I lost the link from Wonko's review to add mine below, so I posted mine here.
Introduction
Asahi Firearms was a model company from Japan who operated in the 1980s and 90s. Not to be confused with the Asahi company that makes cameras. Asahi was one of the early pioneers of the airsoft hobby. They created guns during the classic airsoft period.
The company still exists but under other management, they now make high quality bolt action rifles based on the APS2 system.
The company is also known for the rare and now illiegal M700/M40 back in 1993. Japan government seized and destroyed the majority of these rifles after the confirmed rumor that it could fire real rim fire .22LR cartriges! There are now less than 25 Asahi M40's and it's considered the "holy Grail" of airsoft!
The real gun
Walther WA-2000 sniper rifle had been developed by Carl WaltherWaffenfabrik (Germany) during late 1970s and early 1980s as a highlyspecialized policesniper rifle. First introduced in 1982, it was later adopted by somespecialized police units in Germany, but rifle was too expensive toachieve widespread sales, and production was fairy limited. It isbelieved that only about 176 WA-2000 rifles were ever made. Unlike manyother sniper rifles of that period, WA-2000 was not a conversion of the sporting or hunting rifle, but entirely newdesign with some remarkable features.
The gun is built in the bullpup style, to achievemost compact package while maintaining suitably long barrels. Basicchambering was .300 Winchester Magnum, with effective range well beyond800 meters, with optional chamberings for 7.62mm NATO (.308 win) and7.5mm Swiss. WA-2000 is a semiautomatic rifle, gas operated, withrotating bolt. Short stroke gas piston is located below the barrel. Theheavy, match-grade barrel is fluted and free-floated and is unusuallylocated between two aluminum struts that form the chassis of the rifleand provide mounting points for wooden forend and below and scope mount and bipod above. The stock(buttplate and cheek rest) and trigger are adjustable. Feed was from single-stack detachable box magazines. WA-2000sniper rifle had no open sights, and had a quick-detachable scope mount. Most common optical sight was a Schmidt & Bender 2.5-10Xvariable power scope.
The replica
In 1993 Asahi manufactured 250 pcs of the WA2000 in 2 versions, 125 of the Standard version and 125 of the Deluxe version.
The Deluxe (DX) version has the same engine as the Standard (STD) but has some features more, like a bipod, an internal gas reservoir but you have the option to run it externally, the butt plate can move up and down and the flash hider is foam filled.
Externals
This is the DX version
This is the STD version, note the slightly shorter inner barrel and the line that comes from the front gas reservoir!
The shell is made of aluminum and the wooden parts are made of walnut. From what I've heard only 5 people assembled all the guns! The quality is phenomenal even compared to real guns!
The gun features full a unique feature, that being that it can be made for a left handed shooter or right handed shooter. In order to do so, the cheek rest is removed, and the right panels is removed, then the piece that is the bolt release on the real rifle is removed from the right panel. To install for a left handed shooter the bolt release is then screwed on onto the opposite side of the panel, the panel is placed accordingly onto the left side of the rifle, then cheek rest is installed on right side instead of the left. The rifle also has ambidextrous safety and fire selector.
I have the DX version and the but pad can move in 3 directions, back, up and down to suit the shooters needs
The wooden parts are amazing and the textured part amazed me when I first saw it! It surpasses all the stippling jobs I've seen so far!
The fill in valve for the internal tank and the grip surface of the handguard.
Moving forward the barrel has 8 flutes and at the end is the flash hider, that's a flash hider many people think it's a silencer but it's not.
The bipod is placed on top of the rifle instead of below it, well, there is actually a very good reason as to why. Anyone who has used a bipod knows how annoying it can be to get the rifle level, well with the rifle essentially hanging down from under the bipod gravity pretty much takes over in self leveling the rifle. It's not the quickest process to deploy it, first you need to un hook it from the clamp and then press a button over each leg to lower it. another downfall of the bipod is that the legs have to very long compared to a normal mounted bipod.
The magazines are spring loaded like current mid caps and are FAR more rare than the gun itself! I was lucky enough to find spare one a few months ago. The one that came with the gun hold 31 bbs but the gun can load only 27 the 4 last bbs can't be loaded, just like modern AEGs!
Internals
This the DX version
And this is the STD version, note the slightly shorter barrel and the line from the front gas reservoir!
The engine of the gun is an electropneunatic solenoid engine, inside the gun there's a solenoid pneumatic valve so it requires and a 8.6v battery.
The system is very simple, in order to work you should have the mag on the gun as it won't fire otherwise, the solenoid valve controls the gas flow and the trigger presses a switch to activate the valve, and the gas flow is measured and that gives an excellent fluctuation!
The system is almost indestructible as it has survived 19 years! The only think that can be broken is the actual chip that controls the valve, this can happen if you use a high voltage battery. Though a friend from Norway is using his with a 11.1v lipo and at pressures over 200 psi and velocities over 750fps!!!
The gun doesn't have a hop up cause it wasn't discovered yet! I've ordered one from SniperX and is being made as we speak, mine fires at ~ 170psi 650fps but the fact it doesn't have a hop up limit's the range to about 55m! The accuracy is very nice and there's literally no fps fluctuation due to this system but I haven't done any serious accuracy testing due to the small range. Will update when I have the custom barrel with the hop up mod.
The pros
It's the best production WA2000
Very consistent FPS
The only semi auto WA2000
Battery can last for days
Very shooter friendly
Smooth light trigger pull
The quality on metal and finish on the wood
Choice of external or internal powered
It's very well balanced compared to the Geneth or Ares WA2000
The cons
The price between $2500 and $4500 depending version and condition
It's pretty heavy
More like collectors item but has great performance.
Imposible to find spare parts
Hard to find spare mags.
A couple of photo's displaying the small lenght next to the RS SVD
Some comparison photo's with the Ares
And with DSR-1
The WA2000 collection (note the bottom Asahi WA2000, the one with the orange flash hider is now sold)
Top to bottom
Geneth WA2000
Ares WA2000
Asahi WA2000 DX
Asahi WA2000 STD
Wolf
