Traders Airsoft Forums

I purchased the Caspian Dark Dragon off of AirsoftGI for 110 dollars, totally to 147 with the 3-day shipping. It came in four days (thanks ASGI!) and I am absolutely in love with the looks of this thing.


To start it off, I would give you a snippet of real-steel history... except for the little bitty fact that the Dragon does not exist. It SHOULD, but it doesn't Huh.


Chapter 1: First Impressions
Chapter 2: Looks and Feel - How is this gun built?
Chapter 3: Shooting Tests*
Chapter 4: Conclusion and Final Rating


Chapter 1: First Impressions

When I got home, I was incredibly excited to see the big ole brown box sitting on my front stoop. The UPS man had already come and gone, but I thanked him nonetheless. Walking up to it, I realized it had my mom's name on it. *bleep*! So, being the helpful person that I am Cheesy, I picked it up. There was my box! I hadn't noticed the box underneath, as it was exactly the same width and length. Running inside, and veritably throwing my mom's package down onto the ground, I grabbed my Buck Knife and carefully cut the tape holding my new baby inside. (as you can tell, I'm buying time writing this as my pictures upload)

I opened the box to see my wonderful little brown box with a few markings on it. Not particularly colorful, and not a particularly good picture of what you're getting, but it gets the job done.



As you can see, the gun you buy is not the gun in the picture. Not a great idea to cut a corner like that simply to save a little money.

When I opened the box, I was greeted by the usual Foam-insert covered by cloth interior. The pistol was sitting perfectly unscathed, as was the mag. They forgot my 200 BB's or whatever, but I have more than enough. No worries there.



My gun looked beautiful, and I was instantly sure that I had chosen the right gun, compared to the usual Hi-Capa's.

Initial Impression: 8/10.

The box does nothing to catch the eye of a consumer, and unless they open it up they will not really see the product that awaits them inside. It is hefty, but if a consumer is simply looking they will take no more notice of this than any other gun.

Chapter 2: Look and Feel

Lifting the gun from its cardboard prison, I was amazed at how heavy it was. The website had said full metal, and I've dealt with real-steel pistols before (only 9mm... wahh... Sad) but I was surprised to find that it was very heavy for a replica, even with the mag out of the gun. Putting the mag into the gun, I was much more happy about the balance that the gun had.

I also really like the trades on the gun. They don't jump out at you too much, but they do look very nice.






as you can see, I think the front slide is plastic. It has a completely different look and feel once you get it under light. If you're looking at it in person, you can't tell without feeling it, but once you touch it or see it under a bright light it's pretty easy to tell it isn't metal (or at least not the same metal and paint).

another pic where you can tell the difference.


Racking the slide back, I was immediately happy with the wonderful clack it made. It is metal against metal, just like it should be. As the front slide is plastic, it makes no noise, so in essence I couldn't care less, as long as it can survive the beatings I can give out.




I like the iron sights a lot. The rear sights are fully adjustable for windage and elevation, but you do need a screwdriver. The front sight is fixed to the front slide, and it is a green fiber-optic. Excellent for aiming help in low-light situations (such as my backyard tonight, you'll see the shooting results in just a second.)




and here's one last pic of the gun, just to get the last bit of drool out of you. (assuming you like this gun... haha)



This is an open-port gun, with a metal outer barrel. On the port it says ".45ACP". I couldn't get a good picture of it, though, stupid auto-focus.

The grips are definitely plastic, but they have an incredibly comfortable rubberized finish, so I find them very comfortable and have zero qualms with that fact at all. I like this much more than the very vertical frame of the 1911 and the very slanted frame of the Glock series.

Metal parts are as follows:
Rear Slide
Trigger
Grip Safety/Thumb Safety
Firing Hammer
Slide Catch/Release
Upper half of Frame
Magazine
Probably most of the internals, but I want to learn a little more before I take this out. They gave me a Hi-Capa manual, which is a little different (no front slide), so I'm just holding off on taking this apart for the moment.


Look and Feel Rating: 9.5/10
Only reason I took the .5 off is because the front slide is plastic and looks too different from the metal slide.


Chapter 3: Shooting Tests.

Well... um... it may be beautiful, but out of the box its accuracy is nothing special. Of course, we are considering the fact I was shooting in the dark from 35+ feet and firing as fast as I could (barely aiming)... I'll get much better, much more serious shooting results tomorrow (too excited to just shoot this sucker).

As well, this is stock, out of the box form, using crappy .2g bb's and no adjusted Hop-Up.


Out of a full mag, this is what I got.


There are a bunch more just outside the area of the picture, but I didn't feel like including them. Nobody likes them anyway.

The gun actually had startling efficiency. Using a six-second fill, I was able to get 1 mag and 20 shots (50 shots) without warming it up. This is just filling it and popping it in and firing away.

I'll give it an 8.5/10 as a place-holder, I'll have much better firing tests indoors tomorrow.

*new part*


So, now that I've had the opportunity to shoot this gun some more, I am going to have to lower my score to about a 6.5/10. It might just be my gun, but it has a tendency to throw one in three shots or so about a foot left of my target from 25 ft. Shooting from further would just make that gap bigger. The first two shots or so will be spot-on, but after that its hit and miss.


Upgrades: Planned and Suggested

As this is my first gas pistol, I do not plan to do a lot to it. I am definitely going to drop some money on a Dee's 5.1 tightbore and see if a stock TM hop will fit in (I think it should). I will also be getting my hands on 3-4 more mags, as my friends and I do a lot of pistol-only matches.


Total Rating out of 30.

24/30=80%

Still gets a B, but just barely.


In conclusion, I highly suggest this gun as a beginner Gas Pistol. It looks awesome, it shoots okay, and feels awesome... Its pretty nice! It appears that WE has really turned around... at least from what I've heard of their Quality Control practices...






6-month update!!!

I will lower this gun's score tentatively to a 70%. While it is partially due to my own error (I lost a part... *eek*), the accuracy very strongly degraded, along with the efficiency and power.

This pistol has been resigned to being a wall-hanger, sadly. It was fun while it lasted, though!