Western Arms Beretta 8045 Cougar Review

By Brandon
June 26th, 2010

Introduction:

Western Arms (WA) has a reputation in many circles as being a first class replica manufacturers.  Many IPSC builders/shooters base their competition builds on Western Arms guns, and collectors value them for their realism and attention to detail.  Its even rumored that the Pietro Beretta museum has a replica Western Arms Cougar on display among their collection.  Their Magna Blowback and SCW (Shibuya Custom Works) are sworn by GBB systems by fans.  This model, being one of the more innocuous offerings in the WA range is also one of the less common.  In this review, we’ll look into whether the hype holds up to scrutiny while we look at some of the more interesting features of the Magna Blowback M8045 Cougar.

Real-Steel History:

“Beretta 8000 series pistols, also known under the Cougar name, first appeared on the market in 1994 as a more compact alternative to bulky, full-sized Beretta M92F service pistols. Cougar pistols were originally developed for the then new .40S&W cartridge, and latter were adopted to other calibers, such as 9x19mm Para. .357 SIG and .45ACP. These pistols offer good compromise between concealability, ease of carry, accuracy and firepower. These pistols are well suited for both police duty and for civilian self-defense.

Cougar 8000 series pistols are recoil operated, locked breech semiautomatic pistols. These pistols use relatively rare rotating barrel locking system, in which the barrel rotates on recoil to unlock itself from the slide. The rotating motion of the barrel is controlled by the stud on its bottom, which follows the cam track in the steel frame insert. To decrease peak recoil and stress to the frame, the insert is mounted on the recoil spring and is buffered. The frame is made from lightweight aluminum alloy. The basic version of the Cougar pistol is the F model, with double action trigger with exposed hammer, and ambidextrous safety/decocker levers, located on the slide. Alternative is D version, which is double action only, and thus have spurless hammer and no safety/decocker levers. Cougar pistols use double-stack magazines in 9mm, .357 and .40 caliber models, and single stack magazines in .45 caliber models.”

Source: world.guns.ru

Movie/Television Appearances:

Not surprisingly, most filmmakers forgo Cougars for the more common M9/92fs.  That aside, the Cougar has had a few appearances worth noting in films and television.

When not overacting his heart out, David Caruso carries a cougar in CSI Miami.

Also, it was one of the myriad of relatively interesting guns featured in the first Mission Impossible.

Also, it made a guest appearance in Memento, which was a great movie for you uninitiated out there.

The gun has other minor appearences in TV in shows like The Shield & Ghost in the Shell, and movies including The Hills have Eyes, and Firewall, but those were all mediocre at best, thus not pictured.

Source:  IMFDB

The Replica:

I’m not going to lie, I was rather happy when I got the chance to get our good friend Guinness’ babied 8045 Cougar from his collection when he got tired of it.  It was still essentially as new, and in relatively good shape.  I’ve had one Cougar Wild variants of these before that suffered its fate in Mike’s clumsy hands.  The recoil sprung portion of the front of the slide cracked off, and with the horrible availability of OEM parts or Aftermarket Cougar parts at the time, the gun was a write-off.

The gun itself is built solid, like most WAs.  WAs are plastic replicas as stock due to Japanese gun laws.  WA Mitigates this by painting their guns with paint that has some metal content, so the guns are cool to the touch when held.  The downside is that their finishes are not particularly durable, as can be seen in the picture above where portions of the paint are starting to wear on edges, leaving dull gray plastic underneath.

Trademarks are deeply engraved, and accurate.  Western Arms licenses their replica’s with the appropriate parent company, and as such they typically make it through customs without grip tape, putty (or the worst: dremelled trades).  As expected, the majority of the controls are made of pot metal, but are well finished, and have held up much better than the painted plastic parts.

The other side of the gun has similar deep trades.  Note the flat-headed trigger bar, which is different from the rounded one on the M9.  Also, the full Beretta grip panel trademarks are present and accurate.

The left side also has the mandatory crappy ASGK and warning marks on the front of the dust cover.  Another cool thing about this handgun is the rotating chamber, which replicates the locking chamber functionality of the real pistol.  The picture above shows the slide in full battery, whereas the picture below shows the slide pulled back slightly.  The chamber rotates up and away, and the slide continues back on its merry way.

