I've been very fortunate to get my hands on a lot of Western Arm's excellent Gas Blow Back pistols over the last few months, thanks to Elite Airsoft, but I was very pleasantly surprised recently, when a couple of Shibuya Custom Works limited editions arrived in a big box

These guns are made in limited numbers and are not, officially, available outside Japan. Both were Colt 1911 based guns, this one, the Wilson based Vreaker V12 and a Colt 1911 MkIV Government.

In the Box

The SCW guns come in smart Grey boxes, with "SCW" in white on the top and a sticker on one end to indicate the contents. Businesslike, but a bit more finished than the normal uncoloured cardboard.

Inside, however, it's WA business as usual, with the gun, a bag of paper work, including the manual and a target, a small bag of 6mm BBs, a couple of Allen keys and the gun.

Unlike the 1911 or Para Ordnance, the Vreaker has the Infinity style slide end, with no bushing, so there's no Barrel wrench. Strangely, too, the manual provided was the 1911's,

First Impressions

Of the two SCW guns, this one initially struck me as the more interesting, with it's distinctive compensator vents in the top of the slide and the drilled outer barrel.

The trigger is drilled, there's a simple (and removable) rail attachment under the front of the frame, whilst the grip features heavy chequering, on both faces and front and rear, but of a finer style than that found on the Infinities.

The barrel is silver (painted like the Xcellerators, rather than the nicer finish on the Ltd) and cone shaped, like those found on Infinities, rather than the standard 1911 style. The, single stack, 15 round magazine, bears a bumper on the bottom, which is solid plastic, like that on the Beretta Elite 2, albeit considerably smaller than that.

The markings bear allegiance to Wilson, including a medallion on either side of the grip.

The outer barrel, sights, trigger, recoil rod, hammer, grip and thumb safeties and slide lock are all made of metal.

Closer Look

In many ways this a pretty straightforward single stack (7 round in .45, 15 in airsoft 6mm form) 1911. The gun is single action, has a grip safety, the easily recognised 1911 thumb safeties (ambidextrous here) and slide lock.

The grips and magazine release will also be familiar to anyone with a 1911 or a Para-Ordnance, being a small metal button protruding from the frame on the left hand side only.

Moving to the top of the gun, though, we find a lot of differences. Most noticeable (and unique to this and the gold plated version) are the two longitudinal slots in the slide, permitting a view through to the 12 holes (6 each side) in the outer barrel.

The barrel itself will be more familiar to those who own Infinities (especially the more recent Xcelerator models), being a painted, slightly rough feeling, cone barrel. The actual colour is quite close to the brushed nickel seen on the recent Xcelerator 6 Hybrids.

Like the Beretta Elite II, the Vreaker has a buffer on the magazine and, like the Beretta's, it is hard plastic, rather than rubber (as, certainly, the Beretta's should be). However, unlike the Beretta's, WA didn't extend the fill valve all the way to the bottom of the buffer, meaning that the fill valve is some way inside the bumper. I couldn't get any of my 3 gas cans (Abbey 134a and Ultra gas or AE/Cybergun Winter gas) to reach far enough into the bumper to fill the magazine. Fortunately, I thought, I have a Tanaka revolver with a filler extension tube. However, I couldn't even get this to work effectively (although it did reach the valve) and I never did work out how you are supposed to fill the Vreaker's magazine with gas - If you know of a way, tell me! Once the limited amount of gas already in the magazine was exhausted, I had to swap the magazine with the SCW 1911's, which fitted perfectly and provided motive power for further testing.

Under the frame (just like on the Para-Ordnance Prokiller) there's a small metal rail fitted, which is removable via two cross head screws inside the frame. The slide lock is a typical 1911 style item, but is larger and has a chequered upper surface at the rear making it easy to operate. Ambidextrous safeties are both grooved on the tops and the skeletonised, metal hammer has serrations where the thumb falls and the beavertail, grip safety is notably extended, providing a secure grip, helped by the fine chequering of the front and rear of the grip, as well as the panels.

The markings are of WA's usual high standards and as follows :

Left side slide : 1996 A2 .45 AUTO - Left side frame : Wilson Combat SERVICE GRADE

Right side slide : WILSON COMBAT - Right side frame : WILSON COMBAT BERRYVILLE AR. U.S.A.

There's a plain and rather cheap looking silver(ish) magazine (this is certainly no KSC S&W PC 945). The aforementioned, hard plastic bumper has WILSON COMBAT stamped into either side. On the right hand side it is upside down...

I couldn't find a real steel gun that looked like the Vreaker on the Wilson site, or anywhere else on the web, but it could be a very limited edition custom gun.

Shooting Impressions

I tried firing the gun with the included, silver magazine, but I could not find a way to fill it with gas satisfactorily (even trying the extended adaptor for my Tanaka revolver!), so I dropped in the black magazine from the 1911 and found that the gun, probably unsurprisingly, felt very much like that gun to shoot.

Carrying out my standard 5m/6 round, off hand test, using the 1911's magazine, the Vreaker placed 4 shots in the centre zone (in a 2.25 Inch/5.75 CM diameter), with the remaining two shots slightly high, but directly above the centre of the target.

All 6 rounds were covered by a 3 inch (7.5 CM) diameter and the accuracy was similar to that achieved by the 1911 tested at the same time and shown on the same target above, although the spread was greater with the Vreaker.

Subjectively, over this and other shoots, the plain sights on the 1911 seemed more accurate, but the white dotted Novak style sights of the Vreaker were easier to acquire the target with.

Conclusions

The Wilson Combat Vreaker 12 is a solid, good looking single stack 1911.

It's certainly a more modern, tactical looking take on the 1911, but the magazine really bugged me (which might be unfair, but I couldn't work out how to fill it, which is a major handicap in my view!).

The magazine also looks and feels cheap and flimsy, although, as a whole, the gun (like most Heavyweight WA pistols) feels solid and good in the hand.

If you just want a single stack 1911, you could do a lot worse than consider the WA SCW 1911 or one of the single stack Infinities, but if the rail and the vented barrel take your fancy, there's little wrong with the Vreaker (provided you can get it to fire...).

Its action is sharp, snappy and seems powerful and it feels good to handle both from a balance and tactile point of view and the controls (slide lock and safeties, notably) feel particularly good to operate.

John from Elite Airsoft let me know the following :

The only gas can with a long enough filler is the Taiwanese Green Gas, and this works fine.

My first few customers had the same problem, but we have plenty in stock especially for the Vreakers.

Weight : 970g

Realism : ****
Quality : ****
Power : ****
Accuracy : ****