If the P7 is so great then...

Status
Not open for further replies.
I had a P7M8 that I bought new last year. It was a very nice gun. Very nice, shot well, felt good in the hand. But for me it was one of those that never really hooked me to the extent that I thought it would. I wound up shooting it less and less, so I sold it and used the money to buy a gun that did hook me (USP Expert in 45).

The P7 is one of those things that if you "get it", you better hang onto your wallet. A friend has a P7 collection that is legendary (and he just added another very rare model!) and the guy who bought my P7 had a big collection. I think his comment once we agreed on the terms was "cocaine would be a cheaper habit".
 
A down to earth hardball look at the inferiority of gas operated pistols

I have owned two HK pistols both the original 7 shot and the later 13 shot. I have found both to be inferior both in terms of reliablity and safety as compared to locked breach pistols.

Here is some of the problems I encountered and some of the dislikes I have about them.

1. The squeeze cocking mechanism make a loud clickty clack when you release it giving away your position when you are in the dangerous situation of being imminent attack.

2. The heavy squeeze cocking mechanism often disturbs aim if one does not shoot quickly.

3. Contrary to common belief, it is not a safe system to use at all, but I found it quite dangerous. Police departments that have used this gun have found that in a panic situation the natural human tendency is to get a death like grip on any handgun which in the case of the squeeze cocker renders the gun cocked and ready to fire with no manuel safety in operation. Coupled with the very mushy trigger pull the gun has often been accidentally fired when the person was in the process of drawing it out to fire it as many police unfortunately found out by accidentally shooting themselves.

4. The gas system is way inferior to the Colt/Browning locked breach systems. It must not only be kept clean but is very sensitive to powder buring rates. I have found that using the wrong buring rate of powder the action will start to open prematurely resulting in a dangerous condition and one will experience excessive , sudden, and pounding recoil because of the premature opening of the slide. The American Rifleman magazine had an excellent write up some years ago on this phenomenon when the first tested the early P7 model.

4. If one likes to shoot much, the P7 series of pistols must be used with jacketed bullets and even if you use handloads using jacketed bullets it is very expensive compared to using lead bullets which is a no, no, in any gas operated pistol like the HK because lead shavings could plug up the gas system and result in a blow up. The gas system must be kept clean even when firing only jacketed factory ammo because when it gets dirty the gun will then fail to function.

5. Because of the Gas system the gun overheats rapidly. This of course will shorten barrel life if the gun is overheated too often and this will happen with as little as 50 rounds fired on a hot day.

6. The gun is way overpriced considering that is largely in the catagory of what has been called the modern "high tech sheet metal pistols" being made largley of internal sheet metal stampings. But due to the fact that it is made in Germany the price has been always quite high. It is therefore considered to be a prestige gun because of its huge price but I personnaly found it to shoot no better than many lower priced competitor guns. This is not because the gun is not very inherently accurate but because with its weird mushy trigger pull and heavy squeeze safety many people find shooting it a real challenge.

7. I. like many people I acquired them (at least briefly) out of curiosity because of their rather unique design being that they were gas operated.

8. Many years ago John Browning, the great firearms genius worked with trying to perfect a gas operated pistol but found that they were not as reliable as his short recoil guns so he decided to abandon such a design. Many years later modern firearms engineers had to rediscover what he had known many years before.

9. Despite its small size it is deceivingly heavy,

10. I remember reading that one police department some years ago had problems with firing pin breakage and one officer was killed in the line of duty when his firing pin broke. I do not know wether this problem was later rectified by a redisign or not.

Many people do like the HK's because they are an expensive prestige gun and a gun that is very different than most automatics but they take a long back seat when put up against the Browning short recoil designed guns when it comes to reliablity under severe conditions and with less than perfect ammo specifically taylored for or designed for this weapon.
 
