WA Infinity Expert 6" review

[Utty]

WA Infinity Expert 6" review

 

After hearing much praise of the Infinity Expert SCW series, I decided to get one. From what I had heard of it, it should be as good as my TM Hi-Capa. Yeah, right!

 

Looks

Nothing wrong there, except the molding of the triggers, hammer and magazine body seems rough and uneven. Other than that, the finish of the gun is excellent, and it feels good and solid to hold. Very nice balance.

 

Function

The slide action is clearly not as crisp as the Hi-Capa, but that would be because of the recoil-dampening rubber bumper on the recoil guide rod. Field stripping the Expert takes some time and practice, and you need tools to do it.

 

The internals look good.. the hopup mechanism, however, is just awful. Hop can be adjusted by turning a hex screw just under the chamber, without the need to remove the slide or anything. To make this possible, the hopup mechanism has been made overly complicated, with many moving parts. The TM Hi-Capa hopup is of a far simpler design.

Also, there're no notches in the Expert's inner barrel to lock it in the correct alignment with the hopup mechanism, this has to be eyeballed and fiddled with manually. UGH.

 

Performance (lack of?)

Gassing it up on 134a to begin with, the Expert seemed to perform nicely with decent kick and accuracy, except for some strange stray shots. Adjusting the hop seemed to help little. After a while, I realized the gun was double feeding now and then, which caused the strays. I tried cleaning and lubing everything, didn't help. I tried using Abbey Ultra gas, didn't help. I tried installing AI flow restrictor and using green gas, same double feeding. I tried modifying the plastic BB follower in the magazine, didn't help. I tried shortening the magazine spring, this helped some.

 

So it appears to me that the source of the problem is either that the plastic claw on top of the magazine doesn't hold the BBs inside the BB well firmly enough (unlike the TM Hi-Capa magazine claw, which holds the BBs back VERY firmly, no way in hell it'll double feed), OR it might be a problem with the blowback nozzle.

 

But, not counting the double-fed strays, the accuracy seems on par with my upgraded Hi-Capa. Power with green gas and flow restrictor is good, actually just around 328 fps. I'm sure a bit of internal upgrading can increase the power even more. I am getting as many internal upgrades I can find anyway, to try and cure the double feeding.

 

Oh, and the AI flow restrictor really works well, it seems to reduce the blowback kick to somewhere a little over 134a unrestricted-level. And I must say that ordering from AI is very nice, very swift service, shipping from Canada -> Denmark = free, and it comes with a cd-rom containing the installation videos. Perfekt!

 

Conclusion

 

No final conclusion yet. If one of the internal upgrades can cure the double-feeding, then halleluja, the WA Expert is indeed almost as good as they say. If not, then omfg, I'll be the unhappy owner of another expensive paper weight, and I'll never buy another WA.

 

But in temporary conclusion, I'm very disappointed. I'm unhappy with the hopup mechanism, I would've preferred a fixed hop far more. The magazine design is vastly inferior to the Hi-Capa magazine's. The double feeding renders this target gun useless for serious target shooting (where you try to hit a bullseye repeatedly, not just blazing away at coke cans). Not recommended.

 

To be continued when upgrade parts arrive.

Edited April 4, 2005 by Utty

[garry]

Hi Utty,

 

Maybe you just got a lemon!, even WA send the odd one out!.

 

I've got the Expert 5" and it exhibits none of the problems yours has. The trigger, hammer mouldings etc are first class.

 

I've got no complaints with power or accuracy either...

 

As I said, maybe you unfortunately got a bad one. The flow restrictor sounds interesting though...

 

Hope you get it sorted - keep us informed......

[Utty]

Of course I got a lemon, the other Expert reviews I've read said they worked flawlessly. I didn't complain about the power though, just the lack of consistent accuracy due to the double feeding.

I can only hope the upgrade parts will cure the double feeding. But of course, the Guarder enhanced blowback nozzle is sold out everywhere now... ugh!! I'm getting the Proud upgrade magazine claw though, this might solve the problem.

[Kukailimoku]

Sounds like you absolutely detest this gun!

 

Why not sell it and get two more Hi-Capas for the "John Woo" style reloading?

[Utty]

I can't sell it, it doesn't work! I couldn't sell a gun that doesn't work, that wouldn't be nice to the buyer.

 

I don't hate it. I had very high hopes for this gun, it's a WA, it's suposed to be awesome. But it isn't. But I'm sure something can be done to solve the misfeeding problem.

 

Now, if it still misfeeds after installing the enhanced parts, THEN I will absolutely hate it.

[snowman]

Who did you buy it from?

 

Cheers.

[Cerebus]

Had similar problems with my wa svi 6" ltd; poor castings, uneven paintwork, loose slide & frame fit, leaky mag, inconsistent shots, etc. etc. etc.

 

After spending hours smoothing and tuning it I pretty much gave up when I realised it wasn't going to get any better without further investment.

 

I now use it to prop up a table leg and as a reminder never to never again buy an overexpensive wa POS.

[Utty]

Snowman, bought it from WGC along with the KJW G27 that I'm also having problems with. Talk about bad luck.

 

Cerebus, haha. I'm inclined to agree with you... also funny that the Guarder enhanced loading muzzles are sold out everywhere so quickly? I wonder why?

