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.