I can't wait for one to come out in .45ACP
HK prototyped it and there are 6 p7m7's (.45 P7 in existence). HK Has them all. If you get your hands on one, you'd better show it off!
Besides that, P7 is my daily carry. Love it. But find one and try it. They do have an odd manual of arms. The Squeeze Cocker is cocking mechanism, but when released it completely disengages the trigger (you can pull the trigger all the way through it's articulation and the gun won't fire), unlike regular safeties that block the trigger.
Also, the squeeze cocker doubles as the slide release. Very nice for fast mag reloads. There isn't a standard semi-automatic style slide stop. There is an annoying little button that will engage the slide (slide stop) if there's no empty magazine in it, but it doesn't really work as a slide release. The squeezer does that. Because of this, this is the only gun I've trained on without using the slingshot method, although it still works. It is really fast though to learn to change mags and release with the squeeze.
Another interesting safety effect is that if you drop or release the gun, the safety/squeezer engages.
Even more strange is that part of the manual of arms is "reverse firing." According to it's manual, you can hold the trigger down, and pull the squeeze cocker, and the gun will fire. Not entirely sure why you'd do that, and I don't think I've ever tried/trained it on mine.
Pros:
- The trigger is phenomenal. the closest thing I could really get to a 1911 style trigger in a 9mm(my other carry is Ed Brown 1911).
-The ergonomics are great
- pretty inherently accurate with the fixed barrel, long sight radius, good trigger (especially on so compact a gun).
-Nice and light and small compared to a full size 1911, mags are really compact so easy to pocket carry spare mags.
-Low recoil because of the piston/retardation system
- pretty cool that the chamber is fluted so that it will extract and cycle even if the extractor breaks.
- Fast reloads without slingshot because of squeeze release (takes some training and getting used to).
Cons:
- 8+1 rounds (m8 style) but that doesn't bother me, bigger than say a glock 26 which holds more rounds, nicer to shoot than a glock though (I have both, and much prefer the P7).
- That little slide lock is fricking annoying to articulate. But you usually don't need it in training because the slide locks back.
- Finish: Finish is ok'ish. It's great in that they use super hard steel for the pistol, but most of them turn an odd plum color after a while. Mine actually rusted a little bit on the trigger guard, so I had it hard chromed by Tripp Research. Nice stuff. I live in Oregon at the foot of the temperate rain forest/mountains. So the finish issue may not be an issue for you.
- Cleaning. This gun is cooler that ice from space. But cleaning it totally sucks. It's got lots of parts, and you have to scrape out the piston area with a little tool, and it's hard to get under the fixed barrel, and you have to take the grips off, and did I mention there's lots of bits? Yeah, cleaning it sucks.
Fun to shoot though, and the Ed Brown and it are hands down my favorites.