Elite Force Fully Licensed S&W M&P9 M2.0 CO2 Powered Half-Blowback Airsoft Pistol

"I purchased this gun to supplement training for my actual carry gun - the S&W M&P M2.0.

The gun came in a nice black box with instructions, two extra grip backstraps, one magazine, and two hex keys.

Fit and finish- are good, and the gun is a near carbon copy of the real thing, save a few details. The grip texture is excellent, perhaps even more refined than the real thing - grippy but won't tear up your clothing or skin. The trigger is long, being more akin to a double-action trigger than a striker-fired trigger. There is a safety on the right side of the gun - a nice touch imo. Backstrap grips are not like the real firearm backstraps that are quick-change and wrap around the grip. Instead, the backstraps are part of the grip - you have to have one on to grip the gun and they do require a bit of finagling to put on and take off. Orange barrel tip extends past the barrel, unlike the real firearm, whose barrel is nearly flush to the slide. Slide rattles if shaken forward and backward (towards and away from point of aim or north/south.)

I noticed the hop-up screw on the top of the chamber would not turn when I tried to adjust it. Upon closer inspection it looks like it is missing the hop-up screw. This is where the one star loss comes from. Hopefully this is only an issue with mine.


Action - CO2 half-blowback. The firing action is good, with a stiff "crack" and decent feedback/recoil. For my purposes the more the merrier. The blowback action doesn't actually cycle the gun. The Half-blowback serves 2 purposes - recoil and last round hold-open. Should the blowback function cease, the gun will still fire. As stated before, the doubke-action-like trigger is longer and stiffer than the real trigger, but the break and take up do feel fairly similar. Reset is about 5/8s total trigger travel.


The good
- Great firing action/recoil, crisp kick.
- Faithful representation of dimensions - fits real-steel gear and holsters
- shoots EXTREMELY well with .40 ASG BBs. Yes, sniper BBs will shoot nearly 150 feet straight, flat, and accurate. The gun performs well using hop-up to achieve this, without amping up FPS.
- can get nearly 5 magazines of 13 shots each from one 12 gram CO2 canister.
- Half-blowback is consistent till very close to the end of canister capacity.
- Looks good.

The bad
- Missing hopup screw - causes the gun to only work with .40 BBs. Overhops .25s to the moon.
- kind of difficult/finicky to change backstraps - not a huge issue because you will likely only use one.
- Not true blowback action, so operation is not completely true to a 1:1 training platform.

The indifferent
- 13 rounds per magazine. Not high capacity but works well for training purposes/reloads, etc.
Orange barrel tip sticks out too far for some close-ended holsters - not a big deal if you remove.

Overall
At first I was extremely disappointed with the hopup issue, but for me, this gun's stellar performance with heavier BBs completely makes up for it. I remain disappointed that the half-blowback is essentially non-functional - stemming from my use as a training weapon.

I would recommend this for a sidearm. Do buy extra mags because of low-is capacity. Be aware the hopup may be fragile, but unknown as mine came defective - overall you will probably get the best performance with .36 or heavier BBs. May not be the best for weapons manipulation. Would buy again.

"5 stars for the gun, 1 star for the magazine. The magazine is all metal, but has two parts. The top part is held onto the lower part by two pins, and if you're not careful installing the CO2 cartridge you can break the top part at one of the pins. Seeing as a replacement magazine costs $35, that's 1/3 of the price of a new gun.