Glock 43 x “The modern P7 PSP”

[Polecat]

Anyone have an old PSP they could show side by side with the new G43x. Looking at the specs, the 43x seems like a contemporary PSP. Same height and length and width 29mm vs 28mm. The 43x holds 10 +1 vs PSP 8+ 1. Glock is 9 oz lighter!!

[Port]

Is this going to morph into a “there’s nothing really new under the sun” thread lol? Because thinking back, that’s where I went lol!

I always wanted a P7, until Cabelas got in a shipment and I held one. It just didnt fit right for some reason. And yet... the 48 does. Odd.

[Sherman A. House DDS]

I’m eager to try out a 43x.

I shot a PSP a few times. I had a fellow in a class that brought three, which he’s trade out in between strings. They got EXTREMELY hot after relatively short strings of fire.

Glocks are ubiquitous...if you consider yourself a serious pistolero, you better speak Glock!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[HopetonBrown]

The closest thing to a modern day PSP was the Wilson ADP abortion.

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/07/03/a-south-african-designed-gas-delayed-wilson-combat/

[Polecat]

Really just frustrated that HK can’t get off their asses and give us an updated thin carry gun. Walther CCP is perftect example. Employs same recoil system. HK could have given us an updated poly P7 at more reasonable price. I would foregun the cocking mechanism, transition it to a squeeze “safety” instead for simplicity sake. Simply pointing out, that with today’s polymers and designs much can be done. Kuddo’s to Glock.

I am all over the Glock. As local Atlantan, I purchased a used 42, much trouble. Dumb thing wouldn’t get a mag withoug malfunction. Took it over there, back in my hands in an hour and BAM total reliability. Can’t say enough about their customer service.

I think the G43x is so much more that the P7. Less weight more capacity, more simplicity.

Thanks Glock!

[Joe in PNG]

I believe there would be a market for a new production P7 from H&K, in kind of a premium retro prestige cool sort of way.

[HopetonBrown]

I believe there would be a market for a new production P7 from H&K, in kind of a premium retro prestige cool sort of way.Why did they stop making them?

[TGS]

Why did they stop making them?

Nobody was really buying them anymore....too expensive, too fickle, low mag capacity with the PSP and M8 while the M13 double stack had a huge honkin grip that few people could make good use of. The very last runs up into the 2000s were small batches for German police and the Jubilee presentation model, but regular production had ceased long before that IIRC.

Even in the US, they never really gained much traction. Other than the US Park Police and NJ State Police adopting the P7M8 while some sundry SWAT teams chose the P7M13, I don't think they had any major or high profile adopters.

[Jim Watson]

G48 resembles my Kahr CW9 more than anything I know of.

[SAWBONES]

I believe there would be a market for a new production P7 from H&K, in kind of a premium retro prestige cool sort of way.

There's still quite a collector market for the various original P7 generations, but it's a "cult following" sort of thing, for those willing to pay high prices.


Why did they stop making them?

The advent of, and subsequent enormous popularity of comparatively-inexpensive polymer-framed pistols, wherein H&K followed suit after Glock essentially opened* that market, doomed the continued viability of the P7 series of pistols, which were more expensive, lower-capacity and complex in construction.


Nobody was really buying them anymore....too expensive, too fickle...

Expensive, yes, but hardly "fickle".

The P7 was one of the least "fickle" pistols ever made.
Mas Ayoob rated it as the single most reliable semiauto pistol then available in his book, The Semiautomatic Pistol in Police Service and Self-Defense.

Of those I've owned, I still have the one P7M8 (my very first pistol, ever) originally purchased NIB in '85 for $515, which has since shot uncounted tens of thousands of premium 9mm factory rounds, and has never, not once, ever had a single failure of any kind; no failures to feed, no failures to fire, no failures to eject.

Add to that the consistent, absolutely superlative accuracy & precision of these pistols, and their past and present appeal to a certain segment of the gun buying population isn't difficult to understand.

Heavy (all steel) for the capacity, expensive, quickly too hot to hold comfortably for even 50 rounds of rapid-fire (even with the polymer heat-shield above the trigger on the M8, M13 and M40 models), labor-intensive to clean the gas piston chamber and gas piston flanges, complex frame design should service ever become required (even though it never happens), are all negative features, admittedly; but "fickle"? No.

OK.
Defense of the H&K P7 finished. :cool:


*Oddball earlier polymer-framed pistols, like H&K's VP70Z, gained no market traction.

[HCM]

Why did they stop making them?

Cost but now that they are brining python money they could be a viable product again.

[HCM]

Really just frustrated that HK can’t get off their asses and give us an updated thin carry gun. Walther CCP is perftect example. Employs same recoil system. HK could have given us an updated poly P7 at more reasonable price. I would foregun the cocking mechanism, transition it to a squeeze “safety” instead for simplicity sake. Simply pointing out, that with today’s polymers and designs much can be done. Kuddo’s to Glock.

I am all over the Glock. As local Atlantan, I purchased a used 42, much trouble. Dumb thing wouldn’t get a mag withoug malfunction. Took it over there, back in my hands in an hour and BAM total reliability. Can’t say enough about their customer service.

