Airsoft Mystery Box – Worth It?

This time we’ll be looking at a Airsoft Mystery Box and asking Are they really worth it?

What is a Airsoft Mystery Box

The basic principle of a Mystery Box is that you buy one for a fixed price, but you have no idea what you’ll get.  There is a risk is that you end up with a load of junk or stuff that you don’t want. But on the flip side, there is also an assumption or a hope is that the value of the Mystery Box is greater than what you paid for it and you end up with some cool stuff.

That’s the attraction and that’s the gamble.

Socom Tactical

So I was shopping on the Socom Tactical website.  I was looking to get a standard WE Gen 4 G17 gas blowback pistol.

Whilst I was there I spotted a the Mystery boxes and I was intrigued.  Maybe it was a bit of lock down boredom, but I had the question – Are they actually worth it?  And I would share my findings with you.

Socom Tactical sells a mystery box for anything from £25 to £1000.

You select the value you want. And then add some notes on what your sizes are, you loadout colour or what rifle you have.  This gives Socom the opportunity to make the Mystery box more personalise and reduces the risk of getting a tat that you don’t wait.

If you have a valid UKARA, you can then select RIF or if you don’t select two tone.

Then you DOB and UKARA number and add to basket.

My order from Socom was simple.  One standard WE Gen 4 17 pistol for a £100 pounds and one £50 mystery box.  Total order value £150.

Unboxing

So a few days later, the order arrived.  Here’s everything that turned up. Pistol, mystery box and the free holster.

My first thoughts when opening up the order was “erm…  hello!?! This is not the pistol I ordered.  I was expecting a WE Gen 4.  What I actually got was a WE G17 WET Edition.  But then the penny dropped and I released Socom Tactical had upgraded my pistol as part of the Mystery box.

The WET edition has a very nice textured grip. The mag plate and mag well has a groove in it. I guess for make mag removal easier. Which is nice.  There some kind of engraved writing on the mag well.

WE G17 WET Edition

A metal flat trigger with a red two stage safety. Gold barrel which is a little too bling bling for my liking. I like the trigger though. And theres a skull embossed into the slide plate

I felt that upgrading a gun in my order as part of the mystery box was a little cheeky, especially if I was after something very specific. Had I have known, I could have added a note to the order saying – don’t change the pistol. Maybe Socom can add a note that a mystery box saying it could effect other items in the order.  Depending on your point of view, this would possibly be a good thing, or maybe not if you are after a specific make and model of RIF

The price of this WET edition is £115, so £15 more expensive than a Standard Gen 4 edition.

This is the free Amomax tactical holster has a price label of £19.99. But Socom Tactical were giving away a free holster with all WE pistol purchases. I can’t include this in assessment of the mystery box as it was part of a separate offer.  It’s a nice standard holster.  I have Nuprol and FMA holsters of this style before.  This one fits nicely.  Cool.

Airsoft Mystery Box

Right enough about the free upgraded pistol. Let’s get back to the mystery box itself. It’s a reused  box of some description.

Let open it up and take a look at what we got. Just zoom out a little bit.

Ok first up – a patch.  I’m your huckleberry.  Right, it is a reference to the film Tombstone where Val Kilmer played the cool character Doc Holladay. Love that film so happy with that.

Next is a pair of Fast fit gloves. Oh these are the Mechamix camo gloves.  I’ve seen black and white writing version of this worn by some player.  These camo ones are cool – I like those.

What else do we have.  A FMA suppressor.  Looks about 20cm long.  Ok Ahh nice, this is actually a Noveske.  It’s maybe by the same people that do the new cool spitfire tracer – but this is really nice. It’s metal, nice texture, and is double ended – I assume a 14mm clockwise and counter clockwise thread.  And nice that it is spring and foam filled. I like that too.

What else to we have. Right so this is a black some kind of pouch or panel. Molle on the back. A viper tactical assault panel whatever that is.. Large pocket on the front and three smaller pouches that kinda look like they are for Enola Graye smokes or grenades.  Could also be a hydration bladder pouch. Right jury’s out on this one – will have to look it up and find out what it is. Put that out the way for now.

And lastly a bag of Proball BB’s. 0.23 weight. 3500 of them.  Never used this brand before so will good to give em a go.  You can never have too many BB’s

Cost vs Value

Let’s recap what we’ve got and total everything up.  Remember that my total spend was £150.

That’s a total of  £196 which is a £46 difference.

So I was £4 away from doubling my money on the mystery box.

Summary

Am I happy with what I got?  Yeah – I am.  Not sure about the Viper panel, but everything else was cool.  I’ve decided to keep the Wet edition G17.  Plan was to upgrade the standard version with a crazy jet inner barrel and hop.  But I like the flat trigger and textured grip on the WET.  Might change the gold outer barrel too.  All in all I’m happy with the purchase and it was a bit of anticipation and fun opening it up.

Would I buy another one?  Well I probably would.  And thinking about it, I have a couple of airsofting nephews who are always difficult to know what to get them for birthdays and Christmas.  This could be a really good gift idea for an airsofter that has everything but can always do with more. To my nephews – You now may know what you are getting for your birthday!

A finally to the original question – Are they worth it.  On paper my box was definitely worth it.  You do of course run the risk of getting stuff you don’t want, but then you’d know that when you purchase it.

Thanks for the order Socom Tactical!  But to everyone else, I hope this demystifies the airsoft mystery box and you now know sort of thing to expect.

To see more honest reviews of airsoft kit, make sure you check out YouTube and the blog.