Long post...grab popcorn
Coming up on hunting season and I'm working on narrowing down my preferred carry gun to keep inside wader pouch while duck hunting. Anyone who's duck hunted long enough knows that sooner or later...you fall in and top your waders. It just happens. I can't tell you how many times my hunting shotgun (Beretta A400 Xtreme) has fallen in as well. Crap happens and thankfully each time it has happened it's been easy to find and the gun has worked for the rest of the hunt, even when the action is full of mucky swamp water.
So I decided that it was time to get serious about testing a few guns in order to see what would be my go-to pistol while hunting (and also hiking/other outdoor activities). There were a few criteria I had in mind...weight, capacity, size, and WML capability. Weight is important because while I have full faith in my M9A3/TLR-1, it's a little heavy fully loaded. I decided to stick to polymer framed guns. Next, they needed to be full sized grips (every bit of grip area helps when your hands are close to numb) and they need to have a WML option (At least 400 lumens; PX4 CC is out).
That narrowed things down pretty quickly in my safe. I was left with my G17 Gen 4, HK P30 V3, and one of my PX4s. The G17 is all stock internally except for a TTI trigger connector and Glock maritime spring cups. The G17 also has a Glockmeister Gen 4 frame plug installed. The P30 is stock internally except for the USP Match Hammer Spring that I'm running (Between 10-11 pounds per HK Parts). The PX4 has the Beretta Competition Trigger Pack and a Wilson 12# hammer spring. Both the G17 and P30 wore a TLR-1HL throughout the tests while the PX4 wore an Inforce APL Gen 2. All guns were lightly lubed with Lucas Extreme Duty Gun Oil and were function tested 10 rounds each with Freedom Munitions 124s. Ammo used during the abuse testing was Wolf 115 (noticeably more powerful than the Freedom Munitions).
Now, how to test these? Well leaving little to imagination I referred to Mac's preferred style of testing. Some dirt, muddy water and clean water. However, I changed up the order some. Lubrication is important to keeping a gun running, especially a dirty/sandy one. Starting the test off with a dunk in clean water rinses most of the lube off...but I digress.
After the 10 round function check I decided to start my tests by pushing each gun down into the sand/dirt, flip it over, press it down again, and then shoot. Each gun was loaded with 10 rounds for the subsequent tests. I didn't think to take any videos during this but I got a few pics of how the guns looked during this test.
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As you can see, each gun stayed fairly clean with very little dirt getting onto the barrel or in between the frame/slide. if you carry a gun in the outdoors and it can't pass a simple test like this where you push it into dirt on both sides, pick it up and fire it, then ditch it. All 3 guns passed this test. The only minor issue was a fail-to-eject on the first round fired with the P30...I attribute that more to the ammo than to the dirt, as I've had a few failures to extract with the Wolf ammo and the P30 even when clean.
Moving on, I decided to shake things up a bit...literally. And problems followed shortly thereafter. I started with the G17 because quite frankly I planned on it passing this portion of the test with zero issues, ala the MAC G17 test. I started with the G17 (again, didn't think to get any video of it). I loaded it, chambered a round, placed it in the tub full of dirt, stuck the lid on and shook it around a few times. Decently hard but not longer than 4-5 seconds. Long enough to make sure the gun was thoroughly coated in dirt/sand. *NOTE* - This is not store bought sand/dirt; its stuff I scooped off my range with a shovel and dumped into the bin. Very fine grained stuff, almost as thin as dust.
I pulled the G17 out and it fired the first round...and that was it. Next round was a failure to feed. I tried an immediate action tap/rack, and while that next round chambered, the trigger would not drop the striker. Tried another remedial action and again, trigger would not drop the striker. I cleared the gun and tried rinsing it in a tub of clean water hoping that would get it working again. No dice, the G17 was down for the count. Totally did not expect that, especially with the grip plug in place.
With the G17 completely out of commission, I moved on to the PX4. It passed the initial dirt press test fine, and I had high hopes it would pass this test as well. I was particularly interested in seeing how the rotating barrel would fare. My hopes were short lived, as once I shook this gun around in the dirt bin, it too only managed to fire one round before failing to go into battery. However, unlike the G17, with a quick dunk and a few racks in clean water I was able to get it up and running and it finished the remainder of the magazine. I do have a video of this test and a video of me getting the PX4 up and running again. Once the videos get uploaded to YouTube I'll post them below for your enjoyment.