Its been awhile since I sold mine, but I found it to be a a very accurate and easy pistol to shoot. You do need to put all others out of your mind when you shoot and carry it, and I dont think it would be a good on/off pistol. You need to either carry it or dont.
Mine had a very good single action trigger pull, it want musshy at all. When you say mushy, I think HK rifles.
The squeeze cocker, while slightly heavy to initially "cock", requires no weight or strength to hold it cocked. I could easily hold it cocked with just my thumb and pinky finger once cocked. Once I was used to shooting it, I never had it come uncocked unintentionally. The squeeze cocker does make the P7 one of the fastest guns to reload and get back into action. You can dump the mag easily with the trigger finger, that giant hole in the butt of the grip(P7M13) is hard to miss with a mag thats single stack at the top. Once seated all you need to do is close your grip and the guns ready again.
Safety isnt an issue if you follow basic safety procedures. Finger off the trigger till your sights are on and your fine. No different than a Glock.
It does get hot when shot fast and alot. Hot to the point of being uncomfortable, but thats just not a mag or two.
The sights on it are some of the best I've used. I like a lot of light around the front sight, and the P7 has a nice wide rear notch. Makes for a fast sight picture.
I always used jacketed bullets, be they factory or reloads. I never loaded 9mm with lead due to leading problems caused by fast moving bullets and lead. I've been hearing of a lot of problems with Glocks and polygonal rifling, (dont know if its the cause or not) so I dont know if it would be good to use lead if the gas system and leading wasnt an issue. You do need to keep it clean, but then again, you need to keep them all clean.
As for price, I wouldnt buy one for what they sell them today. They are not worth that. Then again, I wouldnt spend that much for any pistol, I dont see the need. When I bought mine, HK was still customer friendly, and the prices on all their guns was within reason. I paid $450 for it new around 84-85. I also paid $450 for my HK94($350 more and it was a MP5 :) ) and a little over $550 for my 91. Soon afterwards, HK went out of their minds, became dealer only, and you had to be a special HK approved dealer, and they wouldnt even talk to you on the phone if you werent, they'd hang up on you. They started to cater to the police and government sales and their prices jumped by a lot. I sold my P7 because it became worth to much to carry.(and a holster mag issue) I bought two Glocks for what I sold my HK for. (should have kept the HK for a safe queen, the Glocks were a mistake, but thats another story).
All in all, if the price were reasonable, I might get another. I wouldnt carry it as I like the 1911's best for a carry gun. The problem's I had with the mag always falling out in the truck would, I'm sure, not be a problem with a good Kydex holster that is available today. They only had two available when I got mine, and both were not very good.
 
BHP9 Wrote:

"A down to earth hardball look at the inferiority of gas operated pistols"

Well we will have to disagree on this one. Based on my experience, I found your diatribe polarly opposite to my conclusions on the P-7 series. BTW, my favorite pistol is the Browning Hi Power, but I carry the P-7 more often due to many of the reasons you state the gun is inferior.

1. Reliablity (thousands of rounds, 0 failures)
1.a. Accuracy
2. Points naturally
3. Safe
4. Slim/small for its barrel size and caliber

Again, on price. $750 - $1,000 is not alot for a good pistol anymore. Most decent 1911's are in this price range and worth it I might add.
 
There are "P7 people" and there aren't. I'm not a P7 person. First, spending $1200 for a PES dispenser, when I can by 3 CZ75's for the same price, means I'll probably never own one.

Second, it RUINS my shooting, as the grip you start with when you grab the gun isn't the same grip you use to shoot, and so that bothers me.

But I will say this for it, probably the only gun I would even TRY to mexican carry; unsecond thought, I'll never mexican carry...
 
BHP9, I disagree with much that you wrote. Releasing the squeeze-cocker is loud, about as loud as decocking an HK USP. But, there is a technique, described only in the earlier HK P7 manuals, for decocking silently. While cocked, pull the slide back about 1cm, then release the squeeze-cocker. This technique is much more quiet. Still, you shouldn't be cocking the P7 until you're ready to fire, so I don't see this as an issue.

As long as you keep the gas system clean, which takes very little effort using the tools that are supplied, the P7 is exceptionally reliable.

Also, how does the heat issue relate to barrel life exactly? The portion that gets hot is the frame. The frame is steel. While it may get very hot for humans to touch, I cannot see how it can shorten service life.

One of the local gun shops has two new-in-box HK P7M8s going for a tad over $1500. I paid $900 each for my two P7M8s a couple years ago, both new-in-box.
 
