2004 Baikal Makarov

Hello, and welcome to another Replica review. Today we will be doing the review slighlty differently to the others, mainly because unlike the other guns we have reviewed this is not a brand new gun. so rather than doing a section on what comes with the gun etc i will do a small piece on the history of this pistol because as you will soon find out, this pistol isn't an ordinary replica, its rather something special.

History of the Makarov

The makarov was introduced as a replacement to the Tokarev pistol, it used the newly made 9x18 round that was sometimes referred to as the Ultra round, but most frequently as the "9x18 makarov round". this round was completely incompatible with e standard 9x19mm round that most nato/western forces use and thus couldn't be used in nato 9mm weapons. In the times of the cold war this was of key strategic importance as if the cold war became anything other than "cold" captured ammunition stores couldn't be used against the soviet forces. The pistol was introduced in 1951 as the standard service pistol for most police and military forces within Russia and has also been adopted by many other communist and eastern European countries due to its simplicity in design and versatility. The Makarov was finally superseded by the yarygin pistol (often called the viking) in 2003 although it is still widely used outside Russia by countries such as China, North Korea, Bulgaria and many other former soviet/ eastern European countries. Anyway, less history, and more reviewing... 

The Pistol

So, as i'm sure you've already guessed the gun we will be reviewing today is the Baikal Makarov, and this pistol is from the 2004 batch. Unlike other guns on the market such as the Umarex Makarov, the Baikal version is a re-machined reall 9mm makarov pistol, what this means is that over 80% of this Baikal pistol is essentially a real makarov. So what does this mean for the shooter and the collector alike? Well, putting it simply this is one very authentic pistol, when holding this pistol you can tell that it is very well made, there isn't any play or flex anywhere, it is just like holding a real pistol. when you cock the slide back you can really tell that this gun is made to last, you will also notice that the slide spring is from the real 9mm version, making it fairly hard to cock when compared to other airguns.

Due to the simplicity of the makarov's design it doesn't feature much in the way of "features", however all the features of this pistol are perfectly true to the real makarov. the main feature that you will notice when you look at this pistol is the working safety catch, which functions exactly the same as the real 9mm. As some of you know the safety does have a second function, as well as stopping you from pulling the trigger and cocking the pistol the safety catch also acts as a decocking lever. When the safety is applied when the hammer is cocked, not only does it stop you from firing the pistol but it also decocks the pistol, returning the hammer back to its resting position without discharging the weapon. The pistol also has all the usual features you would expect a pistol to have, such as a functioning slide release/ holding catch; situated just behind the trigger, which holds the slide back with ease. The final feature of the gun is its sights, these are fixed and cannot be adjusted in any way, although they are perfectly fine as the are, although this may be an issue or the more serious target shooters amongst you.

The baikal makarov also has the ability to be field stripped, through virtually the exact same method that would be used to strip the reall 9mm version, Simply pull down the trigger guard and just place it off to one side so that it doesn't spring back into place, then remove the slide by cocking it back and then lifting it up and off the lower body. Once you have done this you have access to all the internal workings making for easy maintenance and easy clearing of any blocked BB's. you can also remove the grips and replace them with better quality grips such pearce grips or wooden grips, this is easily done by removing a single screw in the back of the grip.
In my opinion one of the best features of this pistol is the rifled barrel, this can cause issues which i will go on to mention in a second but on the whole its a great feature, it adds character to the pistol and again makes it more authentic and true to the real makarov pistol, however it does pose an issue on what type of BB's to put through it. Most people use some kind of steel bb, however this would damage the rifled barrel, so you have to look at other types of ammunition. There are several options available, the First being the H&N bb's that are often said to be the most accurate alternative to steel bb's, the second widely used option is the Gamo lead round, although this option is often best for the barrel the accuracy is often compromised by the poor quality of the gamo round, so H&N are often the preferred option.

Overall the Baikal Makarov is one incredibly well made pistol that is a welcomed pistol to any collection. not only does it look great and feel like the real thing, it isn't let down when you take it out to shoot, the rifled barrel helps keep the rounds on the target and achieving fairly acceptable groupings for a pistol. The various options to customise the pistol also mean that you can transform this pistol into a one off, although some may wish to keep it in "out the box" condition. trying to get hold of the baikal isn't as easy or as cheap as the umarex baikal, when they were first released they were retailing at £50, but now they are going for up to 4 times that, because they are so hard to find and so desirable, in my personal opinion the Baikal makarov is worth every penny. If your after a piece of russian history and an iconic airgun then this is the ideal gun for you; if not, you may be tempted by the umarex version which is widely available. thank you for reading another one of our reviews, at the time of writting we haven't got a video review of this gun up yet but that will be following shortly.

thanks again for reading another replica review.

Pre-Christmas update

With Christmas drawing ever closer we thought now might be a good time to give you all an update on whats going to be coming your way in the next few months on the Replica Reviews. The first thing we will be getting around to is getting the tabletop review of the 2004 Baikal Makarov that we managed to get our hands on recently, its all been filmed we just haven't got around to editing the video together and making sure its looking good enough to get posted. Once the tabletop review is up then it will only be a matter of time before we get the field test done and dusted, we are planning on carrying out all the filming and shooting in the morning so that will be hitting your screens in the weeks to come.

