WE - Yay or Nay?

[Bishie]

Would someone kindly indulge me on the general consensus for WE pistols? How do they fair in contrast to the much acclaimed alternatives? (KWA, TM etc.)

[loki7491]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

The current run of WE stuff is first class.

It still doesnt fit in a blackhawk serpa, but the gear is awesome.

[Tiercel]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

Ive not used any of their most recent stuff, but Ive used some of their older stuff and its been total shite. Though people are singing their praises for their latest stuff, so I guess it depends on what you get?

Ive used their 1911s, and they are AWFUL. Thier hicapas are just as bad. The glocks were pretty terrible too. Their sig p226/p228 is supposed to be very good though. Not had any experiences with them myself.

[Apurturesci]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

Still half and half for me. They do make nice stuff. Feels nice, looks nice, they just have a few little niggles that spoil them for me really. I have a WE M9, and so far it's nice. Fine performance, but I guess I just don't feel as confident with it as a TM. That said, I have had better experiences with WE than KWA. For the price they're good pistols, well the newer ones anyway (except the M&P internally - needs a lot of work and some parts wear away far too easily). As said, the old ones are bad, although the SOCOM Gear rebranded M9 I have is very nice actually.

[tisane]

I'm a WE junkie

As with most people, I had heard horror story after horror story about their old line up of pistols and kept well away, and stuck to things like KJW and KWA and their GBBRs.

My first WE pistol was the recent P228, primarily because I'd always wanted one but wasn't prepared to pay the earth for a conversion kit, and from the moment I got it I was over the moon with it, it feels great, looks great, (barring the trades obviously) shoots as well as can be expected from a sub £100 pistol and even fires quite well in low temps, surprisingly for a full metal pistol, but the main thing for me with the P228 is its monster kick, in all the pistols I've owned over the years I've never felt anything like it!!
I am so impressed with them I've just taken delivery of their non railed P229 and am ordering their P229r by the end of the week, and if I can manage it I will get the remaining P226 variants over time.

Its not all good news though, there have been a few reports of the P226s ripping their slides in half after very little use as I'm sure Mr Andrew March will be along shortly to inform us all of
I've also seen reports of the P226s not fitting into Blackhawk holsters, although my P228 fits like a glove into an IMI holster, and a friend of mine reports that his fits into his clone Blackhawk, albeit a little tightly.

[seansamurai1]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

Early WE, avoid like the plague.
New WE stuff, I'm impressed with.

I'm a big TM fanboy but recently bought a WE XDM compact. It's a great pistol.

[curlyboy]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

I'm a WE junkie
I've also seen reports of the P226s not fitting into Blackhawk holsters, although my P228 fits like a glove into an IMI holster, and a friend of mine reports that his fits into his clone Blackhawk, albeit a little tightly.

My WE P228 fits well in my blackhawk P226 Serpa holster but due to the design of the trigger guard it moves up and down about half an inch.

One niggle though is the mag that came with it was rubbish as it was gas tight outside of the gun but leaked when inside of it so I replaced it with KJ mags ( good call there).

But all in all I am impressed with the P228 as are a few friends who have them as we'll.

Curlyboy

[Saltyyy]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

My WE P226 fired fine in -4 and is just a generally bloody awesome pistol!

Their new gen pistols are what you want, I heard rumours that they're bringing out a new gen 1911 and M9?

Glocks, Sig's, XDM's etc, WE any day

[Knight]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

My WE XDM is probably the best stock pistol I've ever bought. On par with my TM P226 E2, and it was a lot less!

[loki7491]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

A little birdy tells me (Mr WE himself) that it is their intent to release CO2 mags for every pistol that would take a double stack magazine.

I think they will be unstoppable then!

[god84]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

oooh that sounds swish! shame my Nighthawk's are single stack!!

[loki7491]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

I have a "retailer / distributor" and "nighthawk" custom. Although that is single stack it runs the CO2 bottles.

The bottle sits proud of the magazine on both sides and there are cut outs in the pistol grip make room for it. I am guessing that will be the next step, but every time you have to change the machining process you incurr more expense which in the short term comes out of the company funds (later to be passed on to customers) so companies are reluctant to do it.

Having had a good chat with James, it seems they are going to do a lot of re-tooling of thier moulds and stuff.

CO2 compatible mags
Dimensions better suited to RS holsters such as IMI, Blackhawk, Fobus, etc

They are certainly making all the right noises!

[psirus101]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

I must be the only person in the world that has a good thing to say about their older stuff. I've had 2 7.1 dragons (only got one.... a "friend" lost the other one ) and a 5.1 dragon which got sold on to a different friend (who still has it... I think). The 7.1 that I still have was the first out of the 3 to be purchased and besides needing some TLC post skirmish I've only ever had one failure from her and that was only because the day was colder than a witch's t!t, every gbb pistol on site was venting that day.

[Andrew March]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

They are still half and half, some of them are great, some not so. I think it all comes down to thier quality control who sometimes seem to be on holiday. Thing to do is if you buy one have a really good look at it, take photos as you go, don't do anything that might void your warranty and if you get a duff one send it back for a replacement or alternative.

I would still go with a TM based purely on experience as although they are more expensive they are more reliable, down side obviously being they are mostly plastic exteriors but there is nothing stopping you from doing what a lot of people (myself included) do and upgrade them with aftermarket metal frames and slides.

[steve grey]

Re: WE - Yay or Nay?

The early ones were very troublesome, in fact mostly crap, but a couple of my friends have new ones, and love them, so they are seem to be very good now, a major problem in the past, has been finding spares if they go wrong, I don't know if that has changed.