer screw, but have no need to at this moment in time. Here is the gun compared next to the MGC model 92.
One of the other points that I noticed is the lack of any colour on the Wa Shan models, except for black. They do not have the Red colour on the safety catches 'live' select, or on the loaded indicator on the ejection rod, or on the sights where needed. On this particular model it should have a white dot on the right of the slide on the fire selector, instead of the red one for the safety. This is also blank, as is the white dots/lines for the sights.
I have to honest, I prefer the look of the MGC one. The whole different tone finish that it has going on is great, compared to the flat black look of the Wa Shan version. Then there is the whole correct trademarks thing that it has going on. For me that is pretty important. Not essential, but pretty important. If I had the choice between a model with the correct trademarks, and one with the wrong ones, or none at all, I would sooner pay a little bit more for the one with them. Also the realism of the MGC one beats the Wa Shan hands down. But...The MGC gun is not fully auto!
Between the Full auto and the Full metal and the superb reliability of this gun, it kind of sways in its favour a little more than the MGC version, and I know that you would all have watched Kickbacks video of full auto goodness which shows just how good this model works. In conclusion, buy both the MGC model and the Wa Shan version, because I cannot choose between them as to which one I would prefer. I wouldnt like to be without either.
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Tue Aug 12, 2008 5:16 pm
I had to edit my Glock review because I forgot them. Anyway, here they are. 
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