What kind of man buys a Hi-Point?

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The kind who enjoy's shooting a pistol that works everytime, is guaranteed forever, and likes hitting what he aims at. Who cares what it looks like? It shoots better than most of my others.
 
I'm not interested in one, but I'm not going to put it down if it functions and shoots as well as owners claim. I just have other guns and it'd be a waste of money I could be spending on a vintage S&W revolver I think I'm going to go gun show hoppin for next. :D Or, perhaps that 3" SP101 I started pining for.

But, I don't judge a gun for its ergos. Never crossed my mind about "ergos" until I started reading all these whinny posts about a gun not "fitting the hand". It has to be pretty sorry, like maybe one of those hand cannons they used 500 years ago with a hand held match, before I'll worry about ergos. You can change the grips on revolvers, one of their many benefits. That's not to applicable to autos, but revolvers have always worked better than autos for me. I do carry a compact 9 and own autos. I like finger groove hogue rubber grips on 'em.

I have NEVER figured out what people see in 1911s. :rolleyes: The grip hits me in the back of the palm and at the fingers and doesn't fill my hand at all, total POS for ergos, but I still have owned and shot 'em. I prefer a hand filling grip like my Rugers have, but I won't discount owning and shooting 1911s. A gun is a gun and I can shoot 'em all, even my Grendel P12 which is probably the worst for ergos I have, but it's a good shooter.

Teh High Point, though, does absolutely nothing for me. It's not a really practical gun, I have lots better. And, it's one butt ugly SOB to my eye! :barf: So, I don't have any desire, thanks. If I didn't have a big auto or three already, I might get one, though. I'm strapped for cash right now and everything anyone who's ever actually owned one of the things says they're reliable and accurate. I don't know anyone who has one or I'd bum a test on it at the range.
 
I think a lot of people miss the point on these guns. These are not frilly guns. There is no maintanance,other than a drop of oil every once in a while. no cleaning is needed. I have some of the first ones to hit the market. They have not been cleaned since about 1997.

If something was to break MKS will fix it. If it wears out or is not worth sending back to get fixed, who cares!! It is a plinker and by then you have got more than your moneys worth out of it.:D
 
hotpig said:
I think a lot of people miss the point on these guns. These are not frilly guns. There is no maintanance,other than a drop of oil every once in a while. no cleaning is needed. I have some of the first ones to hit the market. They have not been cleaned since about 1997.

If something was to break MKS will fix it. If it wears out or is not worth sending back to get fixed, who cares!! It is a plinker and by then you have got more than your moneys worth out of it.:D

Exactly, Kinda like buying an $11,000 hyundai car. Cheap car, cheap on gas great warranty. You just drive it untill you get your money out of it,then when something expensive breaks 15yrs down the road you throw it away and get a new one.
 
LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO CARRY AN UGLY GUN!

I say this as a proud Glock packer. I own many fime, pretty, rare, and just neat guns. But, I carry a Glock...it works.

Now...I had a guy in a position of owing me 25 bucks. He offered me a Hi-Point 9mm, with 3 mags, and a nylon holster of unknown origin.

I, out of curiosity, took it out to my back porch with a hundred pack of Winchester 115grain 9mm ball ammo.

It gobbled it up, and fairly accurately too.

I even tossed in some old CCI Lawman 9mm ammo, and it ate thoe without a hitch.

Okay....back into the safe it goes. Fast forward a year. A friend needs a pistol. He is broke, his ex-wife is eating him alive with alimony and child support...poor guy is living on $600.00 per month, and EARNS $60K a year!

I give him the Hi Point.

He is grateful. He used it when some scumbags broke into the crap hole south Phoenix apartment he was living in.

Best $25 bucks I ever spent.

I later gave him a Smith & Wesson 4006 that I got in trade for a set of rims for my long gone 1990 GMC pickup.

He kept the Hi Point too.
 
Sean85746

The Hi Point is not much uglier than my Glocks. A pretty gun would be a two tone Sig, glossy Hi Power, or tricked out 1911.

Now that I think about it the rugged good looks of my Hi Point always attracts attention at the range.;)
 
but, what if it was sexy looking

If that was a cool looking gun, everyone would be tripping over themselves to get a hold of one because they ARE reliable, and they DO go BOOM, BETTER than many guns of much higher pedigree.

I think of it as a gun for the single mom that just can't afford anything but the rough neighborhood for herself and family. Or her ex-husband who now has no money, or house, and now lives in one of those neighborhoods. I lived in those neighborhoods as a youth, but back then fistfights were it, no guns, so I can't imagine that area now....eek. Any pistol provides security, especially to a scared woman around a bunch of posturing, drinking, drugging, gang bangin, thug type punks that seem to spawn in those locales.

