JonInWA
02-15-2012, 05:27 PM
There have been some recent discussions that prompted me to start this discussion. On this forum, the recent (and ongoing) thread "Why exactly doesn't Beretta...", on the Pistol-Training forum, Todd Green's recent blog on Integrity http://pistol-training.com/, on M4carbine.net, a recent (and again ongoing) thread where a participant asks for comparisons/recommendations regarding the HK P30 versus the Glock G19, as well as personally having friends, asociates, family members, co-workers, etc. asking me personally for my input regarding their personal selections (as I'm sure many of us on this forum frequently undergo).
We're at an interesting time-as Todd relayed in his blog, the industry seems to be confounded by a fundamental inability to produce (or perhaps more accurately, consistantly produce) defensive/combat/service weapons that are inherently of quality design and quality manufacture, and have quality aftermarket service/support.
As Todd has posited, it seems that the industry achieves what to them is an acceptable level of performance and quality in a platform, and then relies on statistics to insulate them from the probable fallacies inherent to the platform-those statistics being that most guns sold will 1) Actually see relatively little use/low round counts over their owner's ownership period; 2) that most guns are designed of sufficiently high quality materials/manufacturing processes to make predictive operational/materials failures statistically fairly low within the gun/platform's projected/forecasted/contractual lifespan, and that if issues occur, there's a reliance on their customer service support department to resolve said issues without incurring disproportonate expenses; and 3) that achieving an initial lower sale cost per unit trumps providing higher quality from the onset (which would significantly prevent predictable failures within the gun's forecasted lifespan, but would result in a higher initial pricing to maintain an acceptable level of profitability).
Interestingly, this was the sitation that the automobile industry faced in the latter part of the 20th century. Then, a paradigm shift occurred; planned obsolescense (and poorly designed and manufactured vehicles) was gradually superceded by market forces; primarily high-quality, well-priced (but not the least expensive in most cases) vehicles from Japan, notably Toyota and Honda. Currently, I literally can't think of any "bad" cars; performance, reliability and durability has consistantly been achieved by literally all major manufacturers so that we now have safe, reliable, durable, and high-featured vehicles, generally capable of lasting for 100K miles, pretty much with just routine periodic maintenance-and this is for a consumer products operating in a huge variety of environments, by users of hugely variable skills, and with a product involving a propulsive system dependant upon continuous explosions and component reciprocation(s) to function. Certainly, there are vehicles that perform better within defined niches, and vehicles that are more desirable than others, and vehicles that are less maintenance-intensive (or less expensive to maintain) than others-but I honestly can't think of any contemporary Yugos, Trabants, Vegas or Pintos being foisted on consumers.
Then we get to firearms-specifically, pistols. On its face, things really shouldn't be all that difficult; the basic technology and science has been around since the 15th century. Materials, metallurgy, finishes, manufacturing techniques and capabilities, marketing, and cartridge/bullet capabilities have undergone (and are continually undergoing) quantum qualitative increases since the beginning of the 20th century. The operational cycle of a semi-automatic pistol doesn't seem to present that much of an unsurmountable obstacle, as the ignition and reciprocation process seems to provide ample time and relatively easily harnessable forces regarding both initial firing and repeated firings within contemporary materials, design and production constraints. And yet, it seems that there is some sort of an inherent difficulty in providing a quality, reliable, ergonomic, easily operated and maintained firearm at an acceptable price point to a willing (and capable of buying) marketplace.
And yet-we have the current state of affairs. 9mm M&Ps seemingly incapable of being consistantly produced at acceptable accuracy levels, and .45 M&Ps with their magazine spring issues, Gen4 Glock G17 and G19s with their extraction and ejection issues, Springfield XDs with their longevity and design issues, Beretta PX4 's with their operational issues-and the beat goes on...(and we're not even getting CLOSE to the 1911 pattern pistols!).
