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This gun needs no introduction really, it has featured in many games and movies, most notably as James Bond's sidearm (along with the PPK), yet a decent airsoft version seems to be something that has alluded us for quite some time.

 

I recently purchased a WE mars p long long (but who are we kidding, it is a p nine nine) and was pleased that I did.  The WE is not a direct clone of the woeful Maruzen, neither is it a direct copy of the real gun, which is something that I found rather intreaguing, so I decided to approach this review as a kind of comparison between them.

 

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The first thing that struck me weird is that for some reason WE install the large backstrap as standard.  Walther and Maruzen both use the medium backstrap as standard, although it does come with the small and medium ones, and swapping it over takes a few seconds.

 

The next thing I feel I should mention is the texture of the lower frame.  Maruzen have got this spot on, and of course have the correct trades appart from made in Japan instead of Germany.  WE seem to have made thiers feel a little too smooth, and of course the trades are absent, but what it does have isn't too bad, made in Taiwan instead of Germany, and WE logos instead of the Walther ones.

 

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The other thing is the serial number.  On the real gun the number matches on the barrel, the slide (underneath the ejection port) and on the frame at the rear just under the slide.  Maruzen have put on thier gun the dummy serial #001007, an obvious link to James Bond, on the barrel and the reverse of the frame, but a different number on the slide.  WE have similarly copied this dummy serial on the barrel, but not on the rear of the frame, and a different number on the slide.  I know that this is only cosmetic, but it may bother some people.

 

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The rear of the slides all feature the same style of loaded indicator, which sticks out when loaded.  They do all however look very different from each other when they are not.

 

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The WE has much nicer sights than the Maruzen, but the loaded indicator seems to sit too close to the rear, making it easily visible when not loaded, although not sticking out until you load it.  Loaded they all look the same.  It is worth noticing also that the slide is a completely different shape from the Maruzen, and the Walther, making none of the parts interchangeable between the WE and the Maruzen. 

 

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The magazines are also different, with WE being much closer to the Walther, and with a nicer finish than the Maruzen, but nowhere near as nice as the finish on the real magazine which my vfc VP9 replicates fantastically.

 

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Internally the diffent models are very different, both in the slides and in the lowers.

 

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The hop up on the Maruzen is something that I hate, requiring an allun key to adjust, which although in theory means once it is set you don't need to worry about it, it also means you can't easily swap ammo weights etc.  The WE uses a simple rotate dial as is much more common place.  I was very pleased to see this, especially after what they did with the Hi-Power.

 

Both models feature a working decocking lever, however the Maruzen one does give out a tiny little poof of gas when pressed.  The WE does not do this and works perfectly.

 

Whereas the Maruzen is certainly skirmishable, it does have a somwhat lacklustre feel to it, and I have had no end of problems with leaky valves.  The WE feels much nicer to shoot, and I do really like the majority of WEs newer pistols, I think they are pretty darn good, and this gun sits along with those very nicely.  It is easily skirmishable, giving much better results than my Maruzen hands down.

 

Overall I would certainly recommend the WE to anyone who wants a P99, it is great, shame about the trades, but the ones it does have are not silly or too distracting from a very nice gun.  I look forward to more lovely guns like this from WE, maybe the elusive PPK to go with this, or some HK guns, perhaps a USPcompact or something, as I do like the WE line up and am happy to skirmish with most of them all day long.

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Getting more interested in this now. Would be interesting to see how it stacks up against the VFC PPQ (one of my favorites). I like the PPQ grip better, but as a big James Bond fan, well, I'm just going to have to get one.

 

Nice review

Edited by Wingman
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I would definitely recommend getting one to anybody, WE have done an excellent job, if not a little bemusing to me as to the design of how they have done it, but excellent execution none the less.

 

One thing I forgot to mention is something that I personally hate, and that is the safety catch. The real gun doesn't have one, doesn't really need it, but both the Maruzen and the WE have implemented one by pushing the take down lever (above the trigger) to the left.

 

Also, the WE doesn't have the two stage trigger as per the real thing and the Maruzen, but again it is not really a big issue.

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Have you done holster-fitting tests with the PLongLong? Looking at it side-by-side, P99 Kydex holsters shouldn't be much of an issue, but having a word from someone with experience with every relatively available version could help on spending chocie?

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If you have not cocked the gun first, then it will fail to fire when you pull the trigger, even though it goes through the motions, it will simply dry fire (click). Once the gun has chambered a round (either by cocking , cocking then decocking, or by inserting a new magazine whilst the slide is locked back and releasing the slide) then it will fire.

 

The two stage trigger doesn't work as per the real gun, but the trigger reset point does, giving you the shorter trigger pull anyway, so it doesn't really make that much of a difference, only that the trigger doesn't sit slightly further back on following shots, the resistance point is still the same.

 

Here is a picture showing my P99 trigger set at its second stage, with my WE sitting above it. You can see the difference.

 

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

So far my p99 is holding up really well, just as many of my newer we pistols do. The only signs of wear so far are a tiny mark on the plastic frame on the trigger guard caused by the fobus holster (where it retains the gun) and that is only very minimal. The only other mark is on the ejection port at the very front where the barrel locks up into place, and again it is only very slight, not the usual scraping that all too often happens. The fit and finish is great, I can't recommend it highly enough so far.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 5 years later...

Just a quick update on reliability of the WE model, mine has just *suitcase* out it’s decocking mechanism. It started to not fire reliably, this was down to part number 30 (see diagram) crumbling into pieces.  It was quite clearly metal fatigue caused by soft metal parts, as it doesn’t really bear much load as far as I can see, just crumbled. This was in turn preventing the valve rocker from returning to the correct position to fire the gun. It also stopped the lever from pushing against the little noggin to make the decocker button work. 
  I have stripped out the hammer mechanism and removed the part, and ordered a replacement piece, but for the moment it works fine again but won’t decock. It was simple to remove the parts, one screw and one roll pin so a very easy fix, as long as I don’t loose the little spring!  Shame such a silly little part would break, especially as it doesn’t follow the same design as the real gun in its functioning, but still a great little gun none the less. I have had lesser parts fail on much more expensive guns, so it’s just one of those things as far as I can see, and it certainly wouldn’t deter me from getting one in the slightest.

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