Glock 17 (KOKUSAI)by STAT007First Impressions After a long wait, my Kokusai Glock 17 Gas Blowback (GBB) finally arrived. I was very excited about it. To add to the excitement, my BBs came in the same day (they were ordered separately). Upon opening the shipping box, I was very impressed. The box that Kokusai puts this gun in is made to imitate the black tupperware-type box Glock uses, although it is actually just cardboard. The font and colors used on the box just make it look awesome and gives the owner that great feeling that what's inside is going to be just as detailed. When I opened the box, I observed a very impressive replica of the Glock 17. Kokusai didn't waste any money with extra gadgets, like tags and loading tools and such, mainly because you don't need them! But I'll get to that later. So, I pulled the various manuals and catalogs out of the box, and removed the gun. Kokusai definitely did a fantastic job with the general exterior appearance of this baby. However, over the years, I have learned not to take things at face value whenever I possibly can. External Low Points Since I deal with real Glock 17s on a regular basis, I held this replica up to a high standard. If this review seems to be very picky, that's because I am when it comes to Glocks. Let me warn you that this review is fairly long, but I believe if you are really interested in this gun, it is well worth the read. The weight of the replica is very similar to the weight of a real Glock 17. Unfortunately, I didn't have the capability (at the time) to weigh the two on a scale, but they'd be pretty close. Most of the weight of the replica actually comes from the magazine, which is made mostly of metal. I was impressed when I discovered that, since the gun itself is mostly all polymer and the real Glock magazines are made mostly of polymer. The only slight complaint I have about the weight is that the gun is somewhat bottom heavy when the magazine is in, due to the excessive weight of the magazine. It is very light without the magazine, due to the fact that the slide is made of polymer, instead of metal like the real one. However, don't think for a second that the slide being made of polymer takes away from the realism factor. The second thing I noticed about the gun were its markings. It has authentic Glock markings on the slide and grip, which are the Glock symbol on the slide and grip, and the, "Austria," and "9x19" markings on the slide. The areas where the replica lacks markings is on the part of the barrel exposed through the ejection port (the chamber), the underside of the lower receiver toward the muzzle end of the gun, and the sights. Real Glocks have a serial number on the barrel (chamber) that matches the serial number on the slide and on the bottom of the lower receiver. That chamber marking was lacking on this replica. The other identification marking lacking was the metal silver serial number band molded into the lower receiver of real Glocks. What was on this replica was the serial number on the slide and some numbers on the right side of the grip. Since it is just a number marking, many people probably never notice it or take it in when examining a real Glock, and so this shouldn't be a big problem for most softers and collectors. As for the sights, they have no markings on them, whatsoever! No dots or anything. Therefore, I plan on taking some white paint (or something similar) and creating a three dot sight picture. No big deal to do, but I feel like it's a pretty big deal for Kokusai to leave it off. The gun also has a, "Made In Taiwan" marking which goes against what I had heard before I bought the gun. I had heard that this gun is made in Japan, but according to their marking, it isn't. Weird. Other than those very minor marking discrepancies, I feel that Kokusai did a great job on the major noticeable markings. Probably the next thing that came to my attention was the slide release/lock. I like to lock the slide of semi-auto pistols in the back position with the slide release/lock on a regular basis. Especially when the magazine has been emptied. Glocks do this on their own if the magazine is in good shape. This is to allow the shooter to simply dump the empty magazine, shove a loaded magazine into the pistol, hit the magazine release, and return to firing. Ideally, this reloading procedure only takes a couple seconds if the shooter is trained properly. However, on the Kokusai Glock 17 replica, the slide release/lock doesn't even move! It doesn't work at all. Therefore, it doesn't lock in the back position after you have unloaded a magazine. That upset me quite a bit. However, that fact does not make this a bad gun. Besides, I've never handled any other Glock 17 GBBs, so I can't mark this one off the list just yet. Upon holding the replica in an actual firing manner, I was very impressed with its authenticity. Aside from one small thing, it feels just like a real Glock! The small thing is the thickness of the grip. It appears to me (again, I don't have a real Glock 17 to compare it to right now) that the grip is thicker than the grip on a real Glock 17. It might just be my imagination, but it does feel somewhat different to me. If I was really bothered by this, all I'd have to do is buy a rubber slip-on grip, which I might end up doing anyway. It might be necessary to get one of the grips for the .40 S&W, 10mm, or .45 ACP Glocks for it to fit, but that shouldn't