Review of GSG-5

Click the READ MORE below to read the article of the review of the GSG-5.  This is the studio review of the GSG-5.  Most likely, next week will be the Range Shoot

Studio Review of GSG5

by Jessie Indracusin

Introduction

In the current excalating prices of ammunition (and in sometimes complete absence of ammunition), I have purchased my first .22 LR weapon in a LONG time.  The price intrigued me, so I decided to give this gun a try.  Buying a 100 rounds of .22 LR ammunition for under $8.00 beats  the current prices on my 9mmP guns or my .45 ACP guns.  This gun is imported from Germany and built off of (at least on the surface) to replicate an H&K MP5K.  The gun sells for roughly $599 (although I purchased mine on sale for about $450.00)  and a pretty cool deal for the price.  If we are talking about the coolest gun you can get for $450, I can't think of anything to compete with this gun.  

Impressions

Blown away by the cost (since this is probably the cheapest gun I have bought in my whole life), I decided to give it a try.  I have had numerous readers of this site write in to me about, so I thought I would pick one up and give you my impressions.  The initial mechanics of working with the gun in the studio, made me think this was a pretty cool design.  The first thing that brought concern to me was a few weird tools the gun came with.  One is a little wrench which is used to change the barrel end.  You use this to remove the barrel cap and add the flash supressor.  Alright, not a big deal, thoughtful to have provided it.  The next tool brought some more concern to me.  There is a screw driver kit that includes a flat head, phillips and some strange block end.  This started to get me worried.  I am not a big fan of special tools.  More importantly, I am not happy to have to use a tool to do a basic breakdown.  If I have to use a tool, a screw driver is not something I like.  Let me explain my complaint. 

Screwdrivers mean I can strip screw heads on the gun. This means, with how often I take guns apart and clean them, I will probably make  the gun look like crap over the years by eventually stripping the screws.  The fact that just one type of screw driver wasn't enough for the whole gun is a bit of a pain in the ass for me.  You have to keep changing out the tool to work on the gun.  I started slowly realizing that this is not a gun I can compare to a more expensive firearm or a real H&K MP5.  My impressions after working with this gun is that it feels like more of a first step for a person who does airsoft and wants to get into their first real gun.  It does feel a bit like a high grade airsoft gun.

The gun is very front heavy.  The weight of the gun means you could not fire the gun comfortably by double fisting the gun from the back.  The forward handguard is also a bit awkward for larger hands.  This gun would really excel with a forward pistol grip, but I believe adding such an accessory would make the gun illegal since it would no longer be considered a "pistol" and would be categorized as a Short Barrel Rifle (SBR).  This gun is by no means worth going through the pain of an SBR.

So the natural hold I would normally go to is a front grip on the front of the mag well.  Well in the manual, they say NOT to grip the gun there.  well being a stubborn bastard (and the manufacturer not providing ANY reason why) I attempted to shoot the gun that way.  Well the problem with thatis the magazines have a tension relase slidding button on the side.  This is VERY helpful loading the magazine and also makes it pretty much impossible to shoot it with gripping the mag well.  When you get a good crip on it, the tension release button slides up along the side of the gun.  When it hits the inside of the palm of your hand, it can get stuck, causing the magazine to lose tension and miss feeding the gun.  Damn.  I probably would have given this gun a bigger thumbs up if I could use it this way.

Conclusions

 This gun is a great gun to take people to the range who are not really shooters and you are looking for a way to go on the cheap with them.  Everyone tends to have a lot of fun shooting it who are not real gun guys.  It looks cool and if you play a lot of video games, it's pretty cool.  It has no recoil, so people of all ages can shoot this gun (under strict parental supervision).  Also, if you know a woman that is a little timid with shooting, this is a great gun for that.  It really is better for smaller hands, has no recoil because it fires a 22 LR bullet and is very cheap to shoot.  For any hardcore gun collector, you may want to skip this one unless you are buying it for the reasons mentioned.  Please watch the upcoming range video which I will talk a bit more about the reliability and accuracy of this gun.

 

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