Alright, so I'm halfway into the test and two guns have already crapped the bed and have had issues with the sand shaker test...can't blame them as this is a HARD test to pass. I went into the test with low hopes for the P30...and that's where I was wrong. I expected the P30 to fail based on a few different "Torture Tests" I've seen on YouTube. Much to my surprise, it passed the sand shake test with flying colors! No issues! I was blown away. Had no faith that it would pass this test based on the previous two guns. Well done, HK! With Wolf steel cased stuff nonetheless (have always had problems with Wolf in this gun).
After the sand test I noticed the P30 was a bit sluggish, so I gave it a rinse in some clean water and ran 10 rounds of Freedom 124 through it to function check it. Got through 7-8 rounds then had a few failures to eject. The ammo didn't provide enough energy to cycle the slide adequately due to the extra friction from the lack of lube and accumulated grit. I stripped the gun down and wiped out as much grit/water as I could. I lightly lubed it with more Lucas and did another 10 round function check. Gun ran and ejected normally. I decided to test it with some carry loads, and I emptied my PX4 CCs spare magazine. Only had 14 rounds of Speer 124+P so I decided to do another sand shaker test, fire 7 rounds, then drop the gun into a mixture of the same dirt/sand/water. This is similar to the mucky water that I'm around when duck hunting.
P30 did very well once again. Had 2 failures to go into battery on rounds 5 & 6 after the sand shake test; both were remedied with a push on the back of the slide with my thumb. I then decocked the gun after the 7th round fired and dropped it into the mucky water mixture and shook it around. I drew and fired 7 more rounds, with the only bobble being on the last round where the empty case didn't quite eject all the way. Slide velocity had slowed noticeably by this point and since it was the last round I had loaded, it didn't bother me too much. It did MUCH better than the other two guns I brought so I was quite happy. I also have a video of this test that I will post later once I get it uploaded to YouTube.
As a final test I decided to try firing the PX4 after dunking it in the same muddy water just to see what happened. After the sand shake test I didn't have high hopes but apparently mucky, sandy water doesn't have an effect on the rotating barrel like dry sand does because it proceeded to fire all 10 rounds with no issues! I've got a video of this test as well.
Some thoughts from today:
Blown away I was able to get the Glock to completely and utterly shut down so early in the test. I didn't bother setting up my phone to record it because I figured it would be the benchmark that I would be hoping the P30 and PX4 could rise up to. Boy was I wrong! It took several detail strips with my armorer buddy at his gun shop to get it running again. The trigger connector had bent inward somehow which didn't allow the cruciform to drop the striker. Absolutely wild and that was after the first round fired proceeding the sand shake test. Gun is relatively new, less than 500 rounds fired. Just surprising.
I was hoping the PX4 could slug through the sand test but I think too much grit got in between the rotating barrel and the cam. However, all it took to get it running was cycling the slide a few times in clean water. Unlike the Glock, this was an easy (and field expedient) fix. The magazine follower did stick some and I had to tap it a few times and cycle it under water with my thumb to get it feeding normally again.
The P30 was the dark horse I expected to fail due to the less than stellar similar dirt tests I've seen online. I tongue-in-cheek questioned HKs "Legendary Reliability" right before the dirt test (you'll see it on video) and I guess the HK Gods heard me because after the minor bobble on the first round fired (I attribute this to the Wolf ammo more than anything) it ran like a raped ape. Sand, filthy water, whatever. It just worked. Bravo, HK. I was seriously on the fence about selling this thing too...
Where does that leave me?
Well because the G17 did so poorly I'm going to re-test it to see if the problem I saw today was an outlier. I think it was but still...I could at least get the other guns functioning with a few slide cycles in clean water. It took about 30 minutes for my buddy and I to diagnose and figure out what the problem was at his shop. That doesn't help me in the heat of the moment...Currently all guns are stripped down and have been rinsed with hot tap water. I'm going to give the internals of each a nice CLP spray down to keep the parts from rusting. I bought 150 rounds of Federal HST 124+Ps today and I intend to re-test each gun with 50 rounds either tomorrow evening or later this weekend. I'm still deciding whether or not I want to alter the order or change the testing protocols...we'll see. Whatever does best in the next tests will become my defacto hunting/outdoor and hiking sidearm.
Thanks for reading and I'll get the videos up later tonight.
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. After watching Mac's tests and peoples follow tests, it seems that luck of the draw plays a lot into these tests with ALL pistols (some fail way worse than others but who knows). One piece of something gets in a specific spot, game over. I would be curious what got where and shut down the px4 and g17
Originally Posted by breakingtime91