[snowman]

Bad news - My experience with WGC is they'll offer zero help in such circumstances (My DOA Raging Bull came from them).

 

Cheers.

[Utty]

Update: installed Proud enhanced magazine claw and Guarder hi-flow valve. Didn't cure the double-feeding completely, but it did seem to help some when coupled with some hop-up fine tuning.

 

But now a brand new problem has appeared. Sometimes the hammer will fail to be cocked all the way back when shooting, resulting in nothing happening when pulling the trigger. This may be caused by the hi-flow valve, though I can't see why.

 

Next I'll try installing the metal rocket valve I also bought.

[Marcus]

Utty,

 

May I offer some unsolicited advice?

 

Instead of just adding upgrade parts left and right, maybe you need to tweak the actual basics of the pistol. Adding a rocket valve won't help if your sear is out of alignment, making the hammer fail to lock back or fall to half-cock.

 

Sure enough, the valve will push a different amount of gas through the blowback chamber, so the small parts might move in a different fashion, causing a superficial change in behavior, but a misaligned sear is still a misaligned sear.

 

It sounds as if your pistol is in need of a once-over, your issues are probably fixable with just hands and eyes, and then you can go about upgrading it to make it the tack driver I assume you'd like

 

M.

[dogsuk]

Never really had a problem with my Infinity 6". the only gripe i have is that the

 

MAGS are pretty brittle. drop them once and there f**ked. with them being about

 

£30 it aint aint good when they do break. i have scanned the net to find a

 

replcement part to no luck.

[Utty]

Marcus, that's good advice, thanks. I should do that. Take it all apart, check if everything's okay, then put back together. Will do soon.

[Utty]

Okies, fixed the problem with the gun failing to shoot, was actually a small problem with the trigger bow, easily fixed. Think that problem was my own fault to begin with anyway.

 

So the enhanced magazine claw thingy I installed.. it broke. What junk. x.x

[Utty]

Just wanted to let y'all know that installing the Guarder enhanced loading muzzle did not cure the double feeding/jamming. Maybe I should try a new magazine.

[garry]

I normally defend WA's, but I can't say I'm convinced yet about the r type mags. They can have a tendancy to double feed. You can either shorten the spring by a couple of coils, or fully load the mag and leave it for a few days, which can weaken the spring slightly. Both options have worked for me.

 

Any joy yet Utty?

[Utty]

Too true. If only the magazine's feed lips were much tighter, like on TM magazines, this gun would probably function perfectly.

 

I have toyed with the magazine spring almost from day one - shortening it did help a bit, but then it would be too weak to engage the slide lock sometimes.

 

I'll try and do something about the feed lips, perhaps add a layer of epoxy on the inside surfaces for a tighter fit for the BBs.

[Utty]

Fixed!

I just applied a layer of superglue to the inside edges of the magazine feed lips, resulting in a much tighter fit for the BBs passing through. This seems to have cured the double-feeding and jamming, whew.

 

Now this gun isn't bad! The groupings are smaller since there's no shotgun effect now. Groupings still aren't quite as good as my Hi-Capa nor nearly as good as my P226, but I didn't really expect that.

[DarkLite]

I know how you could fix it!

 

Trashcan, severe application of with predjudice extreme.

 

Oh wait, you fixed it already.

 

Bugger.

[Utty]

Nohh, it has a considerable dollar value attached to it!

I think I can safely sell it now that it works - or keep it and grudgingly learn to love it. Think I'll keep it, since it's working pretty nicely now.

 

The super glued feed lip solution seems to be working really well, also durability-wise, since the glue has fused completely with the plastic material.

 

I've removed the AI flow restrictor and only use green gas (also installed a metal rocket valve with o-ring to replace the stock chopped-off-to-fit-flow-restrictor part), to see if the slide can take the heat without reducing the blowback force. If it can't, I'll just get one of those sweet SD ported "STi custom shop" metal slides for it.

[seth]

well-written account of the Expert.

 

I am planning on a WA SV purchase in the future, as all of the SVs I've had experiences with ranged from unremarkable to good, rather than horrible to well, worse, with the 1911s.

 

I am having a similar problem with my WA M4013 TSW, in that sometimes on green gas, the hammer won't stay cocked back, which means you cant use it in single action. This problem occurred out of the box. Managed to trace the fault to the recoil spring setup, and now with some modifications, the strange single action problem/hammer problem got alot better. Gun fires in single action roughly 9 out of 10 times reliably.

 

If anyone can shed some light on why some guns in general may not have their hammers staying cocked when firing, let me know.

[bronney]

Utty, your method really works I have the exact same gun as you and suffering from that problem. A better solution is to get AB Epoxy and coat it scratchy. But I am using the super glue method for now, got a pistol game tonite.

 

Thanks for timely thread search and google

[Utty]

Don't thank me, thank TM. They invented the solution, I just copied it onto the WA mag.

 

The superglue seems to be VERY durable though, but you have to let it cure for a longass time, at least as long's you would with epoxy! When superglue isn't applied correctly (a thin film between two surfaces), it takes forever to even dry. But once it's cured, it seems to bond right into the plastic material, never to come off. Or so it seemed to me.

 

Sold the gun a while back by the way, good riddance.

Edited July 9, 2005 by Utty