A malfunction every 28 rounds... Hi-Point C9

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Templar223

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by John Boch
(Guns Save Life) - Tim over at GunNuts Media has been reporting on his progress shooting his Hi-Point C9 and putting 2000 rounds through it, a few hundred at a time over the past few weeks.

He completed his project. In the end, he ran nearly 2200 rounds through it.

He kept track of the number of malfunctions and the net result?

A malfunction every 28 rounds, on average.

Is this a gun you want to defend your life or that of a loved one?

I don’t think so.

Personally, I’ve had a-plenty of experience with this particular pistol over the years.

1. I owned one.

(continued...)


Img_7203s.jpg

Beauty and the beast? The most recent HiPoint C9 in action.
(Rosie, get your support hand up!)
 
Most accounts I've heard suggest the Hi Point pistols are much more reliable than that.

However, I still have no interest in owning one. I have lots of quality firearms and better things to do with an extra $150 (like buy more ammo).
 
My one and only experience with a brand new Hi-Point 9MM, I put 100 rounds through it without incident. It was crude and top heavy but it worked. No jams whatsoever. That being said I HATED it, but it did work.
 
what does he define as a 'stoppage' and what does he define as a 'malfunction'?

he also never stated what ammo he used and how often it was cleaned.....for all we know he could have been shooting black powder 9mm reloads and never cleaned the thing.....
 
I didn't click on nothing. It seems half the Kimbers have to get sent back to the factory a few times to maybe then work at all.. after the 500 round "break-in" though.
 
what does he define as a 'stoppage' and what does he define as a 'malfunction'?

He very clearly said in the article:

A malfunction I define as the gun fails to go bang when it’s supposed to for any reason. That includes failure to feed, extract, properly cycle or any other weirdness
 
Seems to me he only wrote the article and made the post in order to bash Hi-points. I owned one years ago. It was my first pistol. It shot fairly well (3-4" groups at 30-40ft). It NEVER had a malfunction that wasn't directly attributable to bad ammunition.

I fired more than 10,000 rounds through that gun, at least 3,000 of which was garbage Norinco surplus.

I sent it back to Hi-point twice in the time I had it for warranty work. The first time was around 5500-6000 rds after a particularly heavy shooting session where I fired over 2000 rounds in one weekend (broken extractor), got the pistol back within a week looking nearly new. It went back again right before I sold it in order to have all the springs replaced and have it checked over.
 
I heard that some states are considering legislation that proclaims certain guns (including the Hi-Point line) are so crude and unreliable that having one pulled on you is no longer considered putting you "in fear for life." The laws, if passed, will make it a crime to resist an attempted attack by someone using one by drawing your own gun (unless it's also on the list.) :rolleyes:
 
I heard that some states are considering legislation that proclaims certain guns (including the Hi-Point line) are so crude and unreliable that having one pulled on you is no longer considered putting you "in fear for life." The laws, if passed, will make it a crime to resist an attempted attack by someone using one by drawing your own gun (unless it's also on the list.) :rolleyes:
Let me guess... New York, California, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey and Hawaii? :p
 
You can find bad review ony any gun if you look. One bad review vervus countless people claiming no issues on forums. I don't think the op's results are typical. I have no doubt that Hi Points have a good rep for function.

I will never own one based on size and looks, but if I needed one to protect my life, I would not feel uneasy
 
The father in law bought one. Shot 10 rounds through it. After 2 feed failures later, and realizing I'd be just as well to pick up a rock for sd, I had to say no. I guess I'm being opinionated but even if I had shot 100 rounds and didn't have any failures, the pistol is just so cluncky and unshapely I'll have to pass.

It is what it is.

Nuff' said.
 
I got one in 45 and I had no issues so IMO Hi-points are made in the USA have a no fault warrenty and are ugly workhorses. So this guy had issues and so have folks with Kimbers and Glocks so YMMV.
 
That Hi-Point was a lemon, far less reliable than most, by all accounts. Probably at least one marginal magazine in the test.
 
He very clearly said in the article:

A malfunction I define as the gun fails to go bang when it’s supposed to for any reason. That includes failure to feed, extract, properly cycle or any other weirdness

then what is a stoppage?

he seems to count 'stoppages' and 'malfunctions' differently.......with only 1 malfunction and 76 stoppages....
 
I owned one years ago................ It NEVER had a malfunction that wasn't directly attributable to bad ammunition..................I sent it back to Hi-point twice in the time I had it for warranty work. ...............(broken extractor), got the pistol back within a week looking nearly new. It went back again right before I sold it in order to have all the springs replaced and have it checked over.

:scrutiny:
 
Templar223
A malfunction every 28 rounds... Hi-Point C9

Let me start by saying that I have owned many many firearms, mostly pistols. I went out and bought a HP for the heck of it just to prove a point a couple of years ago. Know what? The thing performed after a short break-in period like most guns.

