Maker: Classic Army
Model: P091M
Item weight: ?
Calibre: 6mm BBs
Magazine capacity: hi-cap 2500 rounds
Price: ? yen
Manufacturer: ?
Calibre: 5.56x45mm
Magazine capacity: 100 rounds
I bought one of these electric winding c-mags because I had a recent experience with a 5000 round box mag in which I lost my mind and shot 1000 rounds with it in about two minutes. Firepower never felt that good, and with the recent problems with my Tokyo Marui M733 that compelled me to upgrade it (hallelujah, I know), I believed a magazine similar to the box mag but without the annoying winding bit would be an ideal solution. So I checked around, saw several manufacturers of electric-winding magazines, and chose Classic Army figuring CA had gotten their act together and was producing quality products nowadays.
First, the aesthetic and technical stuff. There are no trademarks on this for those of you who care for that sort of thing. Just the "Classic Army" and "Made in Hong Kong", with "Caliber 5.56mm" thrown in near the bottom. There is a visible seam line running the exact middle of the magazine, as you can tell from the stock photo above. The wire with pressure switch runs out from the left side of the magazine, and would squeeze between the mag itself and the base of the mag well if you decide to place the switch on the handguard. In the clear plastic box that the mag comes packaged in, there is a little baggie with a square centimeter of velcro, with adhesive backing to mount the switch wherever you'd like and to allow for quick and easy removal. The magazine is powered by a single 9 volt battery which goes on the left side. You have to remove three Phillip screws, followed by two Allen screws, then you can remove the left rear plate and connect the battery via wire and cap. The battery is not perfectly snug, it will rattle. How you eliminate that is up to you.
Now for the loading. There are three fill ports on the magazine, the first being the normal M16 hi-cap slider door kind, the other two located on the back of the mag, one on either drum. Just open and pour in. They're not very big, harder to fill than the top slide door hole, so quick reloading will prove difficult in the field. But with 2500 rounds at your disposal, reloading seems unlikely. Next, press the pressure switch. The mag will start to wind the normal hi-cap mechanism. When it clicks loudly, you know you're done. Insert the mag into your M16 or M4 of choice and fire away.
Seems easy, right? After all, this is a high capacity magazine that eliminates all winding, should be ideal. However, there are some problems. Firstly, the wind is quick. The c-mag will go from unwound to fully wound in several seconds. Now this would be beneficial if it didn't mean that you have to wind the magazine every fifty rounds or so. No really, you get 2500 round capacity, but only fifty at a time. That's maybe four seconds of fire if you're lucky. Airsoft is a game of excessive firepower, hundreds of BBs being spit at a time. Even if you press and hold the pressure switch while you fire, it's only good for maybe another twenty BBs, so that's seventy total. In the time it takes to wind, I could have reloaded another magazine and took my time at it.
Still, it can't be that bad. A full standard magazine worth of fire before having to wind again. Certainly cheaper than buying 2500 rounds worth of standard magazines, even the higher capacity G&P standards. What really killed it for me was the design. With the Guarder metal body I installed on my M733, the c-mag will not fit in the mag well. The problem lies in a plastic protrusion that is mean to keep the magazine in the mag well via the mag catch. In the Tokyo Marui plastic body, there is a indentation in the mag well for the protrusion to slide into. In the Guarder metal body, there is no notch, thus the c-mag will not fit. Only magazines with flat sides will fit, such as normal magazines and box or drum mags with smooth sides on the part that will be inserted into the mag well..
There are other problems I have issue with. The overall construction of this piece isn't as nice as I had hoped. In fact, it's downright shoddy in places. Firstly, the middle screw that holds this "Y" shaped piece on the back, and the hole it screws into is misaligned. Badly too, the screw is nearly diagonal. This might be just my c-mag, but you have been warned. The internals I was disappointed in. The wire that connects to the battery is surprisingly thin, and the cap looks like it will break if you connect/disconnect it too much. There's hot glue holding some parts together. A piece of it broke off and fell out of the mag when it took the backing off. And then there's the weight. With .25 gram BBs, we're talking one and a third pounds, and that doesn't include the c-mag itself. I'm willing to deal with the added weight for a higher ammunition capacity. However, the first time I brought the c-mag to the field, it failed to function. It shot one or two BBs, then wouldn't feed. It worked perfectly at home in the basement the previous day, and again flawlessly the day after the game. I think this was a fluke, it would work normally under most circumstances. I must not have properly rectified the problem in the field, but it is aggravating when your brand new electric winding c-mag doesn't do what you want it to do when you need it to.
Would I recommend this? Nah, get yourself a manual winding box, drum or c-mag and get used to your hand being under the mag a lot. Maybe another manufacturer can do a better job than Classic Army on the electric wind mag, I doubt they could do worse. Unless you hate winding more than I do, high capacity and not having to wind are mutually exclusive.
So there is still no easy way to wind. You have three choices: carry a lot of standard magazines, carry a few high capacity magazines (or a combination of standard and hi-cap mags), or carry a box magazine of some kind and either have to wind it after every burst or wind it a whole lot after many, many rounds fired. I'm leaning towards the first or last choice depending on the situation. With the high speed upgrade on my M733, the last choice is probably the best among them. As much as I love my G&P standards, the usefulness of standard mags is reduced when your AEG is upgraded to be firing twice the rate of fire of a stock AEG.