Hello everyone and welcome back to MN Airsoft! I hope you are having a great day like I am
because we have something pretty cool in store for you. In today’s video we are going to
be taking a look at a very popular product from a company millions of people have heard
of. It’s a particular gun that we have had our eyes on since its release all the way
back in September of 2020. This is because the engineering team behind it is composed
of very experienced players who have first hand experience of what actually makes a good
airsoft product. Now, without further adieu, let's jump right into our unboxing and review
of the Novritsch SSP18 gas blowback pistol. This big box is packed-full of products sent
to us by Novritsch including the SSP18, a spare magazine, magazine pouches, and even
some of their .32 bio bbs. Side note: they did not pay us nor influence us to say anything
in this video! Everything you'll see and hear are our honest opinions and observations.
Obviously, we have to start with the gun itself seeing as everything else here is an accessory
for it. So first we have the included ssp18 case, we have the gun, green gas magazine,
and included valve adjustment tool which we’ll get to later.
As you can see, it comes with this hideous orange tape on it and I am assuming is something
required by the state of California - which i am not a part of, so let’s get rid of
it. Now what do I think of it? To start, the gun
has an incredible feeling to it. It's Not too heavy, it’s not too light, has a good
balance to it, a great grip, and just an overall solid feeling construction from top to bottom.
Being an owner of countless “Glock-like” airsoft pistols, this one truthfully feels
like it beats companies like WE, KSC, and even Tokyo Marui with regards to the feel
of the entire gun. Moving on from the gun, we were also sent
two black magazine pouches which are made by YTTK. These have some elastic on them which
can be adjusted depending on how much resistance you want holding them in. They also have a
pretty neat feature we haven't seen before and it's these little inserts that go in the
bottom of the pouch. the insert acts as a spacer and depending on your preference, allows
you to choose just how much of your mag sticks out when you try to grab it during a reload.
This is an extremely simple design but it’s very functional and very clever. And the last
thing we see are the Novritsch branded bbs. Alrighty, now let's talk about the aesthetics
of this gun. I'm not sure what your opinion of this gun is, but I personally think it
looks like a custom build some people spend upwards of 500 dollars on. Starting big, let's
look at the slide and outer barrel. Both of these stand out from the standard generic
designs and it makes the gun look much more modern. The already lightweight aluminum slide
has weight reducing cutouts on the sides and top as well as tons of serrations down the
length of it which allow you to easily grip when racking. Now, The finish on the slide
is ok, but nothing like a Cerakote, so be mindful of this if you’re a very rough player.
The outer barrel is also made out of aluminum and it features this unique spiral fluting
down the entire length. We are starting to see this more and more on various types of
airsoft guns and it's simply because it looks pretty dang good. The outer barrel also comes
with threads built into it and they are 14mm counter clockwise which is nice to see on
a pistol. Moving on to the grip of this gun, you can
see the SSP18 has a molded texture throughout such that your hands have a nice grip when
handling and firing. The plastic used for the grip is a little bit slippery. Even with
a glove, it just doesn’t quite feel like I have that great of a grip onto it. Also
built into the grip or lower of this gun is a nicely molded trigger guard as well as a
short picatinny rail for your lasers and flashlights… Or I guess maybe bipods and tactical toilet
paper; if that's the kind of player you are. Whatever, you do you.
Now for some of the features that make this gun stand out. Let's of course start off with
the first one most of you want to know about: full auto. Just know that we're not huge fans
of full auto gas blowback guns. They all seem to cycle fine for the first 10 or so shots
but then slow down, spit gas, and ultimately kind of suck by the end of the magazine. With
our bias being stated, this gun did actually surprise us a little bit. Of all the gas blowback
rifles and pistols we have tested in the past, this gun did a great job properly managing
gas consumption, though it did start spitting gas by the second mag. Novritsch advertises
this gun to shoot at 17 rounds per second which seems a bit faster than what we got,
but it's close enough that it may be due to confounding variables in our tests such as
gas pressure or ambient temperature. All in all, it is a fun feature to have, but usually
not practical on the field. Now let's talk about some of the smaller features
on this gun. It comes with a green fiber optic front sight post, beavertail grip for better
control, and even an oring-stabilized 6.01 inner barrel with a maple leaf bucking meaning
you can hop very heavy bbs to pretty far ranges. All of these make for a premium experience
and this is all for a pretty affordable price too!
So now that we’ve seen the gun and know a little bit about it, where can you get it
and how much will it set you back? You can get this gun with a green gas or CO2 magazine
and the included carrying case for only $165 on their website. Now, as most of you know,
Novritsch is a company based in Austria and this may deter you from buying if you live
in the United States, but rest assured they planned for this and actually have a fulfillment
centers in Pennsylvania. This means you get your gun in like 4 days rather than having
to pay a crazy expensive international shipping price and then waiting months. Ours was ordered
and delivered within 3 business days. Dang near competing with Amazon here!
As far as upgradeability goes, I'm not quite sure I would ever recommend this gun to anyone
looking to purchase a sidearm such that they can use it as a base to upgrade like a hi
capa. This gun is not designed for this and novritsch has made it pretty clear on their
website that the gun is designed in a way that it comes “pre-upgraded.” I would
only purchase this or recommend it to people if you are happy with the aesthetics and only
ever plan on possibly swapping the internals maybe like barrel, bucking, hopup, springs
etc. We are unsure if any parts like the slide are Tokyo Marui compatible, though people
claim this gun is OEM’d by KJW... So do with that information as you will.