be a problem. So other than that, this gun has a feel that is a carbon copy of the real Glock 17. To get on the subject of safeties, let me address Kokusai's hidden feature. Glocks have two small take down tabs located on either side of the gun, above and slightly in front of the trigger on the lower receiver. Instead of using these as take down tabs, Kokusai made them manual safety switches. So, to manually safety the replica, you just take your thumb and index fingers from either hand and slip them under the lower receiver onto both of the tabs and pull down. Unfortunately, you can't put the replica into safe or fire with just one tab because both have to be pulled down. I prefer not to use these tabs for two reasons. First, real Glocks don't have a manual safety. I know that there are a lot of people who think this is a bad idea, but it isn't. Real Glocks have 3 passive safeties which are very effective. Just think of it this way. Up until about 10 years ago, nearly all police officers and citizens that carried pistols carried revolvers. You never heard of people complaining about how dangerous revolvers were to the carrier, did you? No, because they aren't. A lot of people still use revolvers and have never had a problem with them. A Glock's firing and safety method is just like a revolver, but better. A revolver doesn't have three safeties. It has one...the trigger. A Glock is Double Action Only (DAO), meaning that it doesn't have a hammer and the trigger has to be pulled back a longer distance for each shot. This can take some getting used to, but it's not really a big problem. So, to get back to the point, my first reason not to use the Kokusai break down tab safety is because real Glocks don't have it. My second reason is speed. It is very impractical for someone to have the Kokusai Glock in a holster, ready to be fired quickly, with the safety on. It just takes too long to turn off the safety. And since I plan on using the Glock as a backup gun, I can't have that. I need to be able to quickly and effectively shoot a hostile when the situation arises. I don't believe that anyone will ever have a problem with an accidental discharge from this replica if it is handled properly. However, I know there are some people out there who just can't feel comfortable without a manual safety to fool with, so if you're like that, this gun was adapted for you. The only other major exterior discrepancy between the Kokusai Glock 17 replica and the real Glock 17 was the top of the slide. For some reason, Kokusai thought it necessary to include a distinguishable higher area on the top of the slide that is a different finish from the rest of the slide. It gives the impression that the upper center part of the slide is a separate piece from the rest of the slide and it isn't. The real Glock doesn't have that. The real Glock's slide is smooth and consistent. However, this is very unnoticeable and the average Joe wouldn't know the difference. I also noticed that the slide doesn't fit as tightly or as closely on the lower receiver as other semi-auto pistols, but this is actually perfectly normal. On a real Glock, the slide is slightly lose on the rails. So this didn't bother me. As far as I was concerned, it was done on purpose for authenticity. External High Points The thing that impressed me the most about this gun was the finish. It looks exactly like a real Glock 17! Even though the slide is polymer and not metal, it looks like metal. The magazine even looks exactly like the real Glock 17 magazine. More on the magazine later. The barrel has a thick black shroud on it that makes it look just like a real Glock barrel from the outside. The magazine release also looks almost exactly like the real one and it operates exactly the same. The grip is also exactly like the real Glock, in that it is entirely polymer, unlike other Airsoft Glock replicas that actually have a rubber insert in the grip, which isn't authentic. The replica also has the appropriate checkering on the front of the grip, the rear of the grip, and on the front of the trigger guard (for those of us who prefer to put our opposite index finger on the trigger guard), which provides a secure grasp of the gun. Another thing about the replica's feel that impressed me was the trigger. The trigger safety on the Kokusai Glock 17 works just like the trigger safety on the real Glock 17. It is a very simple design that happens to work very well. It is a small tab in the middle of the trigger that sticks out past the actual trigger a very small distance. When you start to pull the trigger, this tab moves back and pivots on a pin set in the trigger. If the tab is not depressed (either side of the trigger is depressed, but not the center), the rear of the tab blocks the trigger's path and the gun will not fire. It is fairly hard to explain on paper, but when you see one, it is very obvious how it works. I believe that the external high points of this gun far outweigh the external low points. Firing the Glock 17 I was so excited to fire this gun that I couldn't wait. I had bought two cans of computer duster a few weeks before I got the gun and was ready to go...or so I thought. When the gun got here, I quickly found the included magazine and the extra magazine I had ordered in the package and examined them. I noticed that there is a small recessed fill nipple in the floor plate of the magazine that is where the gas