I think the G43x is so much more that the P7. Less weight more capacity, more simplicity.

Thanks Glock!

HK Could make a slim polymer carry gun but it would not be a P7. An actual polymer P7 would be technically, impractical, if not impossible.

[Poconnor]

I bet HK could make a polymer P7 without the squeeze cocker. Thin, lightweight, a fixed barrel with VP9 trigger

[APS-PF]

I found it interesting in the Forgotten Weapons video on the PSP he said they were initially released on the market at a price about the same as a Beretta 92. They changed the pricing structure to appeal to a more elite customer.

[Ed L]

Expensive, yes, but hardly "fickle".

The P7 was one of the least "fickle" pistols ever made.
Mas Ayoob rated it as the single most reliable semiauto pistol then available in his book, The Semiautomatic Pistol in Police Service and Self-Defense.

Of those I've owned, I still have the one P7M8 (my very first pistol, ever) originally purchased NIB in '85 for $515, which has since shot uncounted tens of thousands of premium 9mm factory rounds, and has never, not once, ever had a single failure of any kind; no failures to feed, no failures to fire, no failures to eject.


That wasn't my experience. I owned 2 HK P-7M8s. One, which I bought in 1987, of them came from the factory stovepiping. It had to be sent back. I think I put 2000--3000 rounds through it before it broke and had to be sent back to the factory because some part broke inside so that the squeezecocker would no longer squeeze. This happened in the middle of a carbine class when I was using it as a sidearm. When I removed the grip a piece of metal fell out. Had to be sent back to the factory. I sent it to get it repaired. The other one had less than 1000 rounds through it before it started failing to reliably detonate rounds every 20-30 rounds. I had been taking out the striker and cleaning it. Back to the factory it went.

As far as being reliable with all ammo, neither of mine would function with Winchester Ranger 127 grain +P+ hollowpoints. I would get failures to feed with this ammo in both of my M8s.

They did have a great trigger and were quite accurate. I did not have as much training at the time that I owned or shot as well, so it would be interesting to see what I could do with one now.

If I owned one right now I would be afraid to shoot it. I would be concerned that there would be anyone at HK who would know how to fix it, and I doubt that they would have the spare parts. I sold my last one to someone who owned several of them and was buying mine as a source of spare parts in case he ever needed it.

For what it is worth, I briefly owned a Glock 43, but got rid of it because every 5th round it would eject a case into my head. This happened with 4 or 5 brands of ammo.

[call_me_ski]

HK Could make a slim polymer carry gun but it would not be a P7. An actual polymer P7 would be technically, impractical, if not impossible.

Walther has a very similar design in the CCP. I am sure HK could figure it out if they desired to do so.

[Rex G]

I found it interesting in the Forgotten Weapons video on the PSP he said they were initially released on the market at a price about the same as a Beretta 92. They changed the pricing structure to appeal to a more elite customer.

Exchange rates made a difference back then. IIRC, I paid somewhere between $400 and $500 US, each, for my two P7 pistols, in 1984. Probably about $495, for the new one, and almost that much, or, perhaps the same, for the pre-owned, like-new sample.

Of course, another factor was relatively low demand, in spite of their rarity; the P7 did not have a loyal following, yet. Neither did the Beretta 92, for that matter.

Keep in mind that $500 was something of a glass ceiling, for pistol prices, back then. List prices may have been higher, but few buyers wanted to pay more than $500 for a pistol.

FWIW, at least here in Texas, the desirable HK pistol was the P9s, and mostly .45 ACP. Few wanted the P7 or the VP70Z, or anything 9mm, except the BHP.

Heel-clip mag release? Nobody wanted anything like that; it would get a fella kilt in the streets.

The P7M8, and 9mm BPLE and Cor-Bon, are what started changing folks’ minds about the P7 and 9mm.

[rif4trbo]

My psp I had in 2008, I had to get rid of it to pay for some stupid bills before I had a real job. I loved that blasterhttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190128/f4d58197c5d7eca6de4d55b952cf9105.jpg

[SAWBONES]

FWIW, some misused (?) or poorly-cared-for Lower Saxony-issued P7s and other European police trade-ins had any number of problems related to proper functioning of the gas-retarded blowback system, some examples of which had scoring or deformation of the gas piston chamber.

NIB pistols and properly cared-for examples had no such problems.

The squeeze-cocker mechanism required ~18 lb. of pressure to activate, beyond what most little children could readily provide (not to mention that the grip was too large for childish hands), but only a couple pounds of sustained pressure to keep depressed, which made it a safer-than-average pistol around little ones, yet non-fatiguing to continue to grip for longer periods when in use.

The pistol was typically fired by depressing the squeeze-cocker then pulling the trigger, but could be fired by pulling and holding back the trigger, then depressing the squeeze-cocker.

It was an easy and intuitive system to learn, though not one instantly evident to the uninitiated, and there were at least a couple of cases reported wherein the unfamiliar method of operation kept an officer deprived of his issued sidearm by a criminal from being shot.

Being relatively heavy for both the caliber and capacity, as well as expensive and complex, I can't believe it would ever be manufactured again with anything even approaching the equivalent original quality, in today's market.