Reviews

WE Airsoft Little Bird GBB Pistol

Operator7

The WE Little Bird Gas Blow Back pistol is based on the Smith & Wesson M&P Compact widely used by the Police and Military around the world, hence the M&P letters. Included in the manufacturer’s SP Series along with its bigger brother, the Big Bird, this gun offers some unique and interesting features that are great for playing in CQB games or using it as a secondary weapon as a backup for instance when someone hits your primary.

DESIGN AND MATERIALS

Design-wise, this gun is based on the M&P 40, only with a shorter barrel and a very compact grip. The grip is made out of polymer, just like the real steel and the slide is metal. This not only adds to the realism as it also enhances blow back, thanks to the slide’s weight.

As always WE have included some high quality materials on the making of this gun, being that the plastic parts are in a matte black colour and appear to be very sturdy and solid.

The metal that has been used in the slide is also very well finished with a lasting black matte paint that doesn’t seem to wear off as easily as it did on the XDM Compact.

Also, all parts, plastic and metal, are very well machined and assembled with no apparent wobble on the slide.

Since there are no S&W trademarks, WE went ahead and used their own logo on the grip, which is better than not having anything at all. Just too bad they didn’t add any inscriptions or logos on the slide which, even if not the real trademarks, would have looked quite cool.

One inscription which looks really awesome is the 9mm calibre markings on the ejection port.

If you look closely, on the right hand side of the gun, there’s a small metal plate which, just as intended by the real steel version, displays a serial number. In this case, a WE serial number of course!

The slide is easily removed using the latch present on the left hand side of the gun, and the slide catch is ambidextrous. However, just like the S&W, the mag release button is not ambidextrous.

A very good note for the serrated edges on the slide, which are just like the real steel version and help gripping the slide when needed.

FEATURES AND ACCESSORIES

This is the first time I’ve ever had a gun with this type of safety trigger, which divides the trigger in two parts in order to have a two stage trigger. This makes the trigger a bit more “spongy” at first, but once you learn the stage of the trigger where the gun fires you get used to this.

This safety mechanism is in fact the only safety feature on this GBB. Whereas on other guns you have the metal plate that provides the safety here you have to be a bit more careful than usual.

The two stage trigger works great, and doesn’t require more force in order to pull it. But if you only grip part of the trigger the gun won’t shoot thanks to the safety mechanism that requires the use of the whole finger in order to actuate the trigger.

Something that WE have been making us well used to are the two mags that they include in most of their GBB guns. For me this is a great value for the money on any WE pistol that come with a spare mag. In this case, the Little Bird comes with a high capacity magazine which takes up to 21 rounds. This magazine is also quite taller when comparing to the standard one, and it also includes a magazine grip spacer which adds enough space for the larger hands.

If at first when shooting with the standard mag my hand felt a bit cramped, with the extended mag, it’s a joy to shoot this gun. The grip is just perfect and the weight balance is incredibly well distributed.

WE have added a Toucan bird on the spacer since it’s the codename of this gun. While it’s arguable that this makes the gun look any better, truth is that the spacer is indeed helpful in order to get our fingers evenly spaced and comfortably wrapped around the grip.

You can also exchange the mag lips which are easy to remove from the magazines by simply pushing on the floorplate catch and sliding the mag lip out of the mag.

Another nice feature are the interchangeable back straps which, depending on your hand size and likings, will add more comfort ant better grip. There are three sizes of back straps: Small, Medium and Large, and WE have thoughtfully included six removable back straps: 3 in black and another 3 in…. Pink!

Yes Pink! Don’t like it? You can always get the Tan ones, which in my humble opinion would have been the best ones to have been included out of the box, leaving all of you guys without pink issues free to buy those from any tough enough retailers out there. :)

Now the replica luminous sights are of a very nice bright green tone that reflects the surrounding light. They could be a bit more luminous, but it’s enough to help me aiming much faster and I really liked these sights. Being luminous doesn’t mean that these will glow in the dark, since they are not night sights. I only wish that manufacturers like WE started including night sights on some of their models, don’t you agree?

Finally this gun could be complete without a rail for attachments, which is great for fitting lasers or small LED flashlights, which work really nice together on CQB scenarios.

SIZE, PRECISION AND POWER

Quite honestly I have to mention the size apart from all this gun’s features since this was the most compact gun I ever held. In fact it’s so small you can run it on jacket without being noticed and adding almost no bulk!

You might think that being shorter it would be less accurate, since the inner barrel is shorter than for instance the XDM Compact, which I reviewed here, by 0.5mm. But even with such a short inner barrel this GBB is very accurate up to 10-15 meters.

This gun is designed to be operated with Green Gas where it packs quite decent punch if you take in account its small size. But if you use it with a CO2 mag, than it totally transforms into a small devil with a loud and strong kick that is a pleasure to use. I will be releasing a video and a comparison of this particular gun with a CO2 mag soon, so stay sharp!

In terms of FPS, this gun is doing around 265 fps on average, and just as I stated previously, it can go over 300fps with the CO2 mag. Nevertheless it has a very interesting performance considering its small and compact size.

I felt most comfortable using this gun to go around corners or inside buildings, where the small size and reduced weight help to cover all corners very fast.

CONCLUSION

If you are looking for a compact and lightweight secondary weapon for your loadout, to use mostly in CQB, or if you don’t want to run around with a holster and just have you gun stored in your jacket’s pocket without adding much bulk, than the WE M&P Compact could be the right gun for you.

The quality of this gun allied to a very competitive price and features make it a very nice choice for CQB games.

You can find this gun for of $124.95 (around €93) at CWI Airsoft.

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