Looks:
Upon opening the box I thought, “That’s one big bad gun.” The gun is made of ABS plastic with some metal parts like the hammer, trigger, clip, and some slide components. However it almost appears to be metal from any distance further than 5 feet away. I think that the black version of this gun looks much better than the two tone one. It is, in my opinion, very hard to make silver ABS look real.
Anyway, the Gun did have a protruding orange tip on the end the barrel and warning stickers. I say did because, as if it were made to, the tip popped off with a fairly small amount of pressure to the side and the stickers were came off pretty easy as well. The orange tip is currently under discussion on whether it is legal to remove it or not, so if you are not sure about your area you might want to leave it on. It does look way more bad@ss without it though.
The full trademarks are on the left side of the gun, but they are not stamped as nicely as the Tokyo Marui trademarks I’ve seen. The IMI symbol is also on both sides of the grip. The right side of the gun has the KWC mark just above the grip and various safety stamps on the slide. Overall this is a great looking gun up close, and an awesome looking gun from 5 feet.
Feel:
This is a big gun. It weighs in a just a touch under 2 pounds, making it the heaviest springer I’ve ever held. To make some comparisons, it weighs more than KJW’s full metal gas M9 but less then my gas Omega M93r. So weight wise it is up with the gas blowbacks. The KWC .50 AE is a bit front heavy, I’ve never held one but I am sure the real Desert Eagle is the same way. The barrel is 6 inches long! It doesn’t take much to get used to aiming with it though a couple shots and you get it.
The grip is very large. I am 6’6” so the gun fits perfectly in my hand and I like firing it very much, but both of my roommates (5’11’’ and 5’6’’) feel that the gun is too large for them to use comfortably. They do agree with me that you do feel like a tough guy carrying and shooting the gun though. Overall if you like big guns than this is your gun, otherwise maybe a Beretta or Sig Pro would be more to your liking.
Features:
The KWC Desert Eagle has a couple of things function wise that make it better than the other Eagles out there. First it has an ambidextrous safety like the real .50 AE. This is very cool. One note is that when you are cocking the gun it is a good idea not to put pressure on the safeties, they are only plastic.
Second, it has a locking slide. The slide locks in the open position when the clip is empty like the real gun and gas blowbacks, letting you know the rounds are depleted. You can then replace the clip and press the slide release to chamber another round.(Very cool) A note I will put here is that many places it says that this gun has an open ejection port. This is untrue. It is closed. I have seen UHC Desert Eagles where people have sawed out the port to open it. That is fine for a 20$ gun, but I would not do it to this one. It doesn’t even look that bad closed off. A lot of people actually thought that was the how the real gun was.
Third, it is field strippable. To do so take the magazine out, the press in the black button on the left side of the frame, above the trigger guard. On the right side, a black round bit will come out, so you can push the lever down so the round bit is half covered. Now holding the slide in place, pull the barrel forward, and lift it up off the frame. Keep track of all the pieces! Now push the slide forwards and off. To put it back together, put the slide back on the front, on the rails and push it back until the springs start pushing back (you may have to fiddle with the ends of the springs nearest the front to get it on properly). Now put on the barrel, pointed downward at a 45 degree angle, and push down and back into place. Now make sure the whole both parts are at their normal position, and flick the lever up to lock it. Seems hard but is rather easy the more you do it.
Fourth, it has adjustable hop up. Lock the slide in the open position and move the circular cover back over the port. There is a dial with increasingly longer lines. This is if you are using heavier bbs! Don’t use .12 bbs in this gun. They could hurt it, but you can use heavier ones by adjusting the hop up. All these features make this Desert Eagle really cool
Performance
I am not the best shot but I was able to consecutively get in the 2 inch radius circle at 21 feet. At 42 feet I could hit an 8.5” by 11” paper consecutively and at 70 feet I could hit a person’s chest or back without any trouble. I don’t know if this is really good or not. Like I said I am not the best shot. I have a bit of a shaky hand. It shoots with .5J so in small skirmishes everyone avoids me.
The clip is not a speed loading clip, however the gun comes with its own speed loader than makes up for this. I usually fill the clip up with about 16-18 bbs. The specs say it can hold 24 due to it being double stacked but the spring is really strong in the clip and I don’t want to ruin it. In spite of this it reloads quickly. My gun did jam up on me a couple of times just after opening it, but it has not jammed once since the first day I got it. I believe the jams were just breaking the gun in. My personal opinion is that this gun performs very well.
Overall
I love this gun. It is in my opinion one of the best spring guns you can get. Its features and accuracy along with its looks and feel make this gun excellent. Again I do add that if you don’t like big guns you probably won’t like this gun. It is HUGE! But if you want to be as bad as the Agents or Bullet Tooth Tony and have the money, accept no substitutes.
- Damien Pinto-Martin
