Blowback pistols more reliable?

First, no.

Second, the Beretta 92/M9 is not a simple blow-back pistol.

It uses the John Browning short-recoil locked breech derived system every other modern high pressure pistol uses.
The H&K P7 uses a gas delayed locking system.

With very few exceptions, all modern high pressure designs use some form of that short-recoil locked breech design.

Simple blow-back designs are universally used for low power rounds such as .22 RF, .25, 32, & .380 ACP calibers.

Your High-point is one exception.
It uses an exceptionally heavy slide & recoil spring to contain the pressure.

But many other designs are as likely to be as reliable, if not more so.

rc

You fixed your post?

Now you are making me look bad!
Answering questions you no longer appear to have ask!


rc

O.K.!
Fair enough.

But if the high-pressure blow-back pistol like the High-Point was really the most reliable way to make pistols?

Every manufacture would be making them that way.
Because it is the very cheapest way to make a gun.

But they aren't.

rc

rcmodel: the M9/Beretta 92 does not use a Browning derived locked breech system. It's a copy of the Walther P-38 dropping block system which in turn is arguably derived from the Mauser C96. Browning may sit next to God in heaven, but he didn't invent everything.

Couple guns I can think of: The PX4 uses a rotating barrel to unlock, and there are a few gas guns out there. The gas guns I would not consider to be more reliable than anything else and in many cases, probably less reliable. There is also Ed Masaki's Dragon Gun which is a 1911 with a fixed barrel (yes you read that right). It uses gas ports along the side to vent pressure, but otherwise operates as a blow-back design.

The advantage of a fixed barrel in theory is more accuracy. If the barrel doesn't have to lock into battery and is fixed, there can be no mechanical inconsistencies from shot to shot.

The M3 Grease Gun and many .22 rimfires use a blowback system. The blowback system requires that ammo all be within a tight power range. Too light and the system will malfunction, too heavy and it will damage itself. The best examples of this are the cracked frames on Hamdem made High Standard pistols that people shot HV .22 LR ammo through. Those target pistols were made for standard velocity ammo and shooting enough high velocity will eventually damage them. The M3 worked fine as all military 45 ammo was 230 ball at about the same velocity. The springs and bolt were designed for that one round. That same limitation is a handicap with a civilian pistol. YMMV

jeepercreeper said:

Do pistols like HK blowbacks

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What major caliber HK pistols are pure blowbacks?

Without getting too technical, there are tradeoffs. I remember reading that a blowback gun could be made in .30-'06, but the breechblock would have to weigh 21 pounds. I don't know if that is true, but it well could be.

So the High Point requires a heavy breechblock (slide) because it it blowback. But that allows it to be simple and made without careful fitting, which in turn allows it to be inexpensive. I suspect that the ammunition in question is underpowered, which means it will function a blowback pistol, but not a locked breech type. Is there a way such ammo can be used in recoil operated pistols without pulling it down and reloading it or maybe modifying the pistol? In a word, no.

FWIW, there have been major caliber blowbacks, notably by Astra. But even those were not pure blowbacks, as the hammers were made to have a mechanical disadvantage and so acted to retard or delay the slide movement. The HK P7 series and the Steyr GB are retarded blowbacks, the HK using a gas piston and the Steyr using forward blown gas to act on the interior of the slide.

Jim

however the el-cheapo HiPoint 45 just gobbles them up

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Nice to know….I just ordered a JHP last night.

I believe both the Steyr M1912 and MAB PA-15 both used a rotating barrel design very similar to that found on the Beretta PX4. Some larger caliber blowback pistols include the Astra Model 400 (9mm. Largo), and the Astra Model 600 (9mm. Parabellum).

I suspect that the ammunition in question is underpowered,

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HP’s function better with HV loads.

When testing ammunition, we found that low impulse target loads that function in the 1911-type will not operate the blow back Hi-Point.

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http://www.gunweek.com/2006/feature0120.html

The quality of handgun seems to have a direct correlation to its reliability, except when you get into guns that have tolerances that are too tight.

As an aside, when I get reloads of unknown origin, I pull them and recycle the components. You can usually reuse primed brass - pull the decapping stem and size with out decapping, then expand, then load the same bullets back in with your own known powder charge. That's how I make unknown ammunition into safe reloads.

I would say no

Jeeper,

In my experience the blowback pistols are less reliable than the top quality locked breech pistols. I base this on my own experience with very high quality blowback guns like the BERETTA 80 series, the SIG 230/232 series and WALTHER PP series. All of these are very high quality guns.

Only the BERETTA 80 series has proved as reliable as the locked breech BERETTA 92/96 series to me.

Now that does not mean the others are bad, just a little more finicky than the locked breech guns. Another point is that the locked breech guns like the BERETTA 92, GLOCK 17, SIG 226 and WALTHER P99 are closer to full size guns and that may make a difference. Note that the only 100% reliable blowback pistol I have come across is the BERETTA 80 series which is nearly as big as the locked breech, full size guns and that may contribute to that reliability. The BERETTA also features the open top slide which may help as well.