The magazine is a pretty standard pot metal affair, and does show wear pretty easily.  Magazine capacity is 27+1

Disassembly of this handgun is the same as taking apart any other Beretta.  Pushing the button on the right side of the frame, and pushing the disassembly lever down will let the slide ride right off the front of the gun.

Once disassembled however, the recoil spring setup is slightly different than a standard “open slide” Beretta such as the M9 or M84.  Note the large block in the center of the slide.

Pulling it apart, one can see how the rotating chamber mechanism works.  The block with the diagonal notch (Bottom Left) sits securely in the frame (when the disassembly lever isn’t released), and the outer barrel is grooved to ride over the notch.  When the slide recoils on firing, the outer barrel rotates, and the gun continues its cycle back to battery.  Lots of detail for something minor, but Western Arms is known for paying attention to detail.

Here is another shot of the whole barrel/recoil spring/slide set exploded into field stripped parts.   Another note is that the Magna version does NOT have hopup.  Don’t plan on much distance shooting with this handgun.

One important note is that the gun should be put back on the slide in the manner shown above.  I’ve noticed that reassembly of the Cougar after field stripping it is a bit wonky, and may take a few tries.  This is due to the recoil spring/chamber block setup shown above not clearing the disassembly lever easily when put back together.  Just be patient, and if you feel the slide hang up, do not force it on, simply take it off and try again until it fits easily.

This is a shot of the blowback unit in the gun.  The Cougar uses the Magna system, though I think at the time of writing an SCW 2 or SCW 3 version of the Cougar has been released.  Real WA aficionados could verse us well on the differences in these systems, but for now I’ll conclude by saying that, when all is working properly, Magna guns feel great to shoot.  Also, near the top of the slide in the image, the arm for the decocker is visible.  When the gun is put on safe, the gun will decock itself if the hammer is back.  Again, this shows WA has good attention to detail, as the Marui M9 does not replicate this

For the sake of completeness, here’s a shot of the hammer mechanism.  Not much is exposed as all of the hammer and mainspring are contained under the slide rails.  The hammer workings are essentially the same as any other M9, with the main weakness being the trigger spring.  These fatigue and tend to break easily, so be weary the next time you find yourself wanting to play along with a movie, or breach and clear your laundry room, keep unnecessary trigger pulls to a minimum.

Durability Alert!!!

I struggled with writing this, due to the indeterminable nature of the failure, but I felt like I should disclose everything I’ve experienced from this replica.  I had a local player express interest in buying the gun from me about a year ago, so I let him take it over to the chrono at the local field to see if he liked it.  To my knowledge it was working at the time.  When he brought it back, it would not cycle, and simply dumps gas out the barrel like a non-blowback.  I’m not sure if it was dropped or mistreated, but according to the player, it happened on its own.   I noted no drop marks, and the gun came back to me assembled (it is wonky for a first timer), so I’m half tempted to believe him.  Either way, now you know.

Conclusion:

Take from the above what you will, but I do want to highlight that of all of my Western Arms guns, none have survived unscathed.  I had a 2011 Speedcomp II slide explode, an Infinity 5″ slowly fall apart, and of course the aforementioned episode of Mike breaking the front off of my last Cougar.  This is a pretty noticeable trend of failure that has led me to believe this- WA Guns as stock are meant for collectors who do occasional plinking, or competition builders who will replace half the gun in their build, but are not meant for skirmish duty.

Performance: 3/5

• Lack of a hopup
• Unknown failure per the durability alert on a low mileage gun is concerning.

External Design: 4.5/5

• Good trademarks
• Great Attention to detail
• Nice build material, but still a plastic GBB when boiled down.

Value: 2/5

• The most current price I could find on these (though out of stock) was $183.00.  Cheaper alternatives are available from KSC and HFC.  For a plastic pistol with no hop, this is on the expensive side.

Overall: 2.5/5

• I think this gun has value for collectors and people simply interested in the gun like myself, but as typical players tend to be skirmishers, I feel like this gun is pretty irrelevant in the canon of available pistol choices.

The Final Verdict: Pass

I feel like this pistol only holds value for a very niche group of people, and as such, feel there is better out there to be had for the money.  With that caveat out of the way, for anyone who wants a super accurate replica for display or occasional plinking, Western Arms and their Cougar have catered directly to you.