IZH35M & Feinwerkebrau AW93 Comparison

[diopter]

Interested in hearing from anyone with experience with both pistols.
Is the AW93 that much better for the price?
Feeling, balance, reliabity, recoil etc, how do they compare?

I'M using iron sights only, so cope or dot mount not an issue.

[James Hurr]

I have an Izh35M, I put ~50 rnds through a FWB AW93.
Looking at them it seems the FWB, and the MG2, are derivatives of the Izh.

The FWB is the better made gun by a mile, has a steeper grip angle, weaker but longer recoil cycle. It also has a last rnd hold open, which I am not keen on. I vaguely remember not being too happy with the rearsight.
It is possibly a little heavy.

The Izh is lighter, has a more vertical grip and is 'well engineered' in the sense every component does exactly what it needs to and no more.
Trigger was set up for me by and expert and I have found no reason to change it, apart from trigger slack set screw (first stage length).
The rearsight could be better designed mechanically.

It is reckoned the Izh does need the attention of someone who is very familiar with them to set them up properly, they are not perfect out of the box, trigger especially. Some parts need deburring for example. I was lucky enough to have this done for me.

Both were available to me and I went for the Izh. You can buy three for the price of an FWB, and the Izh is still very competitive. Stripping is a bit tricky but OK once you get the hang of it. It also seems to keep itself clean, maybe by virtue of all the angled surfaces around the breach.

Both need a new grip, the factory grip on the Izh is very much a starting point for further development. According to the manual it is available with an adjustable grip, grip blank or a factory custom grip to suit your hand, although I guess most available will be with adjustable grips.

[James Hurr]

Now I read your note again...

Feeling, balance: FWB Heavier, more forward balance.

Reliability: Izh No malfunctions in first 1,000 rnds. FWB don't know

Recoil: Izh sharper and quicker. For rapid fire probably better, for standard or sport maybe not so good.
FWB softer and smoother

[Mark Briggs]

Just to follow up on what's already been posted, the AW-93 is very heavy, about 1200 grams, or about 150 grams heavier than the IZH. The AW is indeed nose heavy. The trigger is capable of being adjusted over a much wider range than that of the IZH - you can have it as a single stage, as a short two-stage, or as a long two-stage trigger, with creep, without creep, with overtravel, without overtravel. The AW trigger is indeed far more adjustable than that of the IZH

When it comes to sights, the AW rear sight gives a far wider variety of adjustments, including rear notch width and depth. The IZH is adjustable in this regard only if you're good with a file! The rear sight on the AW has a chunk of plastic under it which leaves the sight area looking grey instead of black. This setup isn't my favourite as it requires blackening in order to provide good contrast. I own no other pistol which, from the factory, requires sight blackening.

Both pistols use pretty solid magazines and in this respect are very similar. A previous comment about the MG-2 being similar is, with all due respect, totally out to lunch. The tubular magazine of the MG-2 results in a very different bullet feed mechanism which uses two levers. It bears no resemblance to any other pistol currently on the market, period.

As far as functioning goes, the IZH is pretty bullet-proof. We use them as a club gun and they feed just about everything. My AW still is very picky about what ammo it will feed and a large percentage of those that I've seen are likewise picky until the chamber is reamed. This isn't a big job, just a frustration that one should have to do it on the most expensive standard pistol on the market.

When it comes to fit and finish, the AW is in a class of its own. It truly is a beautiful pistol. The IZH is, by comparison, crudely finished. And there are always little annoying things that happen with the IZH like the grip screws coming loose, which just doesn't happen with the AW. But don't buy the factory Feinwerkbau grips as they're incredibly uncomfortable. They just don't feel right in any regard. The grips supplied by Rink are vastly superior and worth the little extra they cost.

The most important test of a pistol is in its use. In this regard the AW and IZH are again two very different pistols. The AW has a long, slow recoil impulse and a slow action cycle. This makes it, in my mind, likely the very best pistol possible for precision events like Sport Pistol. On the other hand it functions too slowly to allow rapid shot recovery for Rapid Fire. The IZH is just the opposite, with a short, sharp recoil stroke and fast action cycle time. It performs very well for Rapid Fire. Given its other shortcomings mentioned above I wouldn't use it as a first choice in the precision events; for Standard Pistol and Rapid Fire where sustained firing requires quick shot recovery, it's miles ahead of the AW. Plus the IZH will eat just about anything you feed it, making for cheap practice sessions.

Neither the AW nor the IZH have a dedicated dry-fire feature like the MG-2 has, but both are designed so the firing pin won't strike the breech face of the barrel when dry fired. The IZH must be fired with the breech virtually closed (otherwise the disconnector comes into play and the gun won't fire), whereas the AW may be fired with the breech almost wide open. A couple of minutes of whittling will produce a block of wood which may be placed between the breech and the breech block. This piece of wood will allow the pistol to be dry-fired with only a little "click" being heard, and wiht the pistol very easy to re-cock for the next dry-fire. This makes for a pleasant dry firing experience.

