It’s very obvious these days that we have a VERY close relationship with the guys at RAVEN AIRSOFT, and they continue to roll out some amazing GBB handguns that offer reliable operation and great performance at a fabulous pricepoint that’s within the reach of even the most cash-strapped airsofter!
The range of RAVEN HI CAPA models have been an absolute triumph without question, and are rated highly by the AA Crew as solid, righteous “fightin’ irons”, and let’s face it, who doesn’t like a Hi Capa?
However, some of us also love a more “classic tactical 1911”, like the existing RAVEN MEU but the fact of the matter is that you usually lose the magazine capacity and overall performance of the Hi Capa when you move to a single-stacker… but what if you could have that same classic, railed 1911 WITH the performance of the Hi Capa platform?
Well, soon you’ll be able to, as the latest model due to come out of the “RAVEN skunkworks” soon is the R14, and we already LOVE IT!
We’ve been privileged to have had the very first, pre-production R14 (serial number 0001!) in test for over a month now, and after a couple of hundred mags downrange to date it’s still kicking out BBs perfectly, even though we’ve been purposely running it “dry” and un-lubed! Putting BBs to target happily at 10m each and every time we’ve recorded an average reading through the chrono of 1.02 Joule/332 fps on RZR .20g BBs using NP 2.0 gas, and the R14 handles heavier weight BBs just as well!
Obviously RAVEN have had to re-engineer some of the controls (as shown by the silver safety lever in the image) to ensure perfect operation, and in the process it seems that they’ve also tightened up the trigger even further, as this is now super-crisp with just a mil or two of take-up! Everything in the “pre-prod” works perfectly, although we’re still to confirm exactly what magazine will come with the finished product; thus far it works superbly on all the Hi Capa mags we have “in house” though.
We’ll be bringing in our full test results on this new model next month in Issue 140, but the RAVEN R14 should be hitting stores in the next few weeks, and if you’re like us, having the performance of a Hi Capa in a more classic configuration is definitely worth waiting for!
