Why I almost didn't buy an HK P30, and why I'm GLAD I finally did!

[daveshrews]

I had been wanting an H&K for years (thanks a LOT, Jack Bauer!) Yet, all the gun forums told me that they are insanely overpriced, and that H&K thinks that I suck.

I primarily shoot Glocks (it's just what I shoot the best; don't judge me), and I never got around to buying a USP even though something in the back of my head always shouted (you want an HK, you want an HK.) When several HK models became MA compliant a few years back, part of me said "now's the time, since it's so easy to buy one now." Still, nothing. Being a left-handed shooter, the P30 really appealed to me, but because no pre-ban mags exist for it, I didn't buy one out of principle.

Well, I finally said screw it. I don't care that I can only get 10 round mags for it... 10 rounds are enough for my G30 and my G26, so I'm not going to let that hold me back. And I don't care that HK thinks I suck; hopefully I never have to deal with their customer service. (And besides, I've actually heard recently that HK customer service is very good.) And I don't really intend to carry this gun, so I'm going to get the long slide version and make it a fun range toy.

I am so glad I made the decision to buy it; I LOVE this gun. Everyone has heard that HK's have incredible ergonomics, but seriously, if you haven't picked one up, go pick one up. It feels amazing. And you can tell by looking at it and feeling it that it's built like a tank. And how does it shoot, you ask? It's incredible. It's without question the softest-shooting 9mm I've ever fired... I seriously don't understand how it has so little recoil. (Not that I'm bothered by recoil at all, but this honestly has almost none.) Some people complain about the trigger; I love the trigger... it's long, but by the end of my first range session, I had finally figured out how to put most of my shots in the center. You can feel where the break is, and then if you stop right there, you can press off the next shot with perfect precision.

And the best part of this gun? I don't know what this is called, but I think it's bad-ass. If you slam a mag in on a locked-back chamber, the slide snaps forward without having to press the slide release. I absolutely love this.

So, sorry for the long fairly-useless post, but I just had to share with NES how much I love my new H&K P30L, and I'm happy to answer questions for anyone else who may be thinking of getting one. Could an M&P do the same job as the H&K for half the price? Yes, absolutely. But if you feel like owning a Mercedes instead of a Camry, you're gonna want one of these bad boys.

 

[atilla]

welcome to the cult of gay for HK.

the lady shoots mine better than i do, makes me laugh. she gets why i bought it and why i like it after putting a few mags through it herself.

 

[daveshrews]

welcome to the cult of gay for HK.

the lady shoots mine better than i do, makes me laugh.

Ha, thanks. I am definitely not a fanboy though! I just like the gun. My Glock 19 still gets the honor of being the bedside gun.

My wife hasn't shot the P30 yet, but I'm pretty sure she's going to shoot it better than I do, too. Damn't.

I'm going to tell her the HK stands for Hello Kitty.

 

[rkwjunior]

I like my Glocks so much i have no desire to own any other type of handgun, unless it's a sought after model like an FNP tactical, which i found. The only other handgun i might purchase is the Arsenal Strike One, if it ever clears BATFE sometime this century.

 

[drgrant]

They do feel amazing but for some of us, when we look down the sights, the gun is pointing at the ground. I have to "heel" the newer HKs to bring the front sight back up to where it should be, and it's really unnatural. I guess I'm poisoned from having more Glock and 1911 trigger time than all the others combined. It's too bad they didn't have grip spacers that changed the angle as well as the size. That and the LEM trigger doesn't reset fast enough for my taste... but that's a small issue compared to NPOA problems.

-Mike

 

[atilla]

hilariously in my line-up my glock 19 and 1911 are tied for #1, but the HK is right behind them.

 

[Queen Bee]

i started out on HK's and can't knock em. they do make really nice guns..

then i drank the glock-aid

 

[roccoracer]

I am seriously considering a P30 LS in .40. Unless of course I could get the HK45. Anyone have a HK45?

