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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