Taurus 24/7 (Sport 106) - WinGun/ASG
This (and the similar Raid 400) came to me via Airsoft International Magazine who asked me to review them.
This is based upon the design of the Taurus 24/7 (Taurus are a Brazilian firm, best known for producing Berettas under license and their monster Raging Bull revolver). It’s a modern looking weapon, but the 106 (like the dearer 400) doesn’t stack up as a true replica; it is more a lookalike.
I didn't know much about CO2 powered handguns, but suspect I had a degree of prejudice against them having heard less than great things about the KWC Sigma (lovely whilst it lasted, was the most common phrase) and the fact that CO2 is generally associated with less than stellar build quality Taiwanese guns.
However, I tried to approach the Sport 106 with an open mind.
In the Box
The box was in a bit of a state, but this was probably due to poor packaging in transit somewhere along the way than particularly weak construction, although it's not as strong a lid as most airsoft guns I've seen.
The lid is green and features a selection of images of the 106.
Under the lid, the gun nestles in a plain white polystyrene bed, with a small bottle of BBs, the CO2 capsule holding, full sized magazine and the usual collection of manuals (Helpfully, in English), targets and so on. There is also an interchangable 'iron' front sight.
First Impressions
The 106 is all plastic in construction, looking and feeling more like a good quality spring pistol than a high end GBB.
Aside from some prominent seams on the underside of the frame, it is not a bad looking or badly built looking airsoft pistol, but it won’t impress anyone in these respects, either.
The grip is rather good, featuring a ribbed rubberised section, promising very secure grip even on cold, wet skirmishing days.
Metal parts are few and far between.
Closer Look
The 24/7 look of the WinGun Sport 106 is reasonably good, it is clearly supposed to be this gun.
Underneath, there is a prominent seam along the centre of the frame, under the accessory rail and trigger guard.
The plastic looks fairly low grade and rather shiny. As I said before, very much like a reasonable quality springer.
The 106 is marked WINGUN on the slide’s front right hand side and a prominent warning on the slide’s side states that “MISUSE MAY CAUSE SERIOUS INJURIES” and that “SALE OF THIS PRODUCT TO MINORS IS NOT PERMITTED”. The gun’s Taiwanese origins are shown on the right side, too, with a WG (Wingun, presumably) logo on the rubberised grip. The left side features a SPORT 106 legend and a smaller one states the 6mm BB calibre.
The slide can be racked, but doing so has no functional purpose and the slide lock will not hold it back, being nothing more than a moulding on the frame.
This and the 400 feature fibre optic sights. To be honest, I felt they look a bit toy like and crude, but they work well at collecting ambient light and I had no problems with using them even in my dully lit garage/range. The 106 also comes with a fixed metal foresight blade which can be swapped over with the fibre optic foresight.
The SPORT 106 features a full size magazine (oddly, it only manages to hold 17 BBs), which thankfully does not extend far beyond the hand grip as most CO2 powered GBB magazines do, the buffer on the magazine base integrating well with the grip on this design, and the CO2 capsule is housed within it. However, in terms of balance, too much weight is in the magazine for my taste.
I found the CO2 cartridges a little tricky to fit. They must be seated 100% correctly or they will simply vent all their gas in one go, leading to frozen fingers, as happened in the shot below, and once they start to vent you cannot stop them... To be fair, though, once familiar with them, it would only be a hurried load that would likely cause you to fail to seat it correctly in the magazine.
Both WinGun CO2 pistols feature a safety switch on the right side of the frame, which disables the trigger. On the 106 it blocks the trigger, which has been known to lead to broken triggers on springers, although the internals of the 106 appear to be mainly metal.
Aside from the magazine release and trigger, none of the controls work, being simply moulded into the gun.
Shooting Impressions
First the bad. The 106’s trigger pull was noticably notchy and heavy.
This adversely affected my ability to achieve better accuracy results with both guns, even taking great care over each shot. It’s possible that with considerably practice (and maybe some smoothing off of the trigger mechanism with wet n dry paper) that you could overcome this, but it was a disappointing aspect of both CO2 pistols I tested at the time.
Click on image for bigger version in separate window.
Carrying out my standard 5m/6 round, off hand test, the best I could achieve was a disappointing 55mm diameter (shown as circles on the target), although it is fair to say 4 were in just 30mm, but couple of inches left of the aim point, due to that stiff trigger.
Shooting down my garden, the (fixed) hop didn't seem too stable. The garden's around 70ft and shots would fly left and right and sometimes high. At that range 90% of shots would hit a man sized target, but not an A4 sheet of paper, which most other modern airsoft pistols I’ve reviewed would.
Over 10 shots, the Sport 106 averaged 327 fps indoors (at 18C).
| Shot | FPS |
| 1 | 347.3 |
| 2 | 345.8 |
| 3 | 337.2 |
| 4 | 330.6 |
| 5 | 330.2 |
| 6 | 321.2 |
| 7 | 317.0 |
| 8 | 317.7 |
| 9 | 310.2 |
| 10 | 313.6 |
One big plus with these guns is the claimed consumption rate. The manufacturers reckon you can get up to 250 shots from one capsule, which works out cheaper (at around .3p per shot) than Green Gas, although Propane can run it close.
Take Down
There is no way to field strip the Sport 106.
Conclusions
Overall, for someone keen on the Taurus 24/7 design, the 106 is a workable, if uninspiring gun.
For the price, it is not bad and should deliver reliable, affordable power year round, but otherwise, is not especially good at anything.
One for the budget minded, I feel.
Weight : 605g (280g magazine)
Realism : **
Quality : **
Power : ****
Accuracy : **
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