This. The fellow who owns this firm used to work in amongst the Davis/Lorcin genre of cheap blowbacks. The HiPoints use the same design in terms of "lockwork"... i.e., the firing pin doubles as the ejector, etc.
I shoot upwards of a dozen of these things every week, that have been seized. Once the thug gun of choice around here, it is slowly being eclipsed in that arena by the Stigma. Still a lot of them out there, however. Tom's (the owner) philosophy is that everybody should be able to afford a gun for protection. Whatever, but the fact is he cannot produce them fast enough to keep up with sales.
They generally work; for a while. But they are made primarily from pot metal, with commensurate "durability".
Last year, our lab put together a proficiency test for firearms examiners. I fired 500 rounds of WWB 9mm ball out of one C9 receiver/barrel and five different slides- 100 rounds per slide. The gun only malfunctioned twice, and one of those was my fault. But get this... at the end of the 500 rounds, it was a smoothbore! No kidding, the rifling was all but gone. I will be VERY surprised if this "test" goes the full distance without something breaking or wearing out.
And they are... interesting... to disassemble. Have fun.
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