Classic Army P90 TR Airsoft Gun AEG Manual

Classic Army P90 offers the popular P90 model at an affordable price, regardless of its superior quality. The design of this gun allows the barrel profile to be very short, while leaving the overall barrel length a lot longer than seen. It is completely ambidextrous and is extremely compact. This model features a tri-rail for attaching a variety of tactical accessories.

Classic Army P90 Sportline

First Impressions:

An airsoft manufacture has finally got it! Most people (especially newbies) don’t buy a gun case at the same time they purchase a replica. What that means is, the replica initially gets carted around in the box it came in, which is a pain, as it is always falling open, and doesn’t provide an easy way to carry it. Classic Army has addressed this however, as the P90 sportline comes in a nice hinge open cardboard carrying case WITH A HANDLE! This means that carrying and repacking after a game is a snap.

Inside the box is the replica, a 300 round hicap magazine, an 1100maH nimh battery and charger, a set of safety glasses, along with the always present jamming rod and instruction manuals.

Having an inherent distrust of airsoft brand safety glasses, I felt obliged to give them a test with the Official Airsoft Review M14- A highly modified TM M14 shooting 415fps. From a range of about 10 feet, I fired about 50 rounds at the included safety glasses. Other than some skid marks from the bb’s (which were easily wiped off) the glasses showed no damage at all. It is good to see that Classic Army as taking this seriously- as many other brands included glasses fail this test.


The Replica:

The replica itself has a very high quality look. Although it is all plastic everything has a very nice molded in texture, giving it a nice, high quality feel. The plastic itself has a nice heft and does not flex much, giving the replica a substantial, durable feeling that inspires confidence in the wielder.

CA offers both types of P90, red dot and Triple Rail. I decided to review the red dot rather than the simpler triple rail type.

The included Red Dot site is a nice feature, and uses much more common AAA size batteries rather than the more difficult button type as many aftermarket ones do. Unfortunately, CA did not see fit to include batteries in the box, so you will need 2.

Although rather small, the aperture for this scope actually encourages a correct shooting posture: gun tight to the shoulder, head slightly leaned forward and looking along the barrel. It is possible to keep both eyes open and still perceive the dot over the target, enhancing peripheral vision and enabling a more rapid response when room clearing.

Loading the included high capacity magazine is a snap. This magazine, originally designed by TM is one of the most intelligent mag designs in airsoft. Unlike a traditional hicap, which is mag fed, the P90 magazine uses a spring loaded plunger to push the bb’s into the winder, insuring better feeding AND a no rattle mag.
Make sure the plunger is pulled all the way back before opening the loading door, and the door locks the plunger in place. Very neat, very easy.

After loading up the magazine and charging the included battery (I did not use the included charger, opting instead to use my trusty Multiplex LN-5014 multi charger). It was time to chrono test the replica. With the chrono on and the replica in single shot mode, I took the average of ten shots, which came out to about 305 fps- with .25g Airsoft Elite bb’s! This works out to about 330-340 with .2’s. Switching the chrono to BPM mode (Balls Per Minute) I measured 850. This comes out to about 14 rps. This isn’t earth shattering, but keep in mind this is an entry level replica, with an 8.4V battery! With a 9.6 this thing would be a buzzsaw!

Range test:

I am lucky enough to have a large backyard, and that enables me to really stretch the legs of the replicas I test. The yardstick used for comparison in this test is the Official Airsoft Review M14- which routinely gets confirmed headshots at 60+ yards. Of course, the P90 won’t outperform such a highly tuned machine, but we’ll see how close it can get.

First test: Man sized Target at 100 Feet

The p90 was able to hit this target 8/10 times, with the two fliers being near misses. Of course, the M14 barely broke a sweat at 10/10.

Second Test: 4” Fencepost at 50 yards

This test really showed the value of a tightbore barrel. With the hop properly adjusted, the P90 certainly was able to deliver the bb at this range, but fliers became a real issue, with some rounds breaking left, and some breaking right. I would estimate the average spread at this range to be about 4 feet. This is still within the effective range of this replica on auto. Again, the M14, with it’s PDI barrel produced a steady stream of direct hits. Scores P90 2/10 M14 9/10 (I twitched).