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[ChevyGuy91]

They look like Hi-Points to me, I hope they shoot better then they look.

 

[daveshrews]

They look like Hi-Points to me, I hope they shoot better then they look.

I can assure you they shoot 100 times better than a Hi-Point.
Source: I'm from the internet.

 

[Knicks]

Don't the glocks chamber when you slam the mag?

 

[drgrant]

Don't the glocks chamber when you slam the mag?

Lots of semis do that, some of them do it constantly and some of them you have to have "the wrist" or seat the mag unusually hard to get it to unlock the slide.

-Mike

 

[daveshrews]

Don't the glocks chamber when you slam the mag?

I have tried this on all my Glocks and my Beretta, and none of them will do it no matter what I try. The HK does it very easily. It's just a fun little feature, and makes me really want to go out and try some IDPA.

 

[Knicks]

I have tried this on all my Glocks and my Beretta, and none of them will do it no matter what I try. The HK does it very easily. It's just a fun little feature, and makes me really want to go out and try some IDPA.

I've done it a couple of times on my first 19. I bought another and tried it and did this to my hand. Yes I'm in the men's room.

 

[IPSC_DRL]

And the best part of this gun? I don't know what this is called, but I think it's bad-ass. If you slam a mag in on a locked-back chamber, the slide snaps forward without having to press the slide release. I absolutely love this.

I don't know if there is a name for this feature or not but I LOVE the fact that my S&W M&P .45 does this consistently.

 

[drgrant]

They look like Hi-Points to me, I hope they shoot better then they look.

They are pretty mechanically accurate, probably the most accurate plastic-framed handgun out there. Problem is they really need to go striker fired. the LEM wouldn't be so bad if the reset length didn't suck so much.

I'm a several years out of recovery HK pistol fanboi.... and this is kind of what the "product experience" is like....




-Mike

 

[GadgettR1]

I recently acquired a HK45C Tactical. Only put 30 or so rounds through it so far. But no, I'm not selling it.

I am seriously considering a P30 LS in .40. Unless of course I could get the HK45. Anyone have a HK45?

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[Lsgun1]

I'm just standing by idle hoping the HK45 becomes compliant.

 

[Queen Bee]

I'm just standing by idle hoping the HK45 becomes compliant.

in this state you don't stand by idle .. you go out and get it anyway you can.. or you'll be waiting past your death bed.

i shot one, pretty nice btw

 

[BONESTOCK]

I have wanted an HK for the past 10 years or so.
I have owned just about everything under the sun and most of the time at least 2 of whatever.
I still have not done the HK and for one simple reason
I met drgrant one time for a transaction and he shared his personal experience with me
after that I just said NO to HK
I think it may be the first and only time I ever truly learned from somebody's mistake and just did not need to make that same error.

 

[Queen Bee]

I met drgrant one time for a transaction and he shared his personal experience with me
after that I just said NO to HK
I think it may be the first and only time I ever truly learned from somebody's mistake and just did not need to make that same error.

That deserves a story time ...

Drgrant..

 

[vickers]

I bought an HK P30L as my first pistol a couple of months ago. Still getting used to it, but I like it. Shot an IDPA intro class with it this weekend and it was flawless, too bad the operator wasn't up to the level of the pistol!

 

[rcwhat]

I had a p30l, hated the trigger, loved the ergos. Ended up trading it for a nice 1911

 

[daveshrews]

That deserves a story time ...

Drgrant..

Yes please... I'm also waiting patiently for this story.

I've had 3 range sessions so far with the new P30L. It took me about 50 rounds to get used to the trigger and now I actually like it a lot. The single action trigger is great (in my opinion.) I mean, it's not a 1911 trigger or anything, but I can shoot really well with it. The reset could be a bit shorter, but I really don't think it's bad at all.

Ironically, the double action pull is LONG but I can actually shoot it better than I ever could with my Sigs on double action.

