Western Arms Beretta M84F Cheetah review

Western Arms Beretta M84F Cheetah review By Gibmeistar

Stock Specifications Features Built Material – ABS Magazine – 20Rounds Length – 172mm Weight – 570g RRP 138USD

So what’s in the box? Upon opening the box you find more or less the usual for WA, the gun, a small bag of BBs, two allen keys and a plastic bag holding the instruction manual, some leaflets and a few targets. The box itself is the usual WA minimalist brown cardboard with the beretta logo on the front.

Onto the gun Picking up the gun the first thing you notice is that it has a good heft for such a small pistol, this gives it an overtly solid feel. Due to WA’s license agreement with Beretta the correct trademarks are all present with one side of the gun sporting the words “PIETRO BERETTA GARDONE V.T. – ITALY” and “CAT.5002 – MOD.84F – CAL.9 SHORT” and the other WA’s markings. The grips are plastic and both bare the Beretta logo. The sights are non-adjustable combat type and have the usual white dots for aiding shooting in low light conditions. The gun accommodates a double stack full metal 20 round magazine, which fits neatly into the gun with only the slightest of wobbles. True to the real steel it also sports a working de-cocker and a double action trigger.

Looks and size? Well it’s really all up to you. Chances are if you like the famed beretta M92 then you’ll like this as it is essentially a scaled down version, smaller than the 92 compact carry but larger than say, a Beretta M1934. The finish is matte black and while upon inspection is obviously plastic it does not look in any way plasticky.

What’s it like to use? Gassing up the magazine is a doddle, however as with all WA mags you must remember to pull down the tab on the back of the magazine before gassing or it will all spray out the top of the mag. Loading the mag must be done by holding down the follower and putting the BBs in by hand, there is no speed loading tool supplied such as the ones found with the SV and Para Ordnance series. Care must be taken to ensure all the BBs fall into a double stack formation as otherwise the gun may jam.

Loading the magazine into the gun is weird as there is no definite click to tell you when it is being held properly. Racking the slide is also a bit disappointing as a plasticky sound is made, still, the functioning of the gun is very smooth.

Once the slide has been racked you can either fire away or use the de-cocker to drop the hammer without the gun firing leaving a round in the chamber. The gun may then be fired by either manually cocking the hammer and then firing (this gives a light and short trigger pull) or pulling the trigger the full way which cocks and fires the hammer in one go (long and heavy trigger pull). Using Abbey Predator gas at house temp the slide cycles very fast, crisper than my old standard KSC Glock 19 did on the same gas. It will fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. There is almost no recoil to speak of, however I do not find this to effects the firing experience as you don’t really expect much from such a small gun. You can get about 2 and a half magazines worth of BBs from one fill of gas.

On the range The grouping was about 2 ½ inches at 8 meters, not bad for such a small gun, however, lining up the sights as you would a normal pistol you end up shooting about an inch low over short ranges, you must put the bottom of the white dot level with the half circle shaped white marking on the rear sight to shoot perfectly straight.

Take down and hop adjustment First ensure the magazine is removed from the gun and that the safety is not engaged. Rotate the disassembly lever downwards, the slide should pop forward slightly and can now be pulled off the frame.

To adjust the hop up use the thinnest allen key provided and insert it into the grub screw in the bottom of the chamber, holding the slide so that the barrel is pointing away from you turning the grub screw clockwise will increase hop and anti clockwise will decrease hop. The hop up is very sensitive on this pistol and turning it only ¾ of a full turn caused the gun to jam.

In the field I took the Beretta to with me to Matrix Airsoft, the weather was extremely cold (2 deg C) and so I didn’t expect any of my gas guns to work properly or well.

The site chrono measured 230-260fps with a 0.2g bb (about 0.6-0.8 joules) amazingly good for such a cold day. After being left in my SAAV (South African assault vest) for most of the day I finally had to pull it out. It emptied the magazine straight off no trouble and locked back on the last shot, fairly impressive. It performed better than any other gas gun on that day. Range with the hop properly adjusted was extremely good, slightly less than that of my upgraded G3 variant (305-315fps with a 0.2g).

Conclusion If you want a small pistol for compact carry or any other reason but don’t want the more common options (Glocks) then the Beretta definitely stands out as a great performer, those of you who love the classic look of the 92f will undoubtedly also love the M84.

Looks: 4/5 – a nice looking gun, doesn’t feel plasticky

Quality: 4/5 – the usual WA excellence, the only let down was the dissapointing cocking noise

Authenticity: 5/5 – everything is there, true to the real steel, including all the correct markings

Performance: 4/5 excellent even on a winters day

By Gibmeistar

External
Links: TBA

Site
links: TBA