Umarex Beretta PX4 Storm Review

Overall Rating

realistic blow back action , decent build qaulity , fairly acurate

safety catch , dummy safety catches , slide does not lock back when mag empty , rotary magazine

The Umarex Beretta PX4 Storm is a great little co2 pistol and i highly recommend it for simple fun shooting , the look and feel of it and the blow back action when firing will put a smile on your face.
compared to other umarex pistols i have owned like the smith and wesson 586 and the beretta 92f i would say this one is not quite as well made but it is still decent in its construction and i would not let this put you off buying one .
accuracy i would say is not bad at all considering the blowback slide does cause more recoil than the other umarex co2 guns and undoubtably this has an effect on its accuracy , the first 8 shots tend to be all over the target but after that the blowback action weakens slightly and the gun begins to group its shots alot better and the more you get used to controlling the recoil the better the grouping gets , when shooting at targets you definatly need to use a good two handed grip and exersize good trigger control to achieve tight groups of shots . I can manage about a 1 to 1 and a half inch group at 6 meters using a double handed grip , single handed and the grouping of shots tends to get a bit wild .
Also the type of pellets used makes a huge difference to this guns accuracy , i found eley wasps to be pritty bad and after some trial and error RWS super domes seem to be the best all round pellet that ive used up to now , also suprisingly gammo lead bb,s faired better than the eley wasps but the rws superdomes definatly seem to out perform all others.
The trigger..........well at first it just feels wrong , there is a long travel on the trigger before it rotates the 8 shot cylinder (yes alas this is still technically a revolver and not a true semi auto ) but once the cylinder has been rotated then the final movement of the trigger is crisp and has a precise let off point , once you get used to this and treat it like a two stage trigger then you begin to realise that infact the trigger mechanisim is fantastic and rapid firing is a breaze .
ok now for some minor dislikes and they are very minor but in my opinion stopped this gun from being possibly the best pistol in the umarex range .
first the magazine , the gun itself feels sturdy and strong but the mag seems to be on the flimsy side and is an all plastic construction , although if fired over 2000 pellets through the gun i cant help but think that the first thing to break on the gun is this magazine time will tell. Also i think it should have come with at least one extra mag .
second the saftey catch . Although it does work fine it is almost impossible to use single handedly especialy if your right handed and it takes away some of the realisim of the look of the gun also where on the real px4 the saftey is catch is located on the slide both left and right and is engaged and dissengaged by the thumb , on the umarex px4 thease are just dummies and do not move or work they are purely for show , it would have been so so so much better if umarex could have made the saftey catch the same as the real px4 .
third the slide . The slide does not lock back once the magazine becomes empty as it would on a real semi auto , not a major issue but it sure would have been nice and added some realisim to go along with the nice blowback action.
finaly missfires . the gun does seem to missfire , i dont know a better way of explaining this other than to call it a miss fire , for some reason that i dont exactly know why but now and again the gun when fired fails to expel the pellet out of the cylinder in the magazine and the sound of the gun also changes when this happens from the usual loud crack to a dull thump as if the gas was too weak and was failing to propel the pellet but thease miss fires have happend when using a fresh and full power co2 cartridge , i cant be sure but i think this is due to the rotary magazine not quiet being exactly online with the barrel when the shot is fired causing the pellet to slightly hit the outer edge of the barrel instead of being pushed into the barrel , this would explain the sound change as the gas is not traveling down the barrel and is forced to the sides , again i belive the problem lies directly with the magazine and not the valve mechanisim as once the miss fire occurs a quick removal of the magazine and turning the rotary cylinder a few times by hand then replaceing the mag back into position seems to solve the miss fire and the gun begins firing correctly again , this miss fire once caused the mag to become jamed inside of the gun and to remove it i had to pull back the slide and very carefully using a small screw driver push the mag out from the top as the cause of the jammed mag was because the pellet had become stuck between the rotary cylinder and the barrel . once again i think the desighn of the mag will be the only downfall of this other wise great pistol .

after all said and done out of over 2000 shots it has only miss fired about 10 or 15 times and ive fired about 600 shots since the last miss fire.
i would not let thease pritty minor bad points deture anyone from buying this pistol , over all it is a great gun and loads of fun and when used in a warm climate is pritty powerful , i wouldent be suprised if it chronographed around about 400 fps with the right pellet and temperature , when used indoors mine can blow apart thick glass coffie jars but out doors in this currant winter climate the power loss is very noticable but it will still happily shred tin cans , i think for what this pistol was meant for wich is pure fun it is more than powerful enough .

strap a laser to the piccany rail , line up those coke tins and blast away , this pistol is garenteid to more than satisfy .

Members' Comments ontbonesnake's Review

• airgunuser on 16th May 2009

  We have owned one of these guns for three weeks now. It's great fun but in general we agree with the three dislikes referred to above. Missfires were a considerable problem and we too went back to the shop with the gun for help. They could not replicate the problem so we changed pellets. Using Accupells we have had no further difficulties. This suggests the problem is associated with the size of the pellets and the accuracy of their manufacture. Clearly the plastic magazine provides too much friction for any pellet even slightly oversize. The other comment we would make is the gun goes through CO2 canisters at a much faster rate than our Beretta 92FS.
  On a different subject, I question the sense of firing at a glass container indoors...!