Now the less the 100 % reliability that I experienced with the SIG and WALTER blowback guns was in two parts.
First they were a LITTLE finicky about ammo. I cannot run FEDERAL Hydra Shoks in the SIG or PP/PPK with 100 % reliable feeding. This and the silly WINCHESTER white box fmj ammo with a flat tipped nose also cause problems, but everything else shoots fine, so I do not consider it a defect.

Secondary, they get dirty and are more effected by it than locked breech guns in my experience. The BERETTA will easily go 150 rounds without a jam or misfeed in one range session. The SIG 232 as well, but the WALTHER will occasionally stop or misfeed when it gets this dirty. Up to 100 rounds and it is 100% reliable.

I have shot many other blowback pistols, but these are the highest quality ones and seem to have an almost universal reputation for being reliable.

I think the higher pressure and recoil impulse of rounds like the 9m.m. may help them overcome some dirt and powder build up.

Just my experience.

Jim

In general, are simple blowback operated handguns more intrinsically reliable than recoil operated pistols?

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I don't think there is an easy answer to this. Low powered pistols are simple blowback but even then they have case to chamber friction issues. Blowbacks are very sensitive to breech friction, aluminum cased ammunition for use in blowbacks are coated in a wax lubricant to reduce the friction between case and chamber. I have helped shooters get their Walther P22 22 LR's functioning by placing a couple of drops of oil on the top cartridge in their magazine. I don't know what it was about this pistol model, but the P22 pistol seems to gummed up early with powder and lube residue. Drops of oil on the cartridge stack broke the friction between case and chamber and must have helped wash out caked residue. I think a read of Chinn's Vol 4 the Machine Gun is the best way to become educated on this.

http://www.milsurps.com/content.php?r=347-The-Machine-Gun-(by-George-M.-Chinn)

Is there any advantage to having a stationary barrel in a world of tilting barrels?

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The Germans must have thought so. This is a P7 pistol, fixed barrel, gas delayed blowback. Notice the chamber flutes which break the friction between case and chamber through "gas lubrication". If those get gummed up the pistol won't extract.



I think the complexity of the gas system, the amount of residue left after firing, plus the squeeze cocker mechanism, are the reasons this action is no longer in the market.

45_auto said:

What major caliber HK pistols are pure blowbacks?

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One I know of for sure is the 9mm VP70Z.

locked breech, short recoil operation is generally a better engineering option for a pistol firing moderate power ammo.

More or less reliability is dependent on other circumstances, like quality of build.

Blowbacks and delayed blowbacks typically do not like aluminum cased ammo. Locked breech typically does not like steel cased ammo......

It's a lot easier to limp wrist a blow-back pistol than a short-recoil one.

I never had any malfunction with the Comblic blowback guns I've used over the years...Of course, they're about at the top of the power level one can utilize in a blowback without making it the size of an SMG....Still like the Makarovs, P64/P83, CZ82 etc.

I'm going to disagree with the majority here...

In general, are simple blowback operated handguns more intrinsically reliable than recoil operated pistols?

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In my experience, yes

Most reliable semi-auto pistol I've ever fired is a Makarov and it's a blowback. I currently have 2 Maks (used to be 3 but I sold one to a buddy). My Dad also has one that I've shot on several occasions. Every one has been 100% and they will eat anything I feed them.

Also I have found that the little Beretta .25 ACP pistols with the "flip up" barrels are very reliable. I have a model 950 Beretta that I am very fond of.

Locked breech pistols (especially the smaller sized ones) have been (at least in my own personal experience) much more picky when it comes to ammo. They'll have 1 or 2 loads that they like but use anything else and you'll get failures.

Is there any advantage to having a stationary barrel in a world of tilting barrels?

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Accuracy is the big advantage. The disadvantage to the fixed barrel is that it's much harder to swap out. I wanted to convert one of my Makarovs from 9X18 to .380ACP, I ended up having a gunsmith do it. If it were a locked breech style pistol, it would have been a "drop in" replacement...

Taking out weight, size, accuracy, capacity, looks, every feature except for feeding, firing, and extraction of cartridges.

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Weight/size wise, blowback is best with smaller cartridges (.25, .380, 9X18). When you go larger than that the gun starts to get heavy and bulky.

Blowback is better for accuracy but I don't know if it's a big enough of a difference to really matter.

The mechanism shouldn't have any impact on capacity that's all in the grip (single vs double stack)

Looks are subjective but generally speaking I think the blow back pistols tend to be more ugly than their locked breech counterparts.

Looks are subjective but generally speaking I think the blow back pistols tend to be more ugly than their locked breech counterparts.

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Obviously beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But the little Beretta and the Mak you mentioned are very nice looking and well proportioned objects that fit most hands like a second skin. I'd add to that any number of other small caliber pistols. One of my favourites, that I'm not allowed to own because my gubermint says it would make me into an evil baby killer, is the Walther PPK. Another shape that just fits so nicely.

But for a peek at what they morph into when tuned as required to suit the harder hitting cartridges such as 9mm and up from there we just need to look at the all time big and fugly Hi Point hand guns. Can you imagine trying to conceal carry a lump like that? Not to mention that I understand that the heavy slide makes them feel incredibly top heavy.

Direct blowback for these bigger and more powerful rounds is best left to use in pistol caliber carbines where the heavy bolt can be hidden in a suitable size receiver.