Currently, there are only a few products that I feel comfortable in recommending-and some of those are with significant caveats. I think that the Beretta 92 series in 9mm remains a quite viable and high-quality platform, albeit a bit dated in terms of design and bulk. I suspect that the 92 has retained it's relative operational qualitative edge significantly due to the demands and requirements inherent to the M9/M10 military contracts (and the ongoing product performance standards/sampling/testing inherent to the contract), and that since those systems are already in place for the military contract production guns, that it would be disproportionately expensive to remove them for the commercial/LEO market guns (or perhaps I'm just being a bit cynical here...). I also feel that the need to view the trigger return spring as a somewhat limited lifespan component, with a recommended replacement interval of 5K trigger manipulations (and yes, I deliberately am saying manipulations, to cover both live- and dry-fire) as a bit of a design/material weak point; while the spring is fairly easily removed and replaced (but nowhere nearly as simple as swapping out the recoil spring/recoil spring assembly-but it just takes a minute or so to do with minimal training), (and inexpensive, and easily available from both Beretta and Wolff Gunsprings), that's an inordinately short lifesapn for such a component, in my opinion (however, a superior {in my opinion} replacement component is Wolff's Trigger Conversion Unit {TCU}, a trapped coil spring with a much higer level of durability/longevity, but due to manufacturing changes in current 92/96 series triggers, unless you have an older all-steel trigger, the TCU will not work {or you can replace the OEM polymer/steel trigger with the older all-steel trigger, and then it'll be installable). The good news is that Beretta did significantly strengthen their OEM trigger return spring some 8 or so years ago, but I think that just makes it fully capable of going the 5K manipulation distance instead of breaking earlier (and, if the trigger return spring breaks, the gun isn't rendered totally inoperable-you just need to manually push/pull the trigger to its foward position after each, where its engaged by the triggerbar/triggerbar spring, which actually provides the tension needed to fire the gun; but obviously that's not an ideal combat fix). And yes; a Beretta 92 series gun will require more lubrication (and has more lubrication points) than most of its contemporary competitors, but I don't regard that in and of itself as an automatic disqualificant-you just have to know that it needs to be done, and check/re-apply as necessary.
SIG-Sauer's relatively inexpensive (and relatively unmarketed) Sigpro 2022 seems to quietly chug along, with little user complaints. Again, we have here a weapon that has achieved significant military/LEO success (particularly with the French contracts), and is presumably subject to ongoing production testing reviews and constraints inherent to their contracts.
Within its forecasted lifespan, current production (i.e., post 1994) FN/Browning Hi Powers actually seem to do quite well; the caveat here is that barrel lifespan is generally viewed at 12K-15K rounds, and the basic platform lifespan is forecasted to be around 35K rounds, and that replacement components can be expensive. And it's a single-action gun, requiring a higher degree of user training and awareness by definition, which may be preclusive in and of itself for certain users. And, they're pretty expensive; the street price on BNIB Hi Powers is around $900, and the .40 varients have been discontinued. Within these caveats, however, I think that a Hi Power can still be a valid choice, but it's competing against some stiff competition, particularly if one compares it to some of the contemporary HK choices utilized in their single-action varient modes.
Ruger's GP100 revolver seems to soldier on quite nicely, despite some reletively recent production and material changes. However, mastering the DA revolver trigger and reloading process is somewhat skill intensive, and it's six cartridge capacity may be preclusive of acceptability by some users. I personally much preferred the original Ruger/Lett large and small grip choices as opposed to the current Hogue grip, universally applied to all contemporary GP100 production (aside to the very limited production batches of sporadic distributer specials)
Heckler & Koch's P2000, P30, P30L, HK 45 and HK45C have played well; they certainly seem to be exceptionally ergonomic, and have multiple configurations of grips and trigger configurations. Their manufacture quality seems to be consistantly high. However, they have been plagued with an abysmal reputation for aftermarket support, parts availability, and even magazine availability and high pricing-although there are certainly reports that this is changing, and may in fact have changed. Reviews of their triggers and trigger reset aften seem to indicate relative mediocrity, perhaps aceptable at a lower price point, less so at their selling point of nearly $1K; at that price point, a user in my opinion absolutely should not have a need to subject the gun to further gunsmithing or component modifications to achieve a basically decent triggerpull and trigger/triggerguard interface) acceptability already inherent is a competitor at literally half the price (comparing, for example, a HK45 with a Gen4 Glock G21). By most accounts that I've gone over from people that I respect, the LEM (particularly the light LEM) seems to be the best way to go-but that's not always an available, or easily accessed OEM option-and again, you're looking at an additional expense to an already pricey platform.