Now for the performance of the Novritsch SSP18. We did several tests with this gun that apply
to sidearms such as effective range, accuracy, consistency, precision, and various other
factors that must be exceptional for a sidearm to be useful on the airsoft field.
For those of you who don't know, the term “sidearm” means you are not supposed to
use this as your primary weapon in combat. Please keep this in mind if you're expecting
this 4 and a half inch barrel to reach targets in surplus of 200 feet. Well… I guess if
any pistol should do it stock, it's either this or a marui hi capa. So maybe we’ll
test that sometime. What do you think, can this gun out range the notorious stock Tokyo
Marui Magic? Leave a comment down below! Ok, now for the tests. Looking at the range
first, we will be testing its “effective range.” Essentially, we want to test the
range this gun can shoot while still being able to hit a human sized target to simulate
a realistic scenario. We tested this gun with novritsch’s own .32g bbs and as you can
see, they are reaching out close to 200 feet and even though my aim is horrible, I would
probably still be able to hit someone. Now for accuracy, let's move the target in
quite a bit so we can get a better reading on our results. Shooting the ssp18 with the
same .32 gram bbs at about 75 feet, we see some pretty great results. So, taking a closer
look at the target we can see that six out of the ten shots were all within the two inch
circle, and four were in the one inch circle. The rest of our shots were all still within
this seven inch target and that is pretty impressive for 75 feet.
What we found to be the main drawbacks for the SSP18’s performance is the trigger pull
and the lack of a crisp blowback. The trigger pull is by far my personal least favorite
thing about this gun. Now, I’m not sure why they decided to make it as heavy as they
did, but I honestly thought the gun had a safety somewhere before I just pulled the
trigger super hard. This clip here is a quick demonstration comparing it to a tokyo marui
glock build and you can just see how much more force is required on the SSP18 in addition
to the trigger being a bit more mushy. I'm not saying this ruins the gun at all, but
it is a flaw novritsch should improve upon. Now for the blowback. It’s ok, but just
ok isn't something I expected in a “pre-upgraded” pistol for $165. The gun cycles normally,
it just feels like maybe the recoil spring that is a bit too stiff for the gun and it
makes it cycle a bit slower and sometimes feels like the hammer possibly had a light
strike. Again, not the end of the world, but something I think could be improved upon to
get that nice and crisp realistic blowback. Sliding into the next topic I'd like to discuss;
durability. This gun seems to be a tank, but there are some points that should be mentioned.
To start, the surface finish is pretty weak. Just from testing, the full auto switch already
shows some wear and this is just from my hand changing between firing modes.
The surface finish on the magazine is the exact same which also means you will end up
with plenty of wear here, but it's hidden so who really cares? And as previously mentioned,
this gun’s Full auto functionality does indeed spew gas, but it's not something unique
to this gun. The FXB barrel they designed for this gun works great and surprisingly
has zero signs of wear even after a couple thousand rounds through this thing!
One phenomenal part that most people would generally just glance right over is the fact
that the included magazines hold gas perfectly which is pretty rare out of the box. I can't
express how disappointing it is when a magazine just leaks instantly. It's really is just
the little things that go the farthest distance. Finally, one thing we did notice that is pretty
good is that the included stock hopup unit holds its hop very well. There’s no drooping
or over-hopping going on here so you can tune it to your bb weight and it won't budge.
And, now our bang for buck rating. Just to reiterate, This is a very strict scale meaning
a score of 9.5 or 10 will likely never be achieved. After considering all of the pros
and cons with this gun and brand, we ended up with a final score of 6.5, which is pretty
dang good. Most airsoft guns lack in one area or another and this one just doesn’t seem
to have anything that absolutely tanks the score.
To wrap up this review, our final pros and cons list looks a little bit like this:
Pros You automatically get an extra one hundred
feet per second on your primary. no no no, I'm just kidding. That's a joke, don't take
it seriously. But, you do have a lightweight build with a great design. Reliable and dependable
sidearm, which is always important. You get tons of aftermarket support and replacement
parts on Novritsch.com. The overall value you get for this product. It comes pre-upgraded!
So, components like bucking and slide are all set and ready to go. For a pistol, this
gun has crazy long range capabilities. I'm talking 200 to 250 feet with .36's.
Now for some of the cons that we noticed. Unknown compatibility with brands like Tokyo
Marui - and this is just to our knowledge. The surface finish maybe prone to scratches
and eventually will have a little bit more wear than typical. It has a very heavy and
somewhat sloppy trigger pull. I mentioned this before and this is the biggest con that
I can think of for this gun. Finally, the full-auto feature has some flaws like it eventually
spewing gas and kind of having an inconsistent rate of fire.
So, in conclusion, I really feel like I need to say this one more time for the people in
back: We were NOT paid nor influenced by anyone in the making of this review.
And that about wraps it up for the video! I really hope you learned something from this
and please feel free to leave any questions you have down below in the comment section.
We're here to help you out and I'm sure tons of others will also see your comment and chime
in with suggestions or solutions. Thank you all so much for watching - if you liked this
video, please consider subscribing - it's completely free and means a lot to us. Also,
feel free to check out our Instagram where we do tons of airsoft related giveaways. Thanks
again, and I'll see you in the next video!