Description

The Western Arms (WA) Wilson Combat (WC) FBI Trial pistol, immitates the 1911 that was submitted by Wilson Combat in the 1996 FBI trials. I am not sure if a real version of this pistol ever existed, and if it did, if it had the characteristics replicated in the WA's gun, but for sure this replica left me speechless, when I first opened its package. The pistol arrived in the well-known grey/black box that all WA SCW pistols come into, from the friendly firm of Guns And Guys in Hong Kong. The owner, Peter Chan is a very nice guy and he will go to the extreme to satisfy his customers. Here is what came to me:



Inside the box was the pistol, the familiar by now bushing wrench (why they bother shipping one of these, I do not know. The bushing is usually quite easy to turn by hand), two small allen wrenches for adjusting the hop-up (and I do not know what else), a small bag of BBs, the traditional WA manual (in Japanese) and a two page safety leaflet in English.

Needless to say, I didn't bother looking at anything else but the pistol. A few days ago, I had tested the WA Lightweight Commander, which is a first-generation WA 1911. This one is a second-generation one, and the difference is amazing. Have a look at some of the details:



The pistol is basically made of heavy-weight plastic, both the slide and the frame. It comes with a very nice set of grips, immitating the real Wilson Combat grips, but made of ... metal (so that the weight of the pistol is very realistic). You immediately notice the Wilson medallions in the middle of the grip panels.



The front strap of the frame is fully-checkered, at what appears to be 30-lpi. And yes, the pistol even features the ugly WC slide stop, which I hate!! There is an aluminum, three-hole trigger, while the lower side of the trigger guard is also checkered at something like 40 lpi.



At the bottom of the frame, there is a very well-shaped mag well. The mag well attaches to the mainspring housing by a couple of hooks, which pass over the manspring housing pin. Since this is a non very solid attachement, WA has thoughtfully installed a small allen screw at the rear of the well, which can be tightened up, to create leverage and properly mate the magwell to the bottom of the frame.



This wierd enscryption is on the left side of the slide.



while the right side of the frame feature full WC identification marks.



Moving to the slide, you will notice the three dot Novak sights (not the Wilson Pyramid ones, but the original Novaks), with the front one not contoured to the curvature of the slide, something I also hate on a custom pistol costing 2,000$, but I can forgive on an Airsoft replica. You will also notice that the pistol has the standard guide rod setup, which is fine by me. The barrel bushing is neatly inscribed "Wilson".



The pistol comes with a very nice ambidextrous safety, and a very nicely fitted beavertail, with memory pad. Front and rear cocking serrations, a lowered and flared ejection port and a black barrel chamber complete the distinctive characteristics of the slide.



Here is another look at the impressive grips and the front strap checkering.



The pistol comes equipped with an immitation of the 47D WC magazine. This is a new-generation magazine, which even though is as slim as the standard single-column magazines of the first-generation pistols, it now allows a staggered pattern so it can take more BBs, 23 vs 15 of the standard single column mags. One thing you should be aware about these magazines, is that the filling valve is too recessed inside the magazine pad, so unless your gas canister has an extra long nozzle, you will have a hard time filling them with gas. More about the magazine later.

Overall, the quality of this pistol is amazing. If you didn't know and someone put this gun in your hand, you would need to rack the slide and feel how light the recoil spring is, to understand that this is not a real Wilson Combat. Oh yes, the Japanese need to know how to provide a better feel in the operation of the thumb safety. The way it works now, is OK but it's far from the real thing. It's securely on and off, but it just doesn't feel like real.

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