Also, how does the heat issue relate to barrel life exactly? The portion that gets hot is the frame. The frame is steel. While it may get very hot for humans to touch, I cannot see how it can shorten service life.

Glad you asked that question.

Heat is the main killer of all barrels. Rifle shooters have long known that overheating a rifle barrel raises internal temperatures which accelerates throat erosion. It happens to pistols too, only on a scale somewhat slightly slower due to the smaller quantities of power used but pistols are often fired many thousands of times more than rifles on average so the accumulating damage soon affects pistol barrels as well.

And as an added note trying to change out an HK barrel on a squeeze cocker is not something the average home hobbiest will be able to do in a few minuets, if at all ,with out the proper tools and know how. In a way just another draw back to owning a fixed barrel pistol.
 
So, what you're saying is that a pistol that takes some of the pressure (heat) from firing and diverts it through the frame to operate the slide will heat, and therefore erode, the barrel faster than one that pushes all the pressure (heat) down the barrel? :rolleyes:

The rest of your rant displays a similar, questionable thought process.
 
I guess I'm not following the heat/barrel argument very well.

It would seem, like in brake rotors, mass is what determines heat absorbtion and dissipation. Varmint rifle makers must agree, since they are, invariably, heavy barreled guns.

Firing a given number of rounds through two guns, one a gas operated P7 and the other a Browning design, should produce an equal amount of heat, using the same ammo, barrel length/mass, ceteris parabus.
 
I agree that there would probably be no difference in barrel life between the P7 and any other pistol with a quality barrel.
Here's an interesting read on heat an barrel wear. It's in the "barrel steel" section.
http://www.schuemann.com/

On a side note, I think that heavy barrels used in a varmint rifle are for barrel stability and hence improved accuracy. A light barrel is whippy.
 
I agree that there would probably be no difference in barrel life between the P7 and any other pistol with a quality barrel.

Here's an interesting read on heat an barrel wear. It's in the "barrel steel" section.

I think you should re-read this:

The general problems result from the hot propellant gasses contact with the barrel bore. The propellants we use have a flame temperture of about 4500 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of adiabatic compression the temperature of the propellant gasses can increase to temperatures much higher than 4500 degrees Fahrenheit. This hot gas sweeps down the bore when a round is fired. The hot gas transfers heat into the surface of the bore. After each round is fired the heat which flowed into the bore surface is gradually conducted away by the barrel steel. Because the 416 steel has less thermal conductivity the heat flows away more slowly and if numerous rounds are fired in quick succession the surface temperature of the bore can become higher than a basic steel bore surface would.

Firing a given number of rounds through two guns, one a gas operated P7 and the other a Browning design, should produce an equal amount of heat, using the same ammo, barrel length/mass, ceteris parabus.

So, what you're saying is that a pistol that takes some of the pressure (heat) from firing and diverts it through the frame to operate the slide will heat, and therefore erode, the barrel faster than one that pushes all the pressure (heat) down the barrel?


To simplify it. If you watch a lead ingot melt it does not matter where you heat the ingot. The temperature will rise to the point where the outer skin of the ingot or a barrel will reach a point where the outer surface of th ingot or inner surface of a barrels bore will actually start to melt away.


Whe shooting live rounds through a barrel you have the torch cutting gases acting on the inner surface of the barrel and as the barrel becomes hotter and hotter the surface, even if not visible to the naked eye, will ,after reaching a certain temperature, depending on what steel the barrel was made of, reach a point where the outer surface starts to melt away. . Any additional heat no matter how small will raise the temperature higher increasing a more rapid erosion or melting away of the outer skin.

MY point is, simply ,that the tremendous amount of extra heat generated to the barrel because of the gas system of the gas operated pistol heats it up far more quickly than the short-recoil Browning guns. Anyone who has fired an HK gas gun has observed this. All this additional heat quickly helps raise the bore temperature to the point where erosion is taking place far sooner than the slower heating up of the Brownind short recoil weapons. So for the same time period when firing and using the weapon, enables the hotter working gas gun to erode away the barrel at a far quicker rate.


