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| REVIEW: Daisy 693 CO2 pistol |
fluzwup (M/oklahoma) |
10/18/1999 11:06 am EDT |
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The Daisy 693 (the 93 is the same gun with less
chrome) is a $50 "semi-automatic" pistol that is based on
the Smith & Wesson model 59xx/69xx family. The S&W is
a 15 shot double stack 9mm with a 4ish inch barrel,
and the Daisy is a very accurate cosmetic copy,
although at only about 2/3 the weight of the
S&W. The 693 is "double action only", which means that every pull of the trigger is cocking the hammer, and there is no way to manually cock the trigger before you pull the trigger. This design is becoming more popular among defensive handguns, because it is very simple to use, but it does take some practice to become proficient with the long, heavy pull. The pull on my 693 is about 10 lbs, which is about par for a "real" gun. The 693 shoots only BB's through a smoothbore brass barrel. The magazine holds 15 BB's, and is spring loaded so that it will feed at any angle. The feeding is very reliable--in over 500 shots, the only failures to feed I've had have been due to my not fully seating the magazine or BB's so oversized that they would not fit into the barrel. Since the barrel is not rifled, accuracy is rather poor, with 2" at 20' about all you can expect. The good news is that the non-adjustable sights are right on at short ranges. The 693 is very efficient with it's CO2, firing over 100 shots on a 12 gram cartridge. You can push that to 150, but by the last magazine the BB's will be bouncing off the cardboard backstop. I haven't chronographed the gun, but I'd bet that it's not breaking 400 fps, which is fine with me since I'm just punching holes in paper and would prefer more shots per cartridge to more power. The 693 has OK sights; they're black plastic post and notch. The front sight is molded into the gun, so there's no way to replace it. I would prefer white-dot sights, given the type of shooting I do (stressing speed) but they work. The front sight is a bit too shiny, but a little bit of dry erase ink dulled it down enough to shoot in full sun. The manual safety on the 693 is not ambi, and it is in the same place as it is on the S&W 59xx, up on the slide and hard to reach, but being a DAO, the manual safety is not strictly neccessary (the DAO S&W's don't have manual safeties). There is also an UZI-esque grip safety which operates a transfer bar. It is, in my opinion, far better to rely on the grip safety than the manual safety, since there is no way the hammer can strike the valve without the grip safety being depressed. Despite exterior appearances (all plastic), the gun is well built inside; there is a galvanized steel fram that holds the mechanism together, and the plastic exterior completely covers it. The only part inside that I wish was not plastic is the BB loading ramp, as it is a part subject to wear, and I suspect that it will be the first thing to wear out. All in all, I think the 693 is a good gun, as long as you keep in mind that it is not by any means a 10m target pistol. I use it for quick draw and rapid fire shooting, where hitting a 4" square at 15 feet is good enough, as long as I can do it quickly. It is unforunate that you can't scope the 693, because it would be a great action shooting gun with a red dot scope. |
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fluzwup added some information on accuracy about a week after his initial review. So I decided that rather than make another entry for him I would just append his new information to the his previous review. --lthomas987
| REVIEW: Daisy 693 accuracy imfo... |
fluzwup (M/oklahoma) |
10/27/1999 10:57 pm EDT |
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I decided that the Black & Decker Workmate could
be pressed into service as a gun vise, so I clamped
the Daisy 693 into it this evening and did some
accuracy testing. In case you didn't read the earlier
review (message 12), the Daisy 693 is a 15 shot
"semi-automatic" BB repeater with a double-action only trigger.
The barrel is smoothbore and is either brass or brass
plated steel, and is about 4 inches long. The accuracy
testing was done with Daisy Max Speed BB's and Crosman
Copperhead Powerlets. I fired 3 groups of 15 shots each--a full magazine--and watched to see if there was any consitent difference in accuracy as it went from full to empty; none was apparent. The first group was fired at a distance of 10 feet, and it formed a ragged but roughly circular hole about 1 inch in diameter. I then fired the second two groups from 20 feet, stopping every few shots to see what was happening. Both of the 20 ft. groups were about 1.75 inches in diameter, and they appeard to be formed of a central group of about 10 shots in about 1.25 inches with the remaining 5 shots expanding the group out to 1.75 inches. I don't know if the outlying shots were flyers caused by sub-caliber BB's (these are the cheapest Daisy makes) or if they were just a statistical anomaly; I may have to test again with a different brand of BB's and see. I was plesantly suprised by the 20 foot performance. Up until this evening, I had only shot the gun offhand, and usually at shorter ranges, so I had no good grasp of its capabilities. After reading the accuracy results of the Crosman 1008, I was starting to regret my purchase of the 693, but the accuracy testing I did tonight removed those regrets. While it would be nice to have adjustable sights and a bit more accuracy, the Daisy's miserly use of gas (over 100 shots per powerlet compared to less than 50 with the Crosman) and adequate performance with dirt cheap BB's makes it much cheaper to shoot than the Crosman. |
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