is filled. I was planning on using one of the red straws that comes with the computer duster cans by expanding one end of the straw so that it would fit over the nipple. Well, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I tried heating a nail...that didn't work. I tried soaking the straw in hot water, then inserting a nail into it...that didn't work. I even tried soaking the straw in hot water, then trying to jam it on the nipple...that didn't work, either. So, I decided that the next course of action was a pocket knife. I whipped out the trusty Swiss Army Knife and tried to enlarge the inside diameter of the tube by shaving it away. This worked a little bit. It worked well enough that I was able to cut the straw down to about one half of an inch and use it to depress the nipple. I then turned the duster can upside down, pressed the straw to the nipple, and pulled the trigger on the duster can. I waited about ten seconds and removed the straw. I decided that that would cut it for the time being. Loading this magazine with BBs is much easier than filling it with gas. Each magazine holds 15 BBs and of course, you can load one BB into the chamber of the gun, giving you a total capacity of 16 rounds. This is two rounds less than the capacity of the Glock 17. To load the magazine, all I had to do was pull down on the spring loaded tab and start inserting BBs from the top one at a time. It's much like a cheap BB gun, because there are no fancy loading tools. The only thing that might pose a slight problem when loading the magazine is the configuration of the BBs in the magazine. This mag has the BBs in a double column configuration (one beside the other, making a zig-zag pattern). If you don't pay attention to what you're doing, some of the BBs can start to form a single column and you won't get your full BB capacity. I found that an easy way to avoid this is to lean the magazine to one side, drop in a BB, lean it to the other side, drop in a BB, and so on. This ensures that the BBs load in a dual column configuration. I really loved the ease of loading up these magazines. The magazines also drop out of the gun fairly easily. One of the magazines I got was a little harder to drop out (I had to wiggle the gun just for a second), but their heavy weight made them drop free. This aided a lot in rapid reloading. I was able to reload in three seconds and probably could lower my time with practice. With the magazines ready to go, I was ready to fire this gun! I jammed the first magazine into the pistol and cycled the slide to load a BB into the chamber. I then aimed at a cardboard box and fired. Wow, was that cool! The blowback on this gun is really awesome. It blows back the full one and a half inches. It is definitely something to be proud of. The gun has fairly good close range accuracy (slight drop, but nothing big), however its long range accuracy is a bit wild. When I fired it at ranges of about twenty to thirty feet, I noticed that the BB is put into a rather fast and steep upward arch after about ten feet. That is just opposite to the slow downward drop of paintballs and other slow moving projectiles. I'm not sure if this gun has a built in hop-up or what, but it definitely hops up. Maybe it's because I was using .20g BBs. That's why I recommend it for a close quarters backup gun instead of as a primary weapon. As for windage consistency, it's pretty good considering the sights. I also shot this gun from all sorts of positions and hardly saw any gas leak, except when I fired it upside down. There, I noticed a small amount. I definitely consider this to be a gun to test fire if you get the chance. It's a real experience. Disassembly I decided that this review wouldn't be complete without a section on disassembling the gun and its internal parts. I must warn you that I am in no way responsible for your actions and the outcome of what you do with your Airsoft guns, so if you follow my disassembly or assembly instructions (or even if you don't), and end up killing yourself due to a gun malfunction, it's not my fault. You have to understand that when it comes to expensive items that I payed for, I have a philosophy, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Therefore, I was somewhat reluctant to take this beautiful, perfectly functional gun apart. But I finally overcame those fears and pulled out the exploded diagram of the gun's parts. Let me explain the literature that comes with the gun. It comes with a six step operation guide, an exploded diagram of the completely disassembled gun, what I believe to be a warranty slip that is to be filled out, a fairly decent target, a Kokusai catalog (lots of pistols), and a brochure that shows some operational aspects of several different Kokusai pistols, along with some safety guidelines. All of these pieces of literature were in Japanese or Taiwanese, which rendered the text useless to me. However, the Japanese or Taiwanese seem to be very pictoral and the pictures act as nice aids. So, I took out the exploded diagram and started the disassembly. The fun was over for a while and it was time for me to do the deed and get inside this gun. For reference purposes, I have included part numbers that coincide with the part numbers on the exploded diagram. I first took the magazine out of the gun and made sure that there wasn't a BB still in the chamber. Then, I removed the push pin (part #20) that is above the