Now for the latest news! after a visit to one of my local RFD's; The Sportsman gun centre, we are pleased to announce that we have two new guns in our locker awaiting review, the first being a long term want of mine, the Umarex MP5 PDW, so far my first impressions are good but we are looking forward to getting it out the box and gassed up in the morning. Our second new arrival is a really nice Umarex Walther PPK, we managed to get the dual tone version and again so far everything looks really good.

the last thing we will say is thank you to all our subscribers, we seem to have a really good bunch of people that are following and supporting us and our figures are getting better and better each month, we've just broken 35,000 views and views per month are increasing all the time, so thanks for all the support, if you know anyone that shoots that hasn't subscribed then please spread the word of our channel, the more followers the better. anyway, less of me rambling on, thanks for all the support and stay tuned for all our latest video's that are coming soon, untill then heres a quick picture of our latest guns along with the baikal makarov that will be hitting your screens in the weeks to come.

Umarex Walther PPK

2004 Baikal Makarov

 Umarex MP5 PDW

Beeman P17 (2004E)

hello and welcome to another one of our reviews, first off i'm going to start by saying sorry for the delay in getting this review up, we've had so much going recently that unfortunately the beeman got pushed to one side. As many of you know this is a single stroke pistol firing .177 pellets and is a very close copy of the weihrauch hw 40, the main difference being the quality difference. there are plenty of HW40 copies/ variants on the market but the beeman fits in the budget end of the market retailing for anywhere from £50 upwards. so before we move on with the rest of the review here's the specifications of this pistol:

Velocity: 410 fps
magazine: single shot
weight: 1.7 lbs
Material: plastic body, metal internals
Trigger: 2 stage non- adjustable
Rifled barrel

Included in the box

Well the first thing you will notice is that it isn't a box, being a "budget pistol" the beeman does in fact come in this not so great bubble type plastic packaging, so the first thing you might want to invest in is some kind of case or slip for this gun. Apart from the pistol itself there isn't anything else that comes with the gun, we received no instruction manual or any other literature inside the packaging, although if i'm completely honest the pistol is fairly self explanatory. there is basic safety information printed on the paper insert in the packaging but again, thats fairly standard and doesn't cover anything out of the ordinary. 

The pistol

The first thing you will notice when you pick up the Beeman is that although its mainly plastic it still has a fair weight to it, the biggest contributer to this weight has to be the all metal internals. for those of you that have come into contact with a hw40 before you will also notice that the quality of the beeman is far from that of the weihrauch, if you look closely at the construction of the pistol you will see that in certain places the two halves of the mould don't line up perfectly, for instance the back edge of the pistol grip has a visible gap in one place and you can see that the two halves weren't lined up perfectly, but saying that- its nothing that couldn't be fixxed by a quick rub down with some sand paper or something similar. But in all the construction of the pistol isn't too bad when you take into account how much it cost...

One of the main features of the beeman p17 has to be its adjustable rear sights, they are fully adjustable for both height and windage, the sight is easily adjusted by using a humble flat head screw driver or something similar. the foresight is fixed and moulded into the slide, however it is in the right place and i can't really see you having any issues with it. lining the sights up is fairly easy making the pistol fairly accurate and easy to use once it has been zeroed in. Another feature of the beeman is the mock hammer, rather than being used to cock the pistol it is pulled back to reveal the internals of the pistol. The hammer is one of the few metal external features and seems strong enough for what its intended to do.

  As you can see from the image above the piston mech is all metal and bolted in nice and securely. its fairly easy to keep it all maintained and is fairly easy enough to clean. As you can also see the overall quality is not as high as the HW40 but then again this is a budget pistol. apart from the piston there isn't much else on the inside of the beeman apart from the chamber for loading the pellets, this can be found on the inside of the slide and is fairly straight forward to find and use, there is all the relevant info on pellet size and type right next to it so its hard to get confused. The beeman also features a automatic safety catch which can be seen in the image below, the safety can be located right above the trigger and applies itself every time the slide is opened, to put into fire mode- simply slide the safety to the fire position, this is easily done without needing to adjust your grip on the pistol.

Overall its a nice enough pistol to own and use, if you quality, consistent fps and amazing accuracy then it won't be the pistol for you although if your after something that will hit a can with ease or just fire off 1 or 2 rounds every now and then this pistol would be ideal. although this isn't one of my best pistols its the one i reach for the most, its just a "fun" gun to use, its takes roughly 24 pounds of pressure to close the slide so its not the easiest to close but still easy enough for most people to close. for the price you pay this gun is a great bargain, it won't last as long as the other guns on the market but its still a gun that i would recommend to anyone. For £50 you can't really go too far wrong by buying one of these, as i said, its the pistol i reach for the most. thank you for reading, if you have any questions feel free to ask, and if you haven't already and would like to- i have put a link so that you can check out the video version of this review and by going on my channel you can also see a video field test.

thanks again.