Torture Test: Full Auto, no Letup, 300 rounds

Burning through a whole hicap in one full auto burst is certainly not the best way to ensure that your replica lives a long and happy life, but in the interest of science, I did it not once, but four times. The M14 looked on in horror as I repeatedly held 30 second full auto bursts and dumped 1200 rounds in quick succession. The P90 took it all in stride, and worked just as good on the last round as on the first.


Final Verdict:

This gun is home run. A complete, single package solution to get new players into the game. With this replica and a bag of bb’s, a young nooblet is ready for their first game. The replica will also pleasantly surprise many more experienced players, with it’s TM like quality and reliability. In the next installment, we will tear into the gun and examine the internals.

Classic Army P90 Review Part 2:

With all the test firing and chrono results out of the way, I decided to embark on the most telling portion of any review, the mechbox teardown. Before discussing the actual contents of the box though, it must be mentioned how easily the box comes out. With the removal of only a couple of screws, the gearbox is out and ready to work on. This incredibly refreshing after working on an M series replica.

On opening the gearbox, it is immediately apparent that this is not the average CA replica that I am familiar with ( primarily the m15 series). The gears, piston, bushings, and cylinder are all different from the standard Classic Army line. The bushings are plastic, and the gears appear to made from a powdered metal material- appearing almost identical to TM gears. The cylinder is blue anodized aluminum instead of the traditional brass. The piston appears to be the black piston of Classic Army’s more checkered past...more on this below. Overall though, the quality appears to be very high. I am excited to see how this replica holds up.

I finally broke it! After about 5K rounds, the piston finally started to get loud, making that unpredictable grinding sound that is so often the harbinger of pending explosion in a gun. With disaster looming, I decided to tear it down and see what went wrong. Five thousand rounds may seem like a lot, but really that is only about 15 hicaps worth of use- 2-4 games of usage depending on your play style. Whatever the problem is, it happened far sooner than one would expect in a replica of this overall quality from Classic Army.

Opening it up.

I have really come to like working on the P90-Taking the gearbox out is only a matter of a couple of screws and a minute or so. That said, I have already had to do it way too many times-but we’ll get to that later in the article.

Cracking open the gearbox, the problem was immediately apparent- and strabnge! The piston- which looks much like the notorious black piston of the failure prone first generation M15’s ( which was a tremendous weak point)- had cracked, with the first plastic tooth partially sheared off and hanging off at a 45 degree angle. Even more interestingly, the metal insert first tooth was sheared through as well. I have opened up 100’s of gearboxes, in every sort of AEG imaginable and I have never seen a failure like this before.

Examining the rest of the components, everything appeared to be ok, with no damage or manufacturing defects to be found. As only the included battery was used, the failure can’t be chalked up to over voltage. The only modes of failure that make sense in this case are a material or design flaw; either in the piston- or more disturbingly- in the gearbox itself. As Classic Army bills this box as a “modified version 6” (it uses TM V2/V3 bushings and anti reversal latch rather than the standard version 6 parts) this is a new design and therefore yet to be proven throughout the range of part tolerance variation. My initial reaction would be to blame the failure on a material defect in the piston, as Classic Army has had a tremendous record of reliability in the last 3-4 years, and before I assume otherwise, I would have to have much more data to how that.

With the failure located, I decided to put in a new CA yellow piston (as in a top line CA replica) and metal bushings ( the stock blue bushings are plastic). I buttoned up the gearbox and reinstalled it. After only 300 rounds or so, this one grenaded as well. I will update again as I tear into the box once again.

Review by Airsoft_Reporter from Airsoft Review

This airsoft gun is not to be misrepresented as a real firearm or gun that is manufactured by FN Herstal and is merely an airsoft gun that fires 6mm pellets. The manufacturer of this airsoft gun is Classic Army.