About the author Name: Brian Hunt Place of residence: Long Island, New York, USA Age: 26 Profession: Residential home contractor Marital status: M Children: yes, one 16-month-old son Air soft status: collector Years collecting: 1 Hobbies: collecting and shooting guns, longboard surfing, salt & fresh water fishing. I am not the best person for giving a review on Airsoft guns since I am very new to the sport, but I do know real steel. I started with guns at the age of seven when my father gave me a co2 pistol. The gun came in handy on our family trips up country. There the gun was used for shooting cans, birds, and frogs. As I grew up so did my taste in guns. I went from co2 air pistols and lever cocking air rifles to 410 shotguns and 22 rim fire rifles. Before I knew it I was twenty-one and a licensed handgun owner. Since receiving my licences I have collected twenty-three handguns. My collection consists of guns from: Colt, Heckler & Koch, Ruger, and Sig Sauer.

How I got into Airsoft? One day while surfing the web for rare versions of heckler and koch p7 pistol I stumbled on a review of a p7m13 from Japan. The text was unreadable, and I was going to close the site when I noticed that the clip of the gun was unlike any p7 I have ever see. More web searching led me to the sport of air soft and the MGC version of my favorite gun (P7M13). The thought of a bb version of the p7 really intrigued me and I had to have one for my collection of p7(8 to be exact). After about sixteen months of searching I found someone how had one.

About the real steel The p7 is the best handgun ever made! The p7 can be drawn, cocked and fired accurately faster then any other pistol. The unique H&K cocking lever allows the p7 to be carried safely with one round in the chamber, yet it is ready fire by the natural tightening of the fingers around the grip. Releasing the lever immediately decocks the gun and renders it completely safe. In other words if a person gets there hand on your p7 they wouldn't know how to shoot the gun unless they were familiar with the p7 series.

The gun is also safe since the pull strength on the lever is too strong for children and most women to squeeze. You would never have to worry about your kid shooting there self or a friend, and when your wife has a midlife crisis she wont be able to shoot off your Johnson. Besides being a great gun for concealed carry the gun is also ambidextrous and has a constant, uniform trigger pull. The gun comes in many calibers: p7m7(45 auto) ultra rare, p7m8(9mm) 8 shot clip, p7m10(40 s&w), p7m13(9mm) 13 shot clip, and the p7k3(22lr, .32, .380). Pure German engineering at its best!

For the review: MGC P7M13 compared to the real steel

Realism Simply put, looking at it in the box it is impossible to tell the difference. Upon picking the gun up I couldn't tell the difference in weight. While examing the gun I found all serial numbers and proof marks identical to the real steel (w/ the addition to "made in Japan" and "asgk"). All functions of the gun match its real steel brother. The clip release and squeeze cocking mechanism are identical. The strength it takes to pull the slide, and squeeze the cocking lever are very close to the real thing. With the slide back you can see a tilted plastic barrel. Though this doesn't match the H&K version it is easily over looked.

The gun is solid and other then the difference in the weight of a loaded magazine there is almost no way to tell the difference. One thing that didn't match the real thing was the cocking pin indicator. On the real gun there is a pin on the back of the slide. When the gun is cocked this pin stick out to let you know the gun is ready to fire. When the gun is decocked this pin is flush. Surprising a company that has gone so out its way to replicate a gun would not follow trough with this detail.

Specs say it all! This gun is a perfect replica. Note that this gun replicates the P7M13 made from 1983-1993. After '93 the gun went through some minor changes. The overall length and height was made a bit smaller, the engraving on the gun was made larger and more visible, and the slide removal button went from being circular textured with a bevel to a checkered texture with out a bevel. A perfect example of the change can be seen by the Tokyo Marui version of the P7M13

Performance The gun is very accurate; at 3m the gun easily made 25mm groups. At 7m the gun made groups with in 60mm and at 10m the guns still made groups in 100mm. Even at 15m the gun hit the target thought not in any real pattern.

The gun at 20m could still handle a human target no problem. As for gun mechanics I have put about 3000 bb thorough it and it is still working fine.

The only problems I have experienced is the slide sometimes not locking back in when the mag is empty. I have also had the mag leaking a little bit, but a bit of silicon spray fixed that.

Conclusion

Review by Brian James aka Chimaera (brian.james@flash.net)