I Held the New SOLGW MK.1 — I Wanted to Take It Home

This post companions the published 6mm Badger video I Held the New SOLGW MK.1 — I Wanted to Take It Home.

Lancer Tactical invited me down to their offices in LA — about an hour’s drive for me — to check out the Sons of Liberty Gun Works Mark I before it launches. I walked in, saw Isaiah and Cisco, and they literally just handed me the thing and said, “check it out.” No script, no guardrails. What follows is what I actually found with it in my hands.

What the MK.1 Actually Is

This is a three-way team-up: Lancer Tactical, Toxicant, and Sons of Liberty Gun Works, copying one of SOLGW’s most popular models — the Mark I. Underneath the externals it’s a Tokyo Marui MWS gas blowback system, and apparently a near one-to-one copy at that. That means MWS magazine compatibility and MWS bolt compatibility, which matters enormously if you’re already invested in the platform. Your existing mags, your spare bolts, your tuning parts — they carry over.

The unit I handled was a late-stage prototype, not a final production sample. Lancer told me the production version may perform slightly differently — if anything, better, because the little issues they’ve found along the way are being fixed rather than shipped.

Externals: Toxicant Doing What Toxicant Does

If you’ve watched my Toxicant XM5 build — one of my most popular, and at $1,600 my most expensive — you know what Toxicant is renowned for: incredible externals, build quality, and finishes. The MK.1 is exactly that.

The handguard is the honeycomb-style rail SOLGW runs on their own builds, and the texture on it is genuinely hard to get across on camera. It’s almost like stippling on a grip — a skateboard-tape feel that works with gloves and, honestly, feels good enough that I’d run it without. Because the texture is built in, you don’t need rail scales, and because there’s a cable-management groove underneath the Picatinny top rail — a SOLGW design touch — your light and laser cables route through the channel instead of along the rail. No M-LOK wire clips, no cables snaking across the slots. The whole rail stays clear. I’ve never set up an airsoft replica that way, and I love it.

The details keep going. SOLGW markings on the outer barrel. Clean angle cuts on the lower receiver with a flared mag well built in. A hollowed-out rear locking pin. An ambidextrous fire selector with a red accent. A functioning forward assist — actually functioning, I checked. An extended paddle mag release with a cover machined into the upper around it. Two honest criticisms: the bolt release is single-sided, and so is the mag release. The ambi control you get is the fire selector only.

It’s coming in gray — the color I handled — and black. Those are the two I was told about. The prototype also wore a Delta stock, an officially licensed B5 Systems P22 grip, and a QD sling point at the rear plate, right where I always end up adding one on my AR-style builds. There’s no QD point on the handguard itself, so budget for a Magpul M-LOK QD mount if you run a two-point sling up front. One more thing: the tracer unit on the prototype will not ship with the production model. It comes with a regular flash hider, so you can run whatever muzzle device you want.

Internals: Built to Be Done Out of the Box

The spec sheet Lancer gave me reads like a build list, not a stock parts list:

• CNC’d aluminium receiver set and handguard
• CNC steel magazine catch, bolt catch, and safety selector
• Toxicant multi-functional adjustable steel trigger box
• Stainless steel DLC bolt carrier group
• Laylax hop-up rubber
• A5 buffer tube with ten positions of adjustment, not the usual six

That trigger box deserves its own paragraph. It’s adjustable for trigger position and slack, sensitivity, hammer strength, pull weight, and pre-loading on the disconnector — and these boxes normally run $250 to $300 on their own. On the prototype, the trigger had some take-up before the break, which isn’t to my taste; I like almost no take-up and to be on the wall straight away. But that’s the point of an adjustable box — you tune it out. It comes tuned by Toxicant from the factory, and you take it from there.

The rest is MWS-familiar. The hop-up adjustment is the standard MWS wheel at the top of the upper receiver. The bolt carrier group looks like a typical MWS unit with the nozzle return spring, and there’s an aluminium buffer weight in the buffer tube. There’s no NPAS fitted, but because it’s an MWS-style bolt, you can add one. And unlike my Toxicant XM5 — which arrived with a short inner barrel I had to replace — this comes with a proper full-size inner barrel and upgraded internals out of the box. You’re not doing the usual round of MWS upgrades just to get it where it should have been.

How It Felt

Recoil sits in an interesting spot: a little less than a VFC, but more than a stock MWS — the aluminium buffer weight is likely doing some of that work. Rate of fire on full auto is standard MWS. The bolt makes a very cool sound on the cycle, though some of that is the can it was wearing.

Magazine compatibility is the question everyone asks, so I tested it. Lancer hasn’t confirmed which magazine ships in the box, but it should work with all MWS-style magazines. I ran a Guns Modify Gen 3 mag in it: seated with very little movement, bolt lock worked great, and honestly the action felt a touch snappier with that mag than with the test mag they had on hand. Because it’s MWS-compatible, tuning is wide open — an Angry Gun heavyweight buffer, a bigger spring, whatever direction you want to take it.

For context on the finish quality: it reminded me of my ITP-M Micro 14 EBR, which is high praise. And this prototype has been used — Lancer has been shooting content with it — yet I couldn’t find scratches or marks on it. Seeing it in person is genuinely better than the pictures and videos online suggest.

Price and the 200-Unit Reality

Around $1,200. It’s a Toxicant, and Toxicants are expensive — but I’d braced for something closer to the XM5’s $1,600, so it landed lower than I expected. Still, it’s expensive, especially against the other gas blowbacks Lancer Tactical has coming shortly.

Here’s the part that changes the math: only 200 of these are going to retailers. A lot of buyers will want it as a collector’s piece — to be able to say they’ve got one — and at 200 units worldwide, it will sell out. If you want one, pre-order when they go live. Lancer also told me they’re planning other SOLGW versions down the line at more affordable price points, though those likely won’t carry the same insane attention to detail you get with a Toxicant build.

Launch is Q4 this year — within a couple of months of filming.

Verdict

If you’re the player who wants the very best and wants it to look almost identical to the original Mark I, this is probably the best option out there. It’s not cheap, the bolt release isn’t ambi, and I’d rather it shipped with a QD point on the handguard — but the trigger box alone is a $250–$300 part, the externals are the best I’ve handled on an MWS-based platform, and it’s ready to run out of the box.

Also at the office: an SLR Rifle Works 6.8 Creedmoor — a .308-style build with a fat mag — which I think is coming in 2027, plus more Lancer Tactical gas blowbacks shortly. I’ll keep tabs on all of it and update you on the channel when the MK.1 goes on sale.

As for the prototype — I kind of wanted to take it home. I joked about slipping it into my kit bag and walking out. Isaiah and Cisco, if you’re reading this: the offer stands.