It's been said Gaston Glock was an ergonomic genius.... err, wait. Let me think about that, maybe that has never been said before???Originally Posted by Evil_Ed
It's been said Gaston Glock was an ergonomic genius.... err, wait. Let me think about that, maybe that has never been said before???
I put normal sights on it, meaning RM07, and did some shooting today. The gun wants to go fast. At 7 yards / A zone it was faster than both G26 and G19, and pretty much as fast as my Shadow 2 albeit with a wider spread.
At 50 feet I could understand its behavior better. G19 cycles slower and flips a bit less, overall presenting a more sedate sight pic.
PDP-F goes faster and probably higher, comes back fast and is capable of higher performance. However this pattern of cycling often times induces shooter to push back harder and push the gun down. You need to understand this pattern of cycling and get used to it. I got better times with PDP but I also missed more.
I couldn't say if PDP is slightly oversprung or ir was me, considering a dual spring on a 3.5 gun. I think it was me, the gun is too small for my hands.
Now curious how 4 inch PDP cycles.
Personally I dig fast guns and prefer them over soft guns but I don't know if this cycling pattern is great for beginners or less skilled shooters.
Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.
I'm going to pick up a new carry gun and jump into optics finally. About sold on a PDP of some iteration vs a M&P 2.0 Compact which is also in the running, but how does the PCP trigger stack up to a VP9? I have an older one VP9 and it's pretty solid.
Not sure how it stacks up against a VP9 but I've seen way too many videos of people booping the bottom of a VP9 and having the striker drop/dead trigger, for me to have considered a VP9 as a carry/defensive use gun. There was a video posted not even a month ago, new made gun, same problem. I'm trying to find it to post a link here but can't track it down...it was a CB (I think? Maybe it was a CC? I really wish I could find the video) datecoded gun and it was just a smack or two with a gunsmith/non-marring hammer to the butt, and you could hear the click of the striker drop, and dead trigger after that. No imprints on the primer as the striker block was still in effect (so it was "safe"), but a dead trigger on a loaded carry gun...no bueno.
This is driving me nuts; I can't recall if I saw the video here, or arfcom, or hkpro. Probably not hkpro...whomever posted it would have been banned.
Edit - found it! It was here in the VP9 thread - my apologies on the datecode, I was apparently conflating another dumb HK problem video with this one
For what it's worth I owned a VP9 for about a year and a half. This was a few years ago so it was the 15-round magazine version without optics cut. Would have been around 2016-2017. I ran it extensively alongside a Gen 4 Glock 19 (which I have since sold to get a Gen 5 Glock 19). I ended up choosing the Glock.
There was a lot about the VP9 I liked. It was HK, so build quality and ergonomics were great. I loved the little "bunny ears" on the rear slide serrations that help you get a grip. Sights were solid. Trigger was excellent. I never had reliability problems.
For the con list...the trigger, again. Yes, the trigger was excellent, but on my sample it was a little too excellent. In extensive snap-cap dry firing side by side with the G19 I found the G19's break significantly more predictable. It also required, for lack of a better word, intention. It was not just lightness, the Glock trigger we all know and either love or hate, whatever else you can say about it, you know when you're at that wall and you know how to break through it. With the VP9 I often found I had reached the break point without knowing it and it required very little pressure to fire from that point. Excellent for a target pistol, but I carried my G19 for serious purposes, and I trusted it more to have a trigger that allowed for nervousness/adrenaline. It wasn't light - a 1911's trigger pull is light but the break is clear - it was hard to predict. I didn't like that.
It was later that I found out bapping the slide can deadline the striker. I was never concerned about the gun going off but for a serious gun having a dead trigger and not knowing about it could be just as lethal.
It's a shame. I love HK, the P30 and HK45 are all-time-great designs, but I just couldn't get myself there with the VP9. Beautiful, fun, fast gun, but it made me have questions in the worst places for a life-saving tool.