Ahh, Glock. I'm a major Glock proponent. They're usually tough, accurate, incredibly easy to use, field-strip, detail disassemble, and reassemble, and durable for at least 100K rounds-at least, that was the standard achieved by pre-2011 9mm G17 and G19s. Then came the fiasco of the Gen4 deployment...Currently, I feel totally comfortable in recommending only the Gen4 G21 out of the Gen4 palette without any caveats. I THINK that the recoil spring assembly, extractor, and ejector issues have been worked out in the Gen4 G17 and G19s, but there's insufficient fielding on contemporary production guns for me to recommend them without the caveat that they might well need further ministrations by Glock (or by the operator/armorer replacing certain parts)-and there are indications from sources that I trust that issues might not crop up until 1K-4K rounds have gone through individual guns. I think that Gen4 .40 caliber guns are now good to go, and are in fact superior in design (particularly concerning longevity) to their Gen 3 predecessors. Gen 3 concurrently produced guns suffer from a material change induced around the 2010 timeframe regarding extractors, particularly reported with Gen 3 G17 and G19s. Reportedly Glock has come up with revised components (i.e., extractors and ejectors) to resolve such issues, but again I recommend them with caveats until they've undergone sufficient time and use (and testing by/within the field). I really, really wish that Glock had left the G17 and G19 basically alone in their proven Gen 3 configuration (and with the previous extractor), perhaps providing simply a modified receiver incorporating the Gen4 magazine release and backstrap options as an alternative (and,as a minor aside, perhaps incorporating the backstrap pin pusher into a butt plug for the receiver cavity, instead of rattling around loose in the gun's case, but that's a pretty minor suggestion, as I strongly suspect that most will either choose to use none of the attachable backstrap options, or pick one and leave it pretty much permanantly installed)...I'm optimistic in seeing how the Gen4 concepts play out in the .357 and 10mm platform Glocks; on their face, it would seem to be an ideal marriage for such higher pressure/quickly spiking pressure curved cartridges, in terms of both performance and longevity/durability. Time will tell; I can certainly envision a Gen4 G31/G32 on my purchase radar, but it's not to the point where I'm going to necessarily recommmend it to others yet.
That's a pretty short list. I'll be interested to see what others think (Yeah, and the opinions of the guy preferential to orange as well). This forum seems to have a high number of objective, experienced participants; the ride should be interesting.
Best, Jon
We're at an interesting time-as Todd relayed in his blog, the industry seems to be confounded by a fundamental inability to produce (or perhaps more accurately, consistantly produce) defensive/combat/service weapons that are inherently of quality design and quality manufacture, and have quality aftermarket service/support.
As Todd has posited, it seems that the industry achieves what to them is an acceptable level of performance and quality in a platform, and then relies on statistics to insulate them from the probable fallacies inherent to the platform-those statistics being that most guns sold will 1) Actually see relatively little use/low round counts over their owner's ownership period; 2) that most guns are designed of sufficiently high quality materials/manufacturing processes to make predictive operational/materials failures statistically fairly low within the gun/platform's projected/forecasted/contractual lifespan, and that if issues occur, there's a reliance on their customer service support department to resolve said issues without incurring disproportonate expenses; and 3) that achieving an initial lower sale cost per unit trumps providing higher quality from the onset (which would significantly prevent predictable failures within the gun's forecasted lifespan, but would result in a higher initial pricing to maintain an acceptable level of profitability).
Interestingly, this was the sitation that the automobile industry faced in the latter part of the 20th century. Then, a paradigm shift occurred; planned obsolescense (and poorly designed and manufactured vehicles) was gradually superceded by market forces; primarily high-quality, well-priced (but not the least expensive in most cases) vehicles from Japan, notably Toyota and Honda. Currently, I literally can't think of any "bad" cars; performance, reliability and durability has consistantly been achieved by literally all major manufacturers so that we now have safe, reliable, durable, and high-featured vehicles, generally capable of lasting for 100K miles, pretty much with just routine periodic maintenance-and this is for a consumer products operating in a huge variety of environments, by users of hugely variable skills, and with a product involving a propulsive system dependant upon continuous explosions and component reciprocation(s) to function. Certainly, there are vehicles that perform better within defined niches, and vehicles that are more desirable than others, and vehicles that are less maintenance-intensive (or less expensive to maintain) than others-but I honestly can't think of any contemporary Yugos, Trabants, Vegas or Pintos being foisted on consumers.