Think of it more as a sleep aid for their target audience, not a fashion statement. I know I sleep better with a pistol on the nightstand, how bout you? Damn, they are UGLY!:barf: :barf: :barf: No argument there.

jeepmor
 
My first thought was to try and be funny. I was going to state that one should Krome it and put Purple accents on it. Then make a "gangsta" video.

On the sensible side... one cannot always judge a book by its cover. I don't own a Hi Point. If it works, don't worry what people think. If it works, great! enjoy it. I may take a look at the .380.
 
The Hi-point Carbine is wonderful. Its only downside is the 10-round mag. I have two after-market high-cap mags, but they don't work at all. It looks kinda like a gun from star wars. Sure, a lot of people knock it, but it shoots decently at 50 yards with the factory aperture sights. The next pistol-caliber carbine that I was looking at that was new and had aperture sights was about $500, the Ruger P9. I would love to have the P9, but thats too much for a little 9mm carbine...:(
 
Sean85746 said:
...I give him the Hi Point.

He is grateful. He used it when some scumbags broke into the crap hole south Phoenix apartment he was living in.

Best $25 bucks I ever spent.

...

Sean , you're a good friend :cool:
 
Hi-Point

Might be better than a taurus in which I have seen jam up so bad it wouldn't function and that's a revolver! If it goes "BANG" when it's supposed to and hits what you're pointing at, that's the name of the game.

"My wife asked me for money and I told her I had none. My dog became terrible ill, I handed the vet one hundred dollars without batting an eye. Priorities man!!!" (This is a true story...not a quote).
 
Point is, a person who buys a HiPoint pistol is not a gun buff/hobbyist
historian, target shooter or hunter but a non-gunnie buying a self-defense
appliance that they will shoot only as a last resort.


What kind of man buys a Hi-Point?

Well I am the exact opposite of the above post. I did not include the name of the original member because he summed up the other posts the best.

My father is affectionately termed a "General Junker" on the Gun Show circuit. My folks have been going to the NRA Annual meetings for almost the last 20 years, and have set up a display for the Weapons Collector's Association that he serves on the board of directors. I have held/shot a varied array of firearms growing up, everything from a high dollar Model 52 Winchester target rifle to the Hi-Point that I bought a couple of months ago.
True I have spent more time shooting lead at targets, paper, pin and clay than chasing after animals, but I consider myself a "hunter".
When I was in high school, I could just about appraise a Krag-Jorgenson rifle and tell you if it was "sportarized" by some clown after it came into the civ market.

True, I don't have very many firearms myself, I have always lived through my pop's collection but I am trying to rectify that!

When I have lived outside the wire in the big bad world I have had a shotgun and in later years added a .45 Nork 1911 clone for my home defense. I just recently got my CWP and started carrying when I venture off base.

Why did I buy a Hi-point? I wanted a cheap reliable firearm. I have fired about 210 rounds of cheap 9mm ammo and some Hydra-Shok's through it and my only complaint is getting the magazine to fully seat. I have just taken to banging on the bottom, racking the slide and then slapping it again. After it seats, I have not had any problems what so ever. That is a better track record than my Nork. I usually have at least one FTE in 100 rounds with the Winchester White Box ammo.

Cleaning? A few drops of oil and I wiped down the outside of the barrel and around the ejection port. I am going to buy a bore snake to clean the barrel and call it good until I hit the 1000 round mark.

What put me over the top about buying one was a conversation that I had with a dealer back in Montana. He told me that he can only remember sending two Hi-Points back for service over the last couple of years. One was from a guy working up his own handloads and the other guy took the gun apart and didn't get it back together right and something broke. Seemed to me that if you pay attention and only feed it factory ammo you shouldn't have any worries.
 
cratz2 said:
The Makarov is a 9x18 - 380ACP being 9x17 and the most famous 9mm (Luger or Parabellum) being 9x19 so it's somewhere inbetween there, probably a bit closer to the 380 but there is good ammo (Barnaul and LVE) that reliably expands that is very inexpensive. Ammo is quite inexpansive to the tune of 50 rounds of carry-worthy HPs being about $6/50 rounds or just a bit more than 9mm FMJ ammo from Winchester or S&B.

This reliable but guly as sin Hi-Points aside, I think the Bulgarian Maks are the best values in quasi-new guns on the market. Mine (Russian) cost $110 with two mags, a holster, a cleaning rod, two pair of grips and