State Government Attorney | Beretta, Glock, CZ & S&W Fan
Well this is the 2nd post about deadlining the VP9 trigger so it knocks the VP9 out of contention.
A little more on my thought process. I've primarily carried a 1.0 Shield for well over 5 years as my primary carry gun in a Keeper Errand holster. It's been a great combination but the gun is "dated" and so are my eyes, hence the move to RDS.
So I need a new blaster right? I grabbed the M&P FS also in a Keeper AIWB holster the other day and it was just so much more comfortable to wear all day. It seems the easy button would be the new Performance Center Shield Plus. It has the thinness and shorter grip frame I need for concealment and is available in a 4" barrel. But like I told an acquaintance when he asked why I wanted a longer barrel, "it's all about comfort of carry and if I could slap a 9Pro upper on a Shield frame I'd do it". Then I priced that Shield Plus with all the bells and whistles and thought why spend that kind of money a polymer framed pistol that's not an HK? (I'd do it for an HK that checks all my boxes)
That got me to looking at alternatives like a LTT 92, Sig, HK, etc. That's where I'm at now. I'm not married to any particular FCS. It could be TDA, SAO or striker. I have enough DA revolver shooting behind me that I don't fear the DA shot. I'm just trying to find the right gun and I'll stick to it. This Walther looks like it has real potential with it's modularity, I can't imagine they won't be selling upper components as stand alone offerings in the future.
As to Glock, I've tried but I just can't bring myself to like the ergos and triggers on them. I own a few but they are strictly for GSSF matches. It's a "me thing" not anything against Glock.
I really like the Smith M&P 2.0s, I think more than the average bear.
The 9mms won't give you Glock Gen 5 accuracy (though relatively few poly pistols will, the Gen 5s are super straight shooters in my experience), but I have M2.0s in 9mm, .40, and .45, and the one thing they've never done is fail to run. I think the triggers are very workable too, I don't even bother with Apex stuff, especially the new flat-faced, wider trigger but I like the old one too.
My .45 M&P 2.0 4.6" is 99% as accurate as my old Sig P220R was, or at least as close to that for me not to be able to tell the difference.
I haven't tried the PDP, but I've had a PPS and a P99 and they were both superbly built and great shooters. I think it's worth a shot.
State Government Attorney | Beretta, Glock, CZ & S&W Fan
I've followed the various M&P threads here for years, and the 9mm accuracy issues gave me pause - I had a 9mm full size at one time because they didn't make a compact (only subcompact), and a 45 as well - the 45 M&P came with the thumb safety which I liked right up until the first time I carried it; it felt like my cover garment(s) were swiping the thumb safety off for me when I walked, or got in the car, or whatever. Which in the scheme of things isn't a big deal...well, it isn't, right up until it is, but anyway. At that time carrying one of them skeeved me out a little without a thumb safety (it was why I moved the early 9mm in the first place; the articulated trigger didn't seem "right" to me), and with the 45's thumb safety coming off with a stiff breeze...moved that on too. As time went by, then the 2.0 came out and I really, really liked that (I had a Shield 45 with the new grip texture before they rolled it out to the 2.0s; I sold the Shield because while it was basically a better Detonics Combatmaster, I didn't really have a need for it anymore)...but, then, more accuracy issues seemed to (inconsistently) show up from posts on here. Don't get me wrong, I think they're good guns, especially the latest revisions of them, but...when I print a softball size group at 10 yards, I want it to be because I was the one who messed it up; not a mechanical issue, you know? Between that and all of the little dumb things that Smith did or that seemed to happen with them...I won't say I've lost confidence in Smith as far as making good guns go, but it does feel like they go cheap in the wrong places when they don't need to, you know? But, maybe that's just me; what do I know; I'm not an industry expert.
