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Asahi WA-2000 Dx Review


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Table of Contents:

Introduction

Real Steel History

Basic Gun Information

Gun Specifications

Externals

Trademarks

Magazines

Performance

Internals

Modifications

Pros/Cons

Overall

 

Introduction:

From the time I first got into firearms the Walther 2000 rifle had always held my fancy, although from the price of real ones and even the Asahi and Geneth models I never in wildest dream thought I would of had one, especially one in such pristine condition. Well, close to 5 years later I got one. This is what it’s like.

 

Real Steal History:

Walther WA-2000 sniper rifle had been developed by Carl Walther Waffenfabrik (Germany) during late 1970s and early 1980s as a highly specialized police sniper rifle. First introduced in 1982, it was later adopted by some specialized police units in Germany, but rifle was too expensive to achieve widespread sales, and production was fairy limited. It is believed that only about 176 WA-2000 rifles were ever made. Unlike many other sniper rifles of that period, WA-2000 was not a conversion of the sporting or hunting rifle, but entirely new design with some remarkable features.

 

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The gun is built in the bullpup style, to achieve most compact package while maintaining suitably long barrels. Basic chambering was .300 Winchester Magnum, with effective range well beyond 800 meters, with optional chamberings for 7.62mm NATO (.308 win) and 7.5mm Swiss. WA-2000 is a semiautomatic rifle, gas operated, with rotating bolt. Short stroke gas piston is located below the barrel. The heavy, match-grade barrel is fluted and free-floated and is unusually located between two aluminum struts that form the chassis of the rifle and provide mounting points for wooden forend and below and telescope mount and bipod above. The stock (buttplate and cheek rest) and trigger are adjustable. Feed was from single-stack detachable box magazines. WA-2000 sniper rifle had no open sights, and had a quick-detachable scope mount. Most common optical sight was a Schmidt & Bender 2.5-10X variable power telescope.

(Shamelessly copied from world.guns.ru)

 

 

Basic Gun Information:

In 1993 Asahi Firearms Company set out to machine 125 Dx Wa-2000’s and 125 Std Wa-2000’s. The difference between the two is that the DX version comes with the bipod and has the the internal gas tank. In order to use the internal gas tank on the rifles, the only thing needed to be done is to pull the external air hose off. Nothing else requires closing or re-routing. The Asahi rifles are far different than anything out there mainly for there internal powered system of pressurized gas and electronic solenoid. More about this will be discussed later.

 

Fill nozzle on the Dx's

 

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Gun Specifications:

Weight: 13.5 lbs with Scope/rings/ bipod attached.

Length: 37’’-39’’

Width: 1.5’’-2.75’’

Height: 8’’ from bottom of grip to top of scope rail

 

Externals:

This rifle was machined by hand, from what I was told a group of 5 guys. I’m sure as to whether it is true or not, all I can say though is the finish on this rifle is absolutely phenomenal. Everything on this rifle that isn’t quality walnut (Get to that later) is high quality machined metal. The finish even surpasses a lot of real steal pieces.

The rifle has a unique feature to it, that being that it can be made for a left handed shooter or right handed shooter. In order to do so, the cheek rest is removed, and the right panels is removed, then the piece that is the bolt release on the real rifle is removed from the right panel. To install for a left handed shooter the bolt release is then screwed on onto the opposite side of the panel, the panel is placed accordingly onto the left side of the rifle, then cheek rest is installed on right side instead of the left. The rifle also has ambidextrous safety and fire selector. I have heard that is left and right handed feature is also that of the real steal piece, although only 2 people in the USA can attest to that.

 

The buttpad on the rifle is adjustable in 3 ways. It can move out, up, and down to suit the shooters needs in different positions while keeping a full contact to the shoulder.

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Moving forward of the rifle is the bipod, it is by no means a fast process to flip down. To get it down the legs must first be removed from the wire clamp, then a button on top of the bipod must be pushed in to allow the legs to swing. The legs themselves have three indentions for the button to lock into, up, forward, and backwards. Some people ask as to why the bipod is on top of the rifle instead of below it, well, there is actually a very good reason as to why. Anyone who has used a bipod knows how annoying it can be to get the rifle level, well with the rifle essentially hanging down from under the bipod gravity pretty much takes over in self leveling the rifle. Only downfall is the bipod legs have to very long compared to a normal mounted bipod.