Then we get to firearms-specifically, pistols. On its face, things really shouldn't be all that difficult; the basic technology and science has been around since the 15th century. Materials, metallurgy, finishes, manufacturing techniques and capabilities, marketing, and cartridge/bullet capabilities have undergone (and are continually undergoing) quantum qualitative increases since the beginning of the 20th century. The operational cycle of a semi-automatic pistol doesn't seem to present that much of an unsurmountable obstacle, as the ignition and reciprocation process seems to provide ample time and relatively easily harnessable forces regarding both initial firing and repeated firings within contemporary materials, design and production constraints. And yet, it seems that there is some sort of an inherent difficulty in providing a quality, reliable, ergonomic, easily operated and maintained firearm at an acceptable price point to a willing (and capable of buying) marketplace.
And yet-we have the current state of affairs. 9mm M&Ps seemingly incapable of being consistantly produced at acceptable accuracy levels, and .45 M&Ps with their magazine spring issues, Gen4 Glock G17 and G19s with their extraction and ejection issues, Springfield XDs with their longevity and design issues, Beretta PX4 's with their operational issues-and the beat goes on...(and we're not even getting CLOSE to the 1911 pattern pistols!).
Currently, there are only a few products that I feel comfortable in recommending-and some of those are with significant caveats. I think that the Beretta 92 series in 9mm remains a quite viable and high-quality platform, albeit a bit dated in terms of design and bulk. I suspect that the 92 has retained it's relative operational qualitative edge significantly due to the demands and requirements inherent to the M9/M10 military contracts (and the ongoing product performance standards/sampling/testing inherent to the contract), and that since those systems are already in place for the military contract production guns, that it would be disproportionately expensive to remove them for the commercial/LEO market guns (or perhaps I'm just being a bit cynical here...). I also feel that the need to view the trigger return spring as a somewhat limited lifespan component, with a recommended replacement interval of 5K trigger manipulations (and yes, I deliberately am saying manipulations, to cover both live- and dry-fire) as a bit of a design/material weak point; while the spring is fairly easily removed and replaced (but nowhere nearly as simple as swapping out the recoil spring/recoil spring assembly-but it just takes a minute or so to do with minimal training), (and inexpensive, and easily available from both Beretta and Wolff Gunsprings), that's an inordinately short lifesapn for such a component, in my opinion (however, a superior {in my opinion} replacement component is Wolff's Trigger Conversion Unit {TCU}, a trapped coil spring with a much higer level of durability/longevity, but due to manufacturing changes in current 92/96 series triggers, unless you have an older all-steel trigger, the TCU will not work {or you can replace the OEM polymer/steel trigger with the older all-steel trigger, and then it'll be installable). The good news is that Beretta did significantly strengthen their OEM trigger return spring some 8 or so years ago, but I think that just makes it fully capable of going the 5K manipulation distance instead of breaking earlier (and, if the trigger return spring breaks, the gun isn't rendered totally inoperable-you just need to manually push/pull the trigger to its foward position after each, where its engaged by the triggerbar/triggerbar spring, which actually provides the tension needed to fire the gun; but obviously that's not an ideal combat fix). And yes; a Beretta 92 series gun will require more lubrication (and has more lubrication points) than most of its contemporary competitors, but I don't regard that in and of itself as an automatic disqualificant-you just have to know that it needs to be done, and check/re-apply as necessary.
SIG-Sauer's relatively inexpensive (and relatively unmarketed) Sigpro 2022 seems to quietly chug along, with little user complaints. Again, we have here a weapon that has achieved significant military/LEO success (particularly with the French contracts), and is presumably subject to ongoing production testing reviews and constraints inherent to their contracts.
