Who made it best on the first try- 9mm

I can’t give the Browning High Power credit for best first try. For one it wasn’t JMB’s first 9mm pistol, that was the 1903 albeit in 9X20. Nor was it JMB’s first pistol design.

Wow

9mmepiphany said:

What Glock was very good at was marketing his design...there it helped that he wasn't a gun person, but a businessman/manufacturer

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Ok then.

Especially for the time period... BHP hands down. It's slim design, magazine capacity, overall feel/balance, its locking system, etc, etc... Quite something for the age, that aged very well. Of course I wish it never had a magazine safety, and standard hammer spur models bite my XXL hands a lot. Make mine in French gray, and call it a day.

Gotta give the P38 secondary props, but wow was/is the BHP something special.

I votes Glock. Keep in mind Glock had the other developments in handguns to draw on. However their engineers were not prejudiced by what everyone else had done. Polymer frame, magazines, it has to have a hammer and thumb activated safety.

I've come to the conclusion that GLOCK designed an excellent magazine, then built a mediocre pistol around it.

GRIZ22 said:

I votes Glock. Keep in mind Glock had the other developments in handguns to draw on. However their engineers were not prejudiced by what everyone else had done. Polymer frame, magazines, it has to have a hammer and thumb activated safety.

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I was selling firearms right around when Glock's first came out in the US, and I think the collective we, don't remember what a huge deal it was... All the talk of pistols 'invisible' to x-ray searches, 'plastic' magazines, attractive like a cinder block, made by "ferriners", 9mm caliber, 'weird' rifling, goofy trigger w/o a safety... Sure remember a lot of negative comments from perspective buyers - "Who the hell buys a plastic POS pistol", or similar. Even in the early 90's, I was selling a LOT MORE Beretta 92's, especially popular was the INOX version.

Fast forward, and it's simply amazing how much influence it had and continues to have, especially with the LEO community, popular culture, etc. Well done Gaston.

Galil5.56 said:

Especially for the time period... BHP hands down. It's slim design, magazine capacity, overall feel/balance, its locking system, etc, etc... Quite something for the age, that aged very well. Of course I wish it never had a magazine safety, and standard hammer spur models bite my XXL hands a lot. Make mine in French gray, and call it a day.

Gotta give the P38 secondary props, but wow was/is the BHP something special.

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If only the trigger didnt suck so hard. And the wicked slide bite. And the hammer jabbing my ribs like a 1911 never does. But it does feel oh so sweet in the hand, and conceals excellently.

And my MKIII apparently HATES 147 grain ammo. Terrible accuracy with my standard handloads (that shoot same hole in my 226 and darned good in my Glocks), but pretty good with 115 and 124 handloads and factory ammo.

The Hi-Power. The GP35 is still being used, in some country's armies.

Hi power all the way. For all the griping about the trigger, it's only "bad" compared to a good 1911, and any end user can remove the mag disconnect with the purchase of a single punch, rendering it pretty darn good.

Ramone said:

I've come to the conclusion that GLOCK designed an excellent magazine, then built a mediocre pistol around it.

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A pedestrian service pistol of unexceptional quality that utilizes an outstanding magazine is far far more useful than a pistol of outstanding workmanship and design that relies on garbage magazines.

Seeing as most malfunctions in a self loading firearm are magazine related, the magazine design and quality is just as important if not more so than the details on the rest of the firearm. Getting your magazine to work right all the time, under all the conditions is probably 80% of what makes a magazine fed weapon useful.

Look at the history of the 1911 pistol as an example, a well made 1911 really needs only a few things to be pretty reliable: a well tuned extractor, a properly made and dimensioned ejector, good feed ramp to barrel throat geometry, and magazines that don’t suck. Before the advent of good magazines guys would buy a 1911 and send it off to get worked on, and they still often didn’t run correctly until magazines like the Wilson-Rogers became available. Now you can get a 1911 that more often than not will work right if the maker did the other things right for feeding, extraction, and ejection (not a given that they will....). Good magazines have made a huge difference.

Schlegel said:

Hi power all the way. For all the griping about the trigger, it's only "bad" compared to a good 1911, and any end user can remove the mag disconnect with the purchase of a single punch, rendering it pretty darn good.

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Even with the mag safety removed my MKIII is worse, for my needs, than even my Glocks.

All the travel, a mushy 6 lb break, no discernable reset, and still has the thumb safety.

Can I make it work? Sure, I carried it for a few years and shot it fine. But the trigger isn't great even by Glock (or other plastic) standards, far as I'm concerned.

Still my best looking gun though.

JR24 said:

MKIII is worse, for my needs, than even my Glocks.

All the travel, a mushy 6 lb break, no discernable reset, and still has the thumb safety.

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Send it to cylinder & slide..

tarosean said:

Send it to cylinder & slide..

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I have often thought of it.

I'd love to get a bit of a beavertail on it as well. Anyone do that?

JR24 said:

I'd love to get a bit of a beavertail on it as well. Anyone do that?

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They do that too...
NightHawk was also selling BHP's with a Beavertail for a while. So I am sure they could hook you up.

JR24 said:

I have often thought of it.

I'd love to get a bit of a beavertail on it as well. Anyone do that?

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Don Williams, Novak, C&S, APW Cogan, Ted Yost, Garthwaite and many others can put a beavertail on a BHP.

I don’t think Nighthawk is taking custom work on BHPs. They were producing their version using FN base guns but when FN stopped production they stopped working on them IIRC.

WVsig said:

Don Williams, Novak, C&S, APW Cogan, Ted Yost, Garthwaite and many others can put a beavertail on a BHP.

I don’t think Nighthawk is taking custom work on BHPs. They were producing their version using FN base guns but when FN stopped production they stopped working on them IIRC.

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Cool. I'll put that on the docket. I told my wife I wasnt interested in any new pistols...

BHP.

I went with Glock 17. I don't even like Glocks particularly. Bhp is my prefence in 9mm. But Gaston completely nailed it with zero firearms background. I've heard it coined "America's handgun". Though, America's handgun came from John Browning imo. Still, a lot of respect for Glock.

No one is loving the S&W contributions?

I vote for the HiPower but the best IMO was the P38

Well the Hi-Power wasn’t a first attempt but it’s leading the votes because it’s an option that is incorrectly listed in he poll as a first attempt.

Frankly the Hi-Power isn’t very good by modern standards but people love it anyway.