 

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Keeping true to the rifles ambidextrous nature, the rifle has two charging toggles on each side of the receiver. Sadly Asahi chose to make them nonfunctional.

Moving back is the Barrel nut. The nut actually serves the purpose of holding the outer barrel snug against the front of the solenoid cylinder.

 

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The outer barrel on this rifle is a rather thin yet very solid and robust piece with 8 flutes. Threaded on the tip of it is the rifles flash hider, not silencer. People seem to commonly confuse it as one.

 

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Lastly, the furniture on the rifle. Not only is it just outstanding walnut, but the way the texturing was applied amazes me. It’s not your average wood stippling, it has the look to it as if an acid was applied to the surface of the wood and allowed to eat away. Reason I say that is because towards the bottom of the stippling you can find little cavities that could of been achieved by no other way. Pictures truly serve it no justice.

 

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Trademarks:

The only trademarks found on this rifle is WA 2000 ASGK on the lower rear side of each forward panel.

 

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Magazines:

Magazines for this rifle are about as rare as they come. Mine will hold 32 BB’s and feeds 28. If a spare would to be found, expect to pay around the 100$ mark.

 

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Performance:

Now this is really were this rifle shine. With the regulator at about 120psi, and the solenoid stroke set for the shortest time (Get into the stroke later) chrono results with a .28g showed as

439

439

439

440

439

439

...etc.

In other words, this rifle is very consistent from shot to shot. Thus what also aids in the giving the rifle that accuracy that everyone has come to marvel on. Using Bioval .27’s, indoors, at a measured 80yrds, after zeroing in the rifle I was able to score 28 hits on a person standing right on the 80 yard mark. Remember how many my mag holds? 28. That was a full mag, with no fliers, measured 80 yards on a standing person. Now my rifle is not entirely stock though. That kind of accuracy is normal with stock rifles, although that range is not. Because of the age of the rifles they did not come have hop ups at the time. In order to bring my into the times I was able to fit a VSR bucking with the tab sliced off as if it was made to fit in the rifle. I am still currently sticking to the stock barrel. Even after a polish on the inside, the bore diameter is so tight the only BB that will roll freely through it are Biovals due to there smaller diameter from other BB's.

Range pictures and perhaps video will be added eventually of another indoor shoot.

Edited by Username_Here
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Internals:

Inside this rifle is the solenoid valve system that lets gas flow, as you have been reading about already in this. The system is very straight forward on how it works. As the trigger is pulled, it pulls a bar connected to the air nozzle back inside the solenoid cylinder. As the nozzle is sealing against the bucking, the front of the trigger pushes a microswitch which triggers the current to kick on from the 8.4v mini under the fore grip to put power to the electromagnet inside the solenoid system pulling back the piston that has a rubber seal on the front of it. When the piston is pulled back gas that was collecting inside the solenoid unit now has a direct flow through the nozzle and into the barrel. The piece you see to the right of the piston is what seals up the back of the unit and what can be used to adjust the solenoid piston stroke length. By unscrewing it some the piston will now be allowed to move further back, taking more time to get back and the back forward to seal off the gas flow. By doing so more gas is allowed to flow allowing for a greater FPS without actually having to increase the PSI on the regulator.

The system is very simple and almost indestructible. Only potential thing to worry about would be to burn out the chip from to high of a voltage battery, and the only advantage one would get from a higher volt battery would be a trigger response time that is a few milliseconds faster.

 

Micro switch can be seen in front of trigger, along with the conrtol linkage running back to the nozzle.

 

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Piston, buffer spring, solenoid cap

 

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Rubber sealing disk to the back of nozzle

 

Modification:

Well, honestly, other than the hop up mod. There isn’t a damn thing that needs to be done to this rifle.

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Pros:

It’s flippin WA-2000 :P

Very consistent FPS

Extreme accuracy

Semi Auto

Battery life seems almost infinite

Very adjustable for shooter

Crisp smooth trigger pull

Quality machine work and finish on the wood

Choice of external or internal powered

Has a perfect balance to it

Etc...this list could just go on...

 

Cons:

Very very high price tag 2500-4000$

Rather on the heavy side

Nigh impossible to get ahold of

Unskirmishable (Unless you are just bonkers to consider taking it out....which I am xD )

Essentially impossible to find mags

 

Overall:

This rifle is a collectors piece sought out by many and awed by many more. If you ever have the chance to pick one up, be the DX or STD, go for it. There is no way you could ever be disappointed by it. The value of them isn't getting any less.

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