There may be those who disagree with me but having seen what happens to rifle barrels when they become overheated and how they are sometimes ruined very, very quickly even with low round counts has led me to this belief.

In conclusion when firing a gas gun when the gun is overheated you must let it cool down or you risk ruining the barrel in short order. The Short -recoil guns will also heat up but at a far slower rate enabling the user to use them for longer periods of time before they too reach a point where you are destroying the throat of your barrel.
 
I had a chance to put a couple of mags through a P7M8. It was a very impressive gun. Shot very well for me. But..... for my money, the Sig P239 is just as good of a gun. At less then half the price and every bit as accurate.
 
It's amazing what someone will concoct because they don't like something. In order:

1. Why did you cock it in the first place? You cock as a very short prelude to firing: 1, 2. You don't walk around with the cocker depressed for no reason. The actual firing gives away your position as well.

2. "Heavy squeeze cocking mechanism?" It takes one (1) pound of force to hold it. I can keep mine depressed with a pinky alone.

3. You prefer a gun that does not de-cock itself? Fine. How do these "natural tendencies" fail to happen with Glocks, 1911s and BHPs (also with light trigger, but no cocker.)? There certainly aren't any Glock NDs in police departments, are there?

4. What sort of kooky load development are you doing with 9mm?!!! This is not a .357 or 10mm. There are no good hunting loads! Which one of dozen normal propellants would cause a problem? Mine has never had a problem with dirty old Unique, for one.

4. Jacketed bullets. All polygonal bores are recommended for jacketed bullets. Jacketed 9mm bullets are available to reloaders for $45 per 1000, and are more accurate. Please.

5. The gun does heat up. Shorter barrel life? How many worn out HK barrels have you seen? This is about the same barrel used in the MP5. Don't they heat up? How quickly do they wear out?

You know what wears out barrels more quickly? Lands and grooves.

6. Let's talk gun prices. Is $600 a good price for a gun with half of its parts injection molded plastic? What IS value? Why does an FN cost 3 times that of the same gun made in Hungary?

7. I aquired mine because they made sense. I don't shoot any pistol faster or better.

8. So Browning couldn't get a gas system to work with Victorian age tooling? How shocking! I'll bet they couldn't build jet engines in 1910, either.

9. It's all steel, and weighs what other all steel, 4.1" barrel guns do. Compact doesn't mean less, just more space efficient.

10. ONE police department. Certainly no other gun (S&W, Glock, Beretta) has had broad ranging problems and had the ENTIRE purchase sent back. The ONE pistol in question was 20 years old when it failed. It was in NJ and they are still carrying them because their brand new SW99s jammed constantly.
 
1. Why did you cock it in the first place? You cock as a very short prelude to firing: 1, 2. You don't walk around with the cocker depressed for no reason. The actual firing gives away your position as well.

Lets not imagine a perfect world with perfect people who operate perfecty under stress. Many people beside myself have seen very good reason to cock the weapon in preperation to fire and then found that the threat they felt was imminent suddenly could not be readily located. Then there was an immediate need to decock the weapon.

2. "Heavy squeeze cocking mechanism?" It takes one (1) pound of force to hold it. I can keep mine depressed with a pinky alone.

The two squeeze cockers I owned felt way heavier than one pound and years later, last summer to be exact, I had an opportunity to revisit the HK by firing yet another 13 shot model that a fellow shooter happened to pull out of his bag. The squeeze cocker was even worse than I had remembered it and was still heavy as hell, way more than a pound , I just wish I would have had my new Lyman digital trigger pull gage to test it with.

4. What sort of kooky load development are you doing with 9mm?!!! This is not a .357 or 10mm. There are no good hunting loads! Which one of dozen normal propellants would cause a problem? Mine has never had a problem with dirty old Unique, for one.

Not any cooky loads at all. As a matter of fact they were on the mild side. I had two loads with me that day and they were loaded with bullseye and Unique. The NRA specifically warned in their article that when they used Unique that the pistol gave excessive and violent recoil caused by premature opening of the slide which I found out to be right on the money when I tested the pistol myself. All this took place about 7 or 8 years ago so maybe HK changed the gas port size in the model that you bought. But I can say this much, the model that I tested definately had a big problem when using the wrong buring rate of powder.