Within its forecasted lifespan, current production (i.e., post 1994) FN/Browning Hi Powers actually seem to do quite well; the caveat here is that barrel lifespan is generally viewed at 12K-15K rounds, and the basic platform lifespan is forecasted to be around 35K rounds, and that replacement components can be expensive. And it's a single-action gun, requiring a higher degree of user training and awareness by definition, which may be preclusive in and of itself for certain users. And, they're pretty expensive; the street price on BNIB Hi Powers is around $900, and the .40 varients have been discontinued. Within these caveats, however, I think that a Hi Power can still be a valid choice, but it's competing against some stiff competition, particularly if one compares it to some of the contemporary HK choices utilized in their single-action varient modes.
Ruger's GP100 revolver seems to soldier on quite nicely, despite some reletively recent production and material changes. However, mastering the DA revolver trigger and reloading process is somewhat skill intensive, and it's six cartridge capacity may be preclusive of acceptability by some users. I personally much preferred the original Ruger/Lett large and small grip choices as opposed to the current Hogue grip, universally applied to all contemporary GP100 production (aside to the very limited production batches of sporadic distributer specials)
Heckler & Koch's P2000, P30, P30L, HK 45 and HK45C have played well; they certainly seem to be exceptionally ergonomic, and have multiple configurations of grips and trigger configurations. Their manufacture quality seems to be consistantly high. However, they have been plagued with an abysmal reputation for aftermarket support, parts availability, and even magazine availability and high pricing-although there are certainly reports that this is changing, and may in fact have changed. Reviews of their triggers and trigger reset aften seem to indicate relative mediocrity, perhaps aceptable at a lower price point, less so at their selling point of nearly $1K; at that price point, a user in my opinion absolutely should not have a need to subject the gun to further gunsmithing or component modifications to achieve a basically decent triggerpull and trigger/triggerguard interface) acceptability already inherent is a competitor at literally half the price (comparing, for example, a HK45 with a Gen4 Glock G21). By most accounts that I've gone over from people that I respect, the LEM (particularly the light LEM) seems to be the best way to go-but that's not always an available, or easily accessed OEM option-and again, you're looking at an additional expense to an already pricey platform.
Ahh, Glock. I'm a major Glock proponent. They're usually tough, accurate, incredibly easy to use, field-strip, detail disassemble, and reassemble, and durable for at least 100K rounds-at least, that was the standard achieved by pre-2011 9mm G17 and G19s. Then came the fiasco of the Gen4 deployment...Currently, I feel totally comfortable in recommending only the Gen4 G21 out of the Gen4 palette without any caveats. I THINK that the recoil spring assembly, extractor, and ejector issues have been worked out in the Gen4 G17 and G19s, but there's insufficient fielding on contemporary production guns for me to recommend them without the caveat that they might well need further ministrations by Glock (or by the operator/armorer replacing certain parts)-and there are indications from sources that I trust that issues might not crop up until 1K-4K rounds have gone through individual guns. I think that Gen4 .40 caliber guns are now good to go, and are in fact superior in design (particularly concerning longevity) to their Gen 3 predecessors. Gen 3 concurrently produced guns suffer from a material change induced around the 2010 timeframe regarding extractors, particularly reported with Gen 3 G17 and G19s. Reportedly Glock has come up with revised components (i.e., extractors and ejectors) to resolve such issues, but again I recommend them with caveats until they've undergone sufficient time and use (and testing by/within the field). I really, really wish that Glock had left the G17 and G19 basically alone in their proven Gen 3 configuration (and with the previous extractor), perhaps providing simply a modified receiver incorporating the Gen4 magazine release and backstrap options as an alternative (and,as a minor aside, perhaps incorporating the backstrap pin pusher into a butt plug for the receiver cavity, instead of rattling around loose in the gun's case, but that's a pretty minor suggestion, as I strongly suspect that most will either choose to use none of the attachable backstrap options, or pick one and leave it pretty much permanantly installed)...I'm optimistic in seeing how the Gen4 concepts play out in the .357 and 10mm platform Glocks; on their face, it would seem to be an ideal marriage for such higher pressure/quickly spiking pressure curved cartridges, in terms of both performance and longevity/durability. Time will tell; I can certainly envision a Gen4 G31/G32 on my purchase radar, but it's not to the point where I'm going to necessarily recommmend it to others yet.
That's a pretty short list. I'll be interested to see what others think (Yeah, and the opinions of the guy preferential to orange as well). This forum seems to have a high number of objective, experienced participants; the ride should be interesting.
Best, Jon