 

[ACB84]

You mean one of these HK45's

I am seriously considering a P30 LS in .40. Unless of course I could get the HK45. Anyone have a HK45?

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[drgrant]

Yes please... I'm also waiting patiently for this story.

I'm working on it. It's going to take me a bit. It's not as dramatic as it sounds, though. So if you're expecting something like this... (Just think of the Persian guy as being an HK sales rep)




...you're gonna be disappointed.

 

[daveshrews]

I bought an HK P30L as my first pistol a couple of months ago. Still getting used to it, but I like it. Shot an IDPA intro class with it this weekend and it was flawless, too bad the operator wasn't up to the level of the pistol!

I'd like to get into IDPA and am planning on using the P30L when I do. Two dumb questions for you:

1) Once you load and re-holster, did you prefer to fire your first shot double action, or from cocked and locked (single action?)

2) Is there a 10 rd mag limit in IDPA? I can't find a definitive answer, and in my opinion that was the one disadvantage of using this gun.. the fact that there will never be pre-ban mags available for it in MA. But maybe it doesn't matter in IDPA if there is a 10 round limit...

 

[ChevyGuy91]

I'd like to get into IDPA and am planning on using the P30L when I do. Two dumb questions for you:

1) Once you load and re-holster, did you prefer to fire your first shot double action, or from cocked and locked (single action?)

2) Is there a 10 rd mag limit in IDPA? I can't find a definitive answer, and in my opinion that was the one disadvantage of using this gun.. the fact that there will never be pre-ban mags available for it in MA. But maybe it doesn't matter in IDPA if there is a 10 round limit...

Load your mags to 10 or what ever the stage calls for, sometimes 6. As for SA/DA, idk, I haven't wasted my time with one of those since I got out of the .mil.

 

[drgrant]

That deserves a story time ...

Drgrant..

Ok let me get a couple of things out on the table here....

What I'm about to post isn't a harrowing indictment of HKs handguns. They produce a decent, accurate product that is reliable enough to a degree that gets you well out of para and taurus garbage land, by a factor 10 and then some. What I'm about to say here has nothing to do with the basic function of these guns. The guns look good, awesome LOOKING product for a polymer framed handgun. The slide and barrel finish is also unrivaled. They are decent guns and I would never tell someone they were retarded for buying one. Most of this is a taste thing, what I'm about to talk about is more "the softer elements" that people don't think of.

I'll give you some background...

There was a time in my gun owning existence where I owned the following HK products, and all of which I owned for over a year, sometimes, several years, and I poured a lot of rounds down the gullets of all of these guns.

HK P7M8 - 9mm - My first handgun, kept it until a couple years ago.
HK USPc .40 and USPc .45 (Carried both of these a long time)
HK P2000 .40 LEM (Carried this gun at least an entire year, probably longer)
HK USP .40
HK USP .45, USP .45 Tactical, USP .45 Elite
HK .45 LEM
HK MK23 (w/Maritime finish)

There have been several others that I've fired (like the P30, and the P2000SK, and the SA/DA HK45, and a USP 9 fullsize) that I've had trigger time with but haven't had extended ownership on.

So needless to say I have had a long relationship with a bunch of their products.

A few years ago I started slowly selling off all my HKs because I needed the money to pay bills due to a shitty relationship I was in that more or less drained me financially. Think of it as a lightweight version of a divorce. Needless to say after the dust settled I was annoyed at having to sell a lot of my guns, but in the past couple years I've had no desire to replace about 80% of them and the HKs were a large part of that list. About the only guns I miss from that list are the MK23 and the P7M8, and those two are only because of the cool factor. Let's face it, the MK23 and the P7M8 are really the only guns of their kind in existence. That doesn't mean they are practical to buy, though.

Anyways, whenever I thought about buying more HKs to replace the ones I had to sell, it was hard to do. By this point I had started buying Glocks and other guns. I realized a few things and remembered some others....