trigger. If you don't have a set of punches, a red spray can straw works fine. Then, I removed the push pin on the rear grip (#19). I then worked the slide and upper receiver out of the lower receiver. It isn't very hard to do this, but I had to be careful because I didn't want parts to go flying everywhere, and I didn't want to throw the recoil spring out of place before I saw how it lays in there. With the upper receiver removed, I began to disassemble it. I first removed the recoil spring and adjuncts (#12, #13, and #14) by pushing the spring toward the muzzle end of the gun and just lifting it out. I had to be careful not to misplace the rubber gasket that goes between the end recoil spring guide (#12) and the slide. I then was able to separate the valve assembly from the slide. I did this by sliding the valve assembly (#8, #4, #5, and #6) forward, exposing the allen screw (#17) that attaches the internal upper receiver parts to the slide (#2), and removing it. It is interesting, because when I was examining the gun's exterior, I noticed a small screw coming up in the middle of the rear sight, but I didn't really know what it was. Now, I know that it is the allen screw (#17) that comes up from inside the gun. I then lifted the rear valve assembly out of the slide as much as I could and worked it backwards so I could get the barrel out of the muzzle and completely remove it from the slide. With the slide removed, I removed the push pin (#18) that holds the valve (#5) in its plastic telescopic housing. When I removed the valve, I observed a small blue rubber gasket (#16) that must not be misplaced for re-assembly. I decided that I didn't need to fool with removing the internal barrel because it looked semi- difficult and I did not think it was necessary at the time. Just as a note, the box has a small logo type thing that says Sniping System and has a large S that looks like a rifled barrel. I thought that this meant that the barrel is rifled, but when I looked down the barrel with a bore light, I didn't see any rifling. The only thing that was confusing about disassembly was when I was trying to move the valve assembly back and forth on the rails it sits on. I accidentally moved the valve assembly back too far when I had it out of the slide and the piece that actually makes contact with the button on the back of the magazine to release the gas (#9) got in a sprung back position and I had to figure out how to get it back forward. It was fairly easy once I figured it out. All I had to do was push the button that actually makes contact upward far enough for it to get back into position. It sounds like a big mess, but it really isn't. Anyway, I decided that I was in as far as I needed to go at the time, so I got out my trusty can of spray lubricant and started oiling some potential wear points. As always, test your lube on a piece of the gun (plastic) that isn't in view, so you can make sure it doesn't eat the plastic. I've seen some high-tech gun lubes eat right through plastic BB guns before. With the gun lubed up, I was ready for re-assembly. Re-assembly Re-assembly was fairly easy, but I had to remember what I did during disassembly. I first put the blue rubber gasket (#16) back onto the stem of the valve (#5) and slipped it into its sheath. I then inserted the push pin (#16) to secure the valve. That is where I ran into some difficulties. I was unable to get the push pin all the way through when I pushed it from the left side. That was corrected by simply pushing it through the right side. With the valve secure, I had to make sure the valve assembly and the air tube as I call it (#6) was in the chamber of the gun. With that all fixed up, I put the upper receiver back into the slide and screwed in the allen screw (#17). I had some trouble getting the screw to take to the threads, so I fixed that by putting the screw in the upper receiver and then putting it into the slide and screwing it in with a small allen wrench. I also had to be sure not to tighten the screw too tight and strip the threads. With the upper receiver secured to the slide, it was time for me to insert the recoil spring and attach the two halves of the gun. I easily got the recoil spring and adjuncts (#12, #13, and #14) back into the upper receiver by compressing the spring and putting the recoil spring guide (#13) through the slide hole, making sure not to forget about the black rubber gasket. Then, I just lowered the rear end of the spring guide into the notch on the upper receiver frame (#4). It's a lot like putting a new roll of toilet paper on the roller. I then put the upper and lower receivers together by lowering the upper receiver down into the lower receiver and re-inserting the push pins. I was able to get the push pins even on each side with a red spray can straw and my fingers. So, with the gun back together, I tested it to make sure it still fired. It did. I was happy that I had successfully taken this baby apart and put it back together perfectly. Final Thoughts All the small differences aside, I believe this to be a great replica. Like most Airsoft guns, this one looks so real, it would definitely get you in big time trouble if you brandished it in public. But for Airsoft purposes, it feels great, looks great, and shoots great. I highly recommend this gun to anyone looking for a great low-cost GBB. "Glock 'n load!"
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