Wednesday, May 26, 2010

USP Thoughts and Impressions

Dan picked up an H&K USP 9mm for a good price brand new, so he was willing to overcome the whole "you suck and we hate you" thing and buy it.  He almost didn't because of that, but he likes how it feels anyway, and they are pretty decent in quality, so more power to him.













I'll admit, it's a decent looking gun.















Look, Tupperware!













Overall, the fit and finish is quite nice, as you'd expect from something with H&K stamped on it, and it fit both of our slightly over-sized hands pretty well.  It came with fixed sharp three dot sights, and handles and points pretty well.  We didn't really do much accuracy testing, just a roughly kill zone sized target at up to 25 yards. (it was an impromptu evening range trip primarily to just blow of some steam... pretty well accomplished aside from the poor AR bolt...) Boils down to if it were a goblin, it would have been hurting.

Down to my opinions on it.  I'm pretty meh.  The checkering on the front strap is a bit too course and sharp for my likes (it's cut, er molded, at like 8 lpi...). The front strap has to be my biggest complaint.  It sure provides a pretty aggressive grip, but just holding the gun hurt my fingers to the point of distraction. The grip is also much boxier than my Sig, and the muzzle flip is pretty snappy, more so than my Sig even without the light.  (My only major complaint about the Sig.)  On the other hand, Dan has been a revolver guy up till this point, so he didn't really notice the flip at all.





















No malfunctions were experienced in the 100 or so rounds shot through it, where my (albeit much much dirtier) Sig had 2 stovepipes in the same amount of rounds.  She needs a good scrubbing.

Another down side is the proprietary H&K rail, something Sig went away from by the time they got around to the Pro2022 series in favor of a 1913 standard rail.  I'll never fully understand why some makers insist on their own system when there's a fantastic industry standard out there... and I'm not at all surprised H&K is one of them.

2 comments:

Tam said...

I've more than once considered going with a USP9F as a beater gun.

As a matter of fact, if 1911s didn't exist, a Variant 9 USP9F would probably be on my hip right now...

Fred said...

It's still a little more pricey than I'd consider for a pure beater gun. (My Sig was less and came with night sights!) But from what I've seen of them so far (two of my friends have them now) I'd be willing to trust it.

I just can't get over that front strap though...