-"HK CS is ****ing garbage. " Well, it might have gotten better, but when I had the sear spring go on my USPc .40 several years ago, that one little part was backordered into oblivion. That gun was out of service for almost a year, I got sick of waiting, and eventually Bruce Gray did something which I'll be eternally grateful for- He shipped me a sear spring from one of his shop guns, gratis; only condition was
that I had to send him one if the factory ever bothered to replenish its stock. Thankfully most of the time though, you'll never really
need their CS.

-High Bore Axis funhouse - all HKs have this problem except for the P7 series, Never really noticed this until I got my first G21SF. It's not so much a bigger deal in 9mm, but in .40 and .45 the massive increase in muzzle flip is readily apparent, vs guns like Glocks/M&P/1911s. There's no getting around this, although if you have oven mitts for hands the guns won't flip nearly as much. I will tell you this much, firing a USPc .40 or .45 with small hands, while certainly doable, will beat the crap out of you after awhile.

-Size inefficient. For the size of most of HK's handguns, they are inefficient in terms of space and weight utilized vs capacity, vs other polymer framed handguns. Many of the guns they make are in the realm of SCHOOL BUS class. You look at a Glock, an XD, or an M&P and all of these are on a diet compared to an equivalent HK product.

-NPOA issues. This is very subjective- what points well in my hands may not in yours, and vice versa. I found that with some HKs, particularly the HK45 I had, and the P30's I've held... if I close my eyes and hold the gun downrange and bring it up to what I feel is about eye level via muscle memory with my eyes closed... then open my eyes, the ****ing front sight is POINTING AT THE GROUND. On the other hand if I pick up a Glock or a 1911, depending on model, the sights are either pretty close to neural, or worst case, a little high, in which case I can just push my hands out a little further and flatten my sight picture. On the other hand "Heeling" an HK to bring the front sight up is something you can learn but it is certainly not intuitive by any stretch. It gets particularly bad when you have other handguns "in the mix" in your safe that don't have this problem.

-Magazines are stupidly expensive- and hard to find. With rare exceptions, most HK mags are over $40 and when vendors are out, they're out, and stock is not quickly replenished. I like to have 10+ magazines for each handgun I have. I'm not happy unless I have that many. HK makes this cost prohibitive. Additionally, the design on some of the HK cripplemags, particularly the USP .45 and USPc .40 cripplemags, is ****ing terrible- if you drop a loaded mag on concrete and the basepad hits just wrong, the basepad will shear off one of the tabs and the mag will belch its contents everywhere and be unusable until the pad parts get replaced. Shitty deisgn. (a very convoluted design to make it so that someone couldn't easily convert the cripplemag back to normal. )

-Triggers are meh. (with exceptions like the P7M8). The DA/SA triggers can be made passable with some work. The LEM trigger is a nice idea but falls short on execution- the reset is just too damned long to make it viable. That ****ing decocker location on the P2000 and P30 drives me batty. Whoever the engineer was that decided to put it on the back of the slide needs to be throat punched a few times. What is really aggravating... is why HK has no striker fired guns- it's not as if they don't know how to make one... its like get with the program people!!!!

-Little or no aftermarket. Need spare parts? If you're lucky you get them from the factory or hkparts, otherwise you are SOL. And half the parts are out of stock at all times. Don't like the trigger? tough shit, you're SOL unless you modify it yourself or you have someone like Bruce Gray work on it.

-The value proposition. Something like a typical newer HK P30 is going to cost me at least $800 once all the dust settles for a new gun. I can get most Glocks/M&P/XD for somewhat less than that and still have money left over for mods and so on- and have a better trigger to boot when I'm done. It's kind of a tough sell.


Mike buying a new HK =



to be continued

-Mike

 

[Queen Bee]

thank you for your story , i see similarities of my experience with hk parts availability in your story as well. and the mags are very expensive. im glad i went glock too.