Re the part in bold - that's one of the precise reasons I picked up a PDP. I still carry and shoot the PPS on occasion (replaced the sights with a set of XS F8 sights and while I wouldn't want to take a 25 yard shot with it, it's really fast for me at 10 yards), and my P99 is still my James Bond gun - I sort of want a Gen 1, but my later generation one fits the niche just fine. If Walther ever made a P99-PDP cross with the decocker on the rear of the slide on a button (like a HK P30), DA/SA, optic ready, lever mag release but with the frame and trigger shoe of a PDP...they'd sell at least 25, maybe 30 of them to us, easy.
My P99s:
Took only 4 months to get the threaded barrel for this one made...I still need to get it to the range and see how it does:
You know, solid observations there. I really like Smiths, and I trust them, but I've had a few recent eyebrow raises. I bought a qualified purchaser/LE Shield Plus with a badly canted sight (and I mean, could see it from a mile away, a few mm outside of the dovetail, REAL bad) and the customer service was basically like "eh, you can adjust it" without even a "sorry it was messed up" and then I got my recent qualified purchaser/LE SW1911 E-series, which is gorgeous and seems very well made but was packaged with a revolver manual...I admit I've had recent reservations about them as well. I think a lot of my M2.0 loyalty comes from my full-size no-safety 4.6" .45, which is one of the best performing pistols I've owned and tremendously comfortable in my hands, as well as my full-size M&P40 which does marvelously with a difficult cartridge and is also very comfy with a set of the M2.0 .45's more sandpapery grips. To me they are really comfortable and intuitive guns, and they've served on the street long enough to show they're also tough and reliable. Those are great traits, and they can make me a bit blind to their drawbacks.
I've recently become a bit more objective about that. I was very skeptical for a long time of the P320, but waiting a few years for them to work out the kinks got me my M17-B, which is just a rock star so far, the most fun I've had shooting a new gun in a while. Add to that my Gen 5 Glock 17 MOS, Gen 5 Glock 19, and Gen 5 Glock 22 MOS, the 9mm of which is really VERY accurate and the .40 of which finally, finally represents Glock figuring out .40 S&W (with the heavier slide that gun folks have been telling them to use since Gen 3).
In short, I am still very personally and emotionally fond of the M2.0 guns, and I still think they're extremely hard to beat in the $400-450 bracket you can typically find them on sale in. They're certainly a tough, reliable, service-grade pistol in my review of the available data.
The harder sell becomes...okay, I've got $600 to blow, why should I choose the M2.0 over the Gen 5 Glock or the Sig P320? That is, admittedly, a harder argument to make. I still trust Smith's quality control over Sig's civilian side by a hair, but Sig's qualified purchaser/LE guns seem very well quality-controlled. The Gen 5 Glock, emotion taken out of it, is the obvious answer if it fits the shooter's hands.
Walther ends up as an also-ran in these conversations, sort of like Beretta with the APX, not because of any inherent deficiency in the gun, but simply for being too late to the party despite having some really excellent candidates.
FN and the 509...well, FN gets to be a part of the conversation just as soon as they can put out a service handgun for five consecutive years without sidelining in for their next New Hawtness. I can't trust a manufacturer that doesn't trust their product to stand the test of time.
Sorry, this turned into kind of a ramble, I've had a long work day and I enjoy shooting the bull about guns.
In your situation, with prior experience and trust in Walthers and no current buy-in, I think the PDP is one of the best choices you could make. Either way, I hope you find something that checks your boxes. Nice P99s.
State Government Attorney | Beretta, Glock, CZ & S&W Fan
Finally got a chance to get it to the range. Mounted a Steiner MPS on it via an FCD plate and headed out. I put 39 rounds of 147 HST, 50 of Fed 147 Syntech (the purple ones), and 158 of Fed American Eagle 147 flatpoints through it with zero issues. In fact that's notable all by itself; not once did I get pinched, gouged, bruised...anything. It was actually comfortable to use for more than a couple of mags. I'm not even sure my most dehorned 1911 is that comfortable...I'm really happy with this thing. My local gun store has a 5" compact in stock, actually...I passed and got a 4" compact, but that 5" looks sufficiently weird that it might come home with me as a backup...
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