You know what wears out barrels more quickly? Lands and grooves.

Perhaps I may be misuderstanding your statement but if you really mean what you have just posted I can assure you that many, many high power rifle barrels that have had thousands of hot loads shot through them only need often to only have a gunsmith set the barrel back by rechambering it for the exact same caliber. The eroided part of the chamber is eliminated and the same barrel with the same lands and groves is once again shooting like new. The downside is the barrel is now a little bit shorter in overall length. Usually as long as the owner has not damaged the muzzle by improper cleaning the lands and groves are just fine.

5. The gun does heat up. Shorter barrel life? How many worn out HK barrels have you seen? This is about the same barrel used in the MP5. Don't they heat up? How quickly do they wear out?

I think that if we had more HK's that were used in Bullseye competition where extreme accuarcy is an absolute must that we would find out very quickly wether my statement was valid or not.

What could be done to settle the question would be to conduct a rather simple test that although expensive would not be hard to accomplish.

What we would do is simply this. We would test two HK Squeeze cockers. Each gun would have a large amount of ammo, say about a minimum of 6,000 rounds fired out of both of them at 1 second intervals. One HK would have the gas port plugged so the slide would have to be manually cycled and the other would be left in its normal gas operated state. Both guns would have their barrel temperatures monitored and after the prescribed number of rounds were fired a throat eroison gage would be used to measure the throat erosion on both weapons. Also both weapons would be tested for accuracy before and after the test.

If my theory is correct the HK with the operating gas system would show more throat erosion. Then the next question would be how much accuracy was lost. It may turn out that the noticable loss of accuarcy would not take place untill a large amount of shooting was done. What would this mean to the average plinker. Prabably not much because few can afford to shoot their weapons that much with the expensive jacketed ammo that must be fired out of these guns. It would make a lot of difference to the person who competes in competition and needs all the accuracy they can get. But here is the fly in the ointment. Many shooting competitons other than Bullseye shooting do not need accurate pistols for the person to constantly win in. It is more of a game of quick reflexes and fast shooting times. Since the HK is not used in bullseye competiton where this loss of acccuracy would be very noticable most competitors in other shooting disiplines would notice little if any change in the performanc of their weapon.

Until such a torture test could be conducted we will never know for sure how much loss of barrel accuracy will happen to the HK compared to the short recoil pistols but I will say this much, all that extra heat radiating from the overheated gas system certainly does the barrel no good. I do not think anyone could dispute the fact that excess heat does a weapon no good in the short or long run and the tremendous amount of heat that HK guns display in such a short period of time is certainly not a strong point in the guns design. Trying to carry around a gun that is at the point of glowing red in a holster close to the body is probably one reason no major military army has ever adopted it for front line troops.

8. So Browning couldn't get a gas system to work with Victorian age tooling? How shocking! I'll bet they couldn't build jet engines in 1910, either.

This is not a flame but I am really smiling over this one. That victorian age tooling produced some of the most fabulous hand built firearms in the history of mankind. As a matter of fact I have had some of todays machinests tell me that they do not know how these people could have held such close tolerances when making these weapons without the aid of computers. Since we have so many example of their fabulous work there is no question that they did it. The only question is how? Too bad we do not still use some of this old victorian age machining , it sure beat some of the lousy weapons I have owned that were produced on some of todays CNC machines.

4. Jacketed bullets. All polygonal bores are recommended for jacketed bullets. Jacketed 9mm bullets are available to reloaders for $45 per 1000, and are more accurate. Please

Sorry but I only spend .01 cent apiece for my bullets and thats 4 1/2 times less than you quoted and if you shoot a lot this adds up very quickly to big bucks. As far as no lead in polygonal bores. I have fired thousands and thousands through polygonel bores and they shoot very accurately indeed. They actually lead up less than conventional rifling but must be cleaned more often because a build up of leading could cause a blow up.
 
