H&K USP (Tokyo Marui)

by Matt

Having ordered a new auto-electric (Sig 551 SWAT) I had to decide on a good back-up hand-gun to cover my ass while reloading. After lots of speculation I bought the new H'n'K USP Hop-Up. Partially as it has a sturdy look and feel, partially because the slide is plain and easy to grip, essential when a rapid rate of reload is needed, but mainly as the gun really packs a punch at short range and will leave a nasty welt on anyone dumb enough to interupt me while I'm loading!

The mag holds 24 rounds and when in the gun, balances the weight out nicely. The double action slide feels firm and the safety switch is easily usable but unobtrusive. Aquiring targets is easy as the trailing edges of the sights slope towards the user to reflect any ambient light. This makes them very easy to see and line up. (I'll probably get some luminous paint on each point for night skirmishes.

The bernoulli effect that the hop-up system creates, transports a 0.2g pellet with good accuracy to a man size target up to 35 feet away. Beyond this range you have to compensate the aim down slightly to avoid the pellet drifting over the target. This is not really a problem if you're only going to be using the gun to cover yourself at short/medium range.

For the price (£35/$55) you really can't fault it. Of course it doesn't have the power of an electric or the firing rate of a gas gun but these cost a whole load more.

We'll see if the money's been well spent in about, oooh, say three weeks.