This article aims to provide a balanced and objective review of the products available in the market, with a point of view on their usefulness and cost/benefit for a wide range of players.
This article will not consider non-wargame or air soft replicas but only inert training weapons designed exclusively for wargames and indoor cqb price. These products are different from realistic handguns intended for war games used by air soft players and actual firearms. Therefore, unless otherwise stated in our articles, we always mean the former category of items described above when referring to simulations or training weapons.
Training weapons can be divided into several types on their use: out-of-the-box replicas, lower receivers, and machined replicas.
Out-of-the-box replicas are the least expensive ones and the most widespread among players: they usually include a small number of accessories such as a plastic replica (flashlight or laser pointer) for their lights; an orange tip flash hider; two magazines (one for BBs and one for gas). The most significant disadvantage of these weapons is that they cannot often perform basic operations like disassembly, loading, and shooting multiple shots with a single trigger pull.
Besides replicas, few models do not imitate any existing weapon model: they’re primarily imitations of revolvers, but you can find them in different forms. Sometimes they are “mocked up” (resembling real weapons) to please some customers, and sometimes they are designed to be separated into few components for even easier storage.
Lower receivers were developed to give players the most control actions possible and have a good replica with all necessary accessories like an orange tip flash hider and two magazines (one for BBs and one for gas). It’s not uncommon that lower receivers include foldable stocks or grips; it is also common to find them imitating already existing weapon models. However, the main problem with these models is cqb price, which can vary greatly depending on the manufacturer, materials used, and the presence of additional equipment.
The last type of training weapons available in the market are machined replicas. These are the most expensive ones, and they look exactly like real weapons: in fact, some of these models can even be transformed into a firearm with hardly any modifications required.
This article will not deal with lower receivers because, despite their excellent cost/benefit ratio, their use requires a specific level of knowledge and skills from players to operate them properly.
The same is true for machined replicas, which require professional assistance whenever it’s time to service or maintain them. Therefore we’ll focus on out-of-the-box replicas only, aiming at reviewing the best products available on the market with a balanced point of view on pricing.
