Introduction

This is a special pistol for me. Why? Well, for starters, it was my first Western Arms (WA) pistol, and I was really anxious to try it out, having read all those comments about how WA make the best Gas-Blowback pistols in the market.

Not a good enough reason, to make the pistol special? OK, I agree. Then how about the fact that this pistol was hand-delivered to me personally, by Para Ordnance President, Mr. Ted Szabo himself. Is that a good enough reason?



It's not every day that Mr. Szabo comes to my house, shares a bottle of wine with me and also brings me a pistol (OK, an airsoft pistol) as a gift. Now you know why I treasure this one. I should have asked him to initialize the box in which the pistol came!

OK, let's see that I got from Ted.

The P14-45 needs no introduction to our readers. It was the first pistol that Para Ordnance produced, based on their wide frame, designed by Mr. Szabo. The pistol I got was the "stainless version" and came in a very plain brown cartoon box. I guess it was send to Ted, at some time, as a free sample, when WA and Para Ordnance signed the deal, which gave the first, the rights to produce Airsoft versions of PO's pistols. The pistol came partially disassembled, meaning that the grips were not installed, something which was done in a few seconds. Here is what the pistol looked, with the plastic PO grips installed on it.



Mind you these are real PO grips, the same ones you get when you buy a real P14-45. Mind you the "Made in Japan" sticker was removed immediately. No manual was included in the box, the WA folks probably thought that the PO people knew enough about this pistol, so they didn't consider a manual as mandatory.

The pistol is made of high quality plastic and is showing full Para Ordnance logos.







The pistol's magazine is of course a high-capacity one, 25 BBs can be loaded in it. It adds some significant weight to the otherwise relatively light pistol.



The magazine has the usual Western Arms switch, at its rear, right below the gas release valve, which has to be pushed down, before any gas is loaded in the mag. If you do not remember to press that switch down, all the gas that you try to load in the magazine, will escape from the upper valve, as it goes in. In and out immediately, not good.



The pistol uses a standard bushing barrel, and a short recoil spring guide, which is fine by me.



The sights are of the standard variety, featuring a three-dots pattern, while the grip safety is the one we usually associate with Colt Commanders. This is the only standard grip safety, which does not pinch the web of my shooting hand. The hammer is a round Commander-type as well. Finally, the mainspring housing is arched and the thumb safety is of the standard (not extended) type.




The finish of the pistol is a little too bright to be realistic, but you can't find any faults in it, there are no seams or anything, high quality plastic used for both the frame and the slide.

Inside the pistol's box, there was also a small bag of BBs, a bushing wrench, a couple of allen wrenches, and some things I have no idea what they are:



There is a plastic piece which looks like a small tray and a pipe which fits underneath it. I assume this is a BB loader of some sort. There is also another plastic piece which looks very much like the hazard warning switch in my Cherokee, and a pointing aluminum rod, which I assume can be used to remove a stuck BB from the barrel. Here are these parts assembled.



Some side notes:

- I hate Western Arms implementation of the plungers. At least four times, while trying to disassemble the P14-45 and the Colt Lightweight Commander, I lost the thumb safety plunger and the plunger spring. It is next to impossible to remove the thumb safety, without having the plunger fly into the never-to-be-found-again-land. I hear that the latest WA (Western Arms) pistols, can use the real 1911 parts. I have to investigate if the plunger tube on the older ones can be enlarged to take these, as well, since the current setup is a disaster.

- The pistol is heavy! I guess so is a real P14-45 with 14 rounds of 230 gr JHP loaded in it.

- This pistol was adjusted for perfect center hold aiming (no 6 o'clock aiming). I like that in a carry gun, even though it makes accuracy testing more difficult.

In the next page, you can read how to disassemble the pistol and our shooting tests results.