When I say break-in, I am referring to firing a few hundred rounds. Not polishing ramps or chambers, swapping recoil springs...etc...etc. The only slightly different thing I had to do was to let the fully loaded mags sit for 24 hours to gain 100% reliability.

As for accuracy, not better and no worst than most service pistols I've shot. 2" groups off-hand at 7 to 10 yards. BTW, the statement below from the article has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever read from a supposed gun expert. The writer must be truly blessed or haven't had much experience with firearms in general. As anyone who has owned more than a few dozen new pistols can tell you, some guns needs a break-in period to function flawlessly moving forward.

Now, granted, the Hi-Point family I met way back when was an exception and not the rule, but I’ve never had issues with Glocks, Smiths (a Sigma or two excluded) or Rugers. Heck, not even Tauruses.

Bottom line - lots of value for a buck and a half. May need break-in period. Don't believe me? Do some research on your own. Oh, it also beats the hell out of using a rock for SD.
 
Seems to me he only wrote the article and made the post in order to bash Hi-points. I owned one years ago. It was my first pistol. It shot fairly well (3-4" groups at 30-40ft). It NEVER had a malfunction that wasn't directly attributable to bad ammunition.

I fired more than 10,000 rounds through that gun, at least 3,000 of which was garbage Norinco surplus.

I sent it back to Hi-point twice in the time I had it for warranty work. The first time was around 5500-6000 rds after a particularly heavy shooting session where I fired over 2000 rounds in one weekend (broken extractor), got the pistol back within a week looking nearly new. It went back again right before I sold it in order to have all the springs replaced and have it checked
over.

Really? 9mm?



I got one in 45 and I had no issues so IMO Hi-points are made in the USA have a no fault warrenty and are ugly workhorses. So this guy had issues and so have folks with Kimbers and Glocks so YMMV.

I'm sold.
 
Yeah. As I mentioned a significant portion of what I shot through that gun was old chicom surplus.

A hot out of spec load with work hardened brass snapped the lip off my extractor. Problem?

Yeah.........a broken extractor is still a gun failure, not an ammo malfunction. Blame the ammo if you like, but if the gun is working properly, there should be no way that the "work hardened brass" would affect the extractor. Now, if you say the case head blew and took out the extractor, NOW we have an ammo related failure.

Apparently, what you consider ammo-related failure and what I do are two very different things. An ammo-induced stoppage to me is a round that won't feed, chamber or extract due to a verifiable defect in the cartridge or case, such as the 3 rounds out of a case of Wolf steel cased 5.56 ammo that caused stoppages in my Armalite M15A2C; These cartridges would not chamber in any gun we put them in to verify due to a grossly out-of-spec shoulder.

Bullet seated too long or short to feed properly (or at all), won't fit in the chamber, or was under/over loaded to the point that it caused a short stroke of the slide or a catastrophic failure that was obviously due to over pressure condition. These things are ammo failures.

Calling every stoppage an ammo failure just because the gun is not physically broken is not exactly being truthful. If it were, I could pretty much claim all of my guns to be malfunction free. And blaming a cartridge case that didn't fail for a broken extractor is really stretching it.
 
Yeah.........a broken extractor is still a gun failure, not an ammo malfunction. Blame the ammo if you like, but if the gun is working properly, there should be no way that the "work hardened brass" would affect the extractor. Now, if you say the case head blew and took out the extractor, NOW we have an ammo related failure.

Apparently, what you consider ammo-related failure and what I do are two very different things. An ammo-induced stoppage to me is a round that won't feed, chamber or extract due to a verifiable defect in the cartridge or case, such as the 3 rounds out of a case of Wolf steel cased 5.56 ammo that caused stoppages in my Armalite M15A2C; These cartridges would not chamber in any gun we put them in to verify due to a grossly out-of-spec shoulder.

Bullet seated too long or short to feed properly (or at all), won't fit in the chamber, or was under/over loaded to the point that it caused a short stroke of the slide or a catastrophic failure that was obviously due to over pressure condition. These things are ammo failures.

Calling every stoppage an ammo failure just because the gun is not physically broken is not exactly being truthful. If it were, I could pretty much claim all of my guns to be malfunction free. And blaming a cartridge case that didn't fail for a broken extractor is really stretching it.
Considering you weren't there and weren't the one shooting the gun, calling me a liar is pretty much stretching it. I understand what you're saying, and in certain cases it could be true. In this case it's not. Now you seem like an intelligent person, but you're starting to border on offensive.

Your list of ammo related failures takes into account ONLY ONE THING BEING WRONG WITH THE AMMO. In my situation that wasn't the case. There was more than one thing wrong with the ammunition. Norinco surplus ammo is well known to be basically garbage, and that's the reason I was firing it through the hi-point instead of a more costly gun.

Further, your list of ammo related failures assumes one extreme or another. There is a whole spectrum of conditions that are out of specifications that don't necessarily have to be one extreme or the other.
 
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