Well, I guess us "HK P7 owners" will continue to enjoy our obviously-unsafe, inferior-gas-operated, hard-to-keep-cocked, short-lived, too-hot-to-hold bundles of joy that can shoot only jacketed bullets due to their polygonal rifling. :banghead:
 
BHP9 is pulling his information out of thin air.

The arguments are extremely weak, and show an obvious lack of understanding of the firing mechanism of the P7 series pistols.

Try this on for size. The cocking mechanism on the P7 takes 13lbs force to cock the pistol, but due to an ingenious series of springs, less than 4lbs to hold the weapon cocked. Some people have reported numbers much less than this. Besides, 4lbs is probably less than many people grip their guns anyway to prevent the dreaded Glock limp-wrist.

The softening temperature for the steels used in the P7 are far beyond anything that any person could hold onto without burning their hand off. Raising the temperature of the gun 100 degrees won't change the properties of the metal at all. The greatest factor in reducing barrel life is friction. Varmint rifle barrels wear out faster not because of the heat, but because of the friction of a 4000fps projectile repeatedly being forced down the barrel. Heat is only the byproduct of friction in this case, unlike the P7 which has heat build-up because of the gas operating system.

Anybody who says that the P7 gas-operating system makes it more prone to failures obviously hasn't shot one. If he has, he never cleaned it, and therefore it screws the argument up anyway because they are liable to slam fires and burst with even Glocks if they abuse them this way.

The police officer in NJ did have a pistol that was over 20 years old. How many police departments have trusted their pistols for that long without replacing them? I would think that this is a testament to the longevity and quality of construction of the P7 series pistols. I don't see too many other PDs out there using guns from the 70's. I agree that the NJ state police were in need of an upgrade -- their pistols were wornout with decades of reliable service. The only mistake that they made was to not buy more P7s.

Need I go on?

I think that I'll stop here (for now).
 
It should be noted that the crappy P7 has been a widely issued police and military weapon since the late seventies in Europe and the US. Does anyone remember 4 years ago when a flood of 15 year old de-milled guns came on the market. They must have never been fired, due to theories about barrel degradation.

These are not new, untested guns. It's a design older than the G17 and almost as old as the Sig Classic. It is based on a WWII RIFLE design, as are other HK pistols. How many rifles are built on a tilt barrel, recoil system? Zero.


Q: What would happen IF a P7 lost a great deal of it's out-of-the-box accuracy?

A: It would be about as (or more) accurate than a Hi-Power is new.



Sour grapes.
 
Does anyone think they can disagree w/o taking/making it personally?

The P7 is only a gun, and it has its flaws.

Some may not have all their info straight and may even have a vendetta against the P7, but the weapon's own points ought to be enough prima facie to sell itself.

I've known I wanted one for a while, and I've heard nothing to be disuaded.

Cost and durability of the finish seem to be the worst points that I hear, probably making the pistol a "safe queen," for my purposes.
 
Cost is high but I have never found finish to be an issue. My last M8 was LNIB (with B) with three mags for only $750 though.

The FACT that that do break and can be expensive to fix are their only downside for me.
 
CZ-75, you wrote:
The P7 is only a gun, and it has its flaws.
Quite right. There is no perfect handgun. Everything has its own strengths and weaknesses. What's important is to be able to know the strengths and weaknesses, so that one can take advantage of the strengths and work around the weaknesses.
 
Geez....

I got to shoot an M8 back about '90 and like it quite a bit. But for the money I'd rather buy a GP Comp and a case of ammo.

If someone gave me one I'd probably keep it just because it's too good to sell.

:D
 
El T,

Pilot, sure, it's a good gun, but just explaining to young natedog here about the CDI of P7s or anything else exotic. NIH=cool, and "Iwannacoolgun".

Kinda like Les Baers, right?
 
lunde,

Quite right. There is no perfect handgun. Everything has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Sshhh! Don't tell Handy! Otherwise he might figure out why many days my P7 sits in the safe in favor of a 1911, revolver or Glock... ;) (...and some days it doesn't. I can't figure out why some people have decided that 'The screwdriver is the perfect tool for every job. I have thrown out all my hammers, pliers, and wrenches and filled my toolbox with screwdrivers!' ;) )
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top