Home Reviews Angs 40mmv1 ANGS 40mm Grenade Review Version I

ANGS 40mm Grenade Review Version I

by Arnie

ANGS
40mm Grenade Review Version I

by

Permian

Stock
Specifications
RRP ???

Ammo
capacity:

18
rounds

ANGS


Up
until January of 1998 there were only 2 things the Sun Projects
M203 grenade launcher was good for. You see at the time you
could either use it as a very expensive battery holder or to
fire silly polystyrene shells a couple of metres only to watch
it land meaninglessly at the ground. Utterly useless, and frankly
a waste of £70 (HK prices). There was nothing available
on the market to tap its potential. Here you had an enormous,
heavy metal beast that, visually at least, promised impending
doom for your foes. The sad reality was that it was little more
than a glorified peashooter with the available grenades on the
market. That was set to change with the release of the ANGS
40mm gas operated grenade, overnight it promised to rejuvenate
the M203’s status as a mobile artillery piece. However did the
shell live up to the hype? We shall see.

Overview
Having got mine I was eager to try it out, but first I did
a thorough examination of it. Solid – the only word to describe
it. Made totally from machined aluminium and brass, it weighs
well over a kilo, adding to the already hefty weight of the
M203.

The
upper part of the shell, made from machined aluminium contains
6 brass barrels. 3 BB’s sit in each of the 1cm long tubes, held
in with a loose O-ring at the end.

The
lower half of the shell is machined brass, with a hollow gas
store inside. The exhaust valve runs through the store chamber,
and with a simple push on the firing pin the o-rings break their
seals and the gas escapes up the barrels.

Overall
it’s a very high quality piece, the engineering is flawless
– everything is precision fit. The grenade itself slides perfectly
into the M203’s barrel, with no movement.

Operation
Operating the grenade is brutally simple. Simply push the
enclosed rod in the centre chamber of the grenade to make sure
the grenades valve is reset. Then fill the grenade with gas
using the valve at the base of the grenade. Then load 3 BB’s
into each of the 6 chambers.

Then
slide the shell into the M203’s barrel and pull its trigger.
The massive pressure difference powers the 18 rounds out of
the grenade so quickly you would assume you never fired it.
Of course the MASSIVE plume of gas that pours out of the M203’s
barrel gives it away.

Once
spent it’s simply a case of either carrying the grenade around
for the rest of the game – or opening the M203 up and dumping
the shell.

Application
This shell is quiet or subtle, forget covert ops, and forget
sneaky ambushes, when you fire this grenade EVERYONE within
earshot will know about it, often meaning you will be paid a
visit by the BB fairy and all her friends. Yes if you didn’t
get them they will almost certainly want to get you. The shell
projects a gas plume 1 metre long out of which the 18BB’s come
screaming through. Accuracy is this shells main weakness, I
used it once by accident on a team-mate at AA and from 4 metres
I missed him completely. He emerged unscathed from the cloud
of gas looking as though he had just shat himself.

Well
that’s really blooming good isn’t it!! But what do you expect
from the original version?

Design
Evolution
What – more? Yes, watching ANGS evolve the 40mm
shell has been more than interesting. ANGS first started by
reducing the size of the shell, effectively cutting both its
weight and accuracy in half as the shell was more or less cut
in half. But to compensate for this they built a hop-up unit,
almost twice the length of the new shell to improve accuracy.
I have heard rumours that it makes the shell as accurate as
a GBB pistol, but I’ll let you decide that one.

The
next revision involved taking the original shell and shaping
it so it looks more like a real 40mm grenade, with a round tip.
This meant more weight but more realistic aesthetics.

Next
another company Mosquito Moulds took the original design and
increased the BB size, allowing you to use 8mm BB’s in it.

ANGS
now also have serious competition from several other quarters,
FIRST have their own shell designs, and Mosquito Moulds have
continues their shell’s evolution and have done the unthinkable…an
165 BB version – an aptly named ‘Shower Grenade’.

Conclusion
Owning one has been a good and bad experience. Slapping
one in my M203 for the first time gave me an immense feeling
of exclusivity (being one of a select few who owned one when
it came out), then after using I was less than impressed by
the accuracy.

The
sheer kick from watching the plume re-captured my fascination
with the shell. But mine died the GBB death and the main valve
o-ring blew-out. Fortunately ANGS have released maintenance
sets to solve the problem, but its still an ongoing problem.

So
overall rating?
Well in CQB environment this grenade is
a potential winner – an excellent backup, where in confined
environment its lack of accuracy would not matter. But if you
intend to use it in a woodland environment it would be practically
worthless – once used, even if you hit the target, you would
have to carry the spent grenade around.

It’s
a terrific boy’s toy though, the gas plume and the recoil is
great. So if you’ve got and M203, and have run out of thing
to buy get it. If not you might consider spending your wad of
cash on something else, like a GBB pistol, internal upgrades,
metal body…

My
big advice though is, don’t use HFC22 in any of the BB grenades,
since the grenades are not designed to use it – and the O-Rings
will eventually blow.

UPDATE:
Since writing and re-writing this review I have disposed
of my grenade because the repair kits that I bought from DEN
did not fit my grenade, and after repeated attempts to fix it
the grenade was still non-functional. Had I known that the grenade
handled HFC22 so catastrophically I would not have bought it
– simply because HFC134a is a poor propellant of use in the
UK.

Since
I sold my grenade there have been a couple of big developments,
namely that Mosquito Moulds have taken the grenades and put
them to use in a different application – namely a Trap. Mosquito
Moulds have taken their new Shower Grenades and built a light
weight potable frame with 2 aluminium legs. With 2 variants
it’s designed to be an ambush weapon – set off by a trip chord.
The only difference between the two is that one comes with a
single 165BB grenade and one comes with 2. Again HFC134a is
the propellant of choice for these grenades, because their complexity
means that if you do blow out a seal it will be more expensive
and time consuming to fix it.

I
intend to get two of the 1 grenade Traps for use at CS and Sopley.

by
Permian

External
Links:
ANGS

Site
links:
TBA

Comment
on this review in the forums


Last
modified:
Sunday, March 9, 2003 7:00 PM
Copyright 2003 ArniesAirsoft




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