OK, that's about it for now. Hope I've covered all the bases...

[eaaresk]

I'll support Mark's comments about the AW93 except the one about the pistol being picky when it comes to ammo. I have probably fired around 10,000 rounds through mine now, and the only brand that produces a malfire every now and then is the Federal Clasic. I suppose that has to do with the fairly long bullet. I should probably qualify that statement by the way, as I have experienced a couple of case separations with the Fiocchi Maxac Soft. Very unpleasant, I can assure you, but then I don't know whether that problem is caused by the gun or substandard Italian workmanship and QC.... The head blew and left the case wall in the chamber! Needless to say, I have left the remaining boxes of Maxac for my CZ rifle!

I think I've seen some other comments on the forum about AW93 chambers needing reaming, that was not the case with mine (serial number just below 5000), so this is probably a problem with a limited production run (not that I have any idea about how many pistols were affected by this problem).

Please note that the instruction manual has a caution that dry firing should be practised without a buffer cartridge. Sounds strange to me, but one has to assume the guys in Oberndorf know their product!

Mark mentions Rink grips as a better alternative to the factory grip, and I would agree that the factory grip leaves a lot to be desired. I've noticed that there are two models of the Rink grip for the AW93, one being referred to as suitable for AW93F. Do you Mark, or anybody else, know what the difference is and when the design was changed?

As Mark said, the trigger is adjustable in every way that you can ever wish, on the other hand this exercise can be a real hassle....

[Guest]

In one sense there is no comparison. The FWB is built and priced to be a lifetime investment. I have seen the IZH literally fall apart within two seasons. One club member sold his for scrap/parts ($100 to a gunsmith) as the bolt just beat the chamber to a peened over mess. This was around 2001, when 3 or 4 guys were using them. None are currently in use. Perhaps the newer ones are better.......

[James Hurr]

A previous comment about the MG-2 being similar is, with all due respect, totally out to lunch.

You may be out to lunch, maybe thats why you didn't notice the similarity,

Mechanically the Izh and the MG2 are not dissimilar, they share many features, similar bolt designs, no firing pin spring, over-slide hammer, barrel line as low as it can be. The obvious difference is the magazine design.

There are other detail differences, but in terms of mechanical performance they are essentially the same.

I would also suggest the sloping front of the MG2 is technically an illegal muzzle brake.

[Walter]

The AW is indeed nose heavy.

I wouldn't say that it's nose heavy.
The balance point with 5 rounds is exactly on the trigger.

[Mark Briggs]

Interesting points of view, one and all.

With respect to Walter's point, he is indeed correct. The AW balance point is somewhere around the trigger (depending on where you have the trigger set, of course). The weight of the pistol remains high at 1200 grams. This makes it a strong contender in the precision events because it feels so stable.

Just to clarify, my comment concerning the AW being picky about ammo is more a comment about the IZH and the MG-2 being absolutely NOT picky about ammo - they eat anything. The AW's with which I've had experience have all had chambers requiring reaming. Mine is s/n 54XX and has extreme feeding problems, so I'm back to reaming it out again. I suspect the majority of production units don't have this defect, but for those which have it's a right royal pain. Once reamed they seem to be pretty tolerant of ammo (although I doubt those who have spent big dollars on an AW are likely to shoot a lot of really crappy cheap ammo through their pistol so we might collectively not have too much depth of experience with some of the cheapest stuff).

With respect to the MG-2 and IZH similarities, there are indeed the similarities that have been pointed out, however there also are vast differences between the guns in the feed mechanism. For anybody who's looking to purchase one of these pistols, the IZH would be referred to as "conventional" while the MG-2 would be referred to as being very unconventional. It's that very unconventionality that scares some folks away from the MG-2. And not having a magazine in the grip is a major departure in design philosophy for the MG-2, allowing for one huge user benefit - adjustable grip angle. In this respect the IZH and MG-2 are completely unalike. And the same can be said for their triggers and sights, which are not in the least comparable between the two models. Don't get me wrong, the IZH is a great gun, and I believe strongly enough in them to have owned one and to have purchased a fleet of them for use as club guns in our local shooting club. But the IZH is not an MG-2 nor an AW-93, the latter two being in a completely different class of pistol.

[SteveT]

I only have experience from one FWB, mine, SN 47xx. It has had no problems whatsoever. It doesn't even get very dirty. I have fed it probably 15-20 different types/brands of ammo (all SV and Target) with no problems. Some more accurate than others, but no failures of any kind.

[James Hurr]

A handy list of things to look at if you get an Izh
http://izh.petebrunelli.com/

BTW My grip safety did not work when the pistol arrived (I since pinned it out, removal is reckoned to be tricky) so be warned!
The instructions for the Walther KSP show how to 'activate' the grip safety, bizarre.....

[Pradeep5]

My aw93 is absolutely flawless with SK Magazine (in the cans). I have the KN Nill grip on mine.

[dam8]

After 200 rounds through my used izh 35m, no problems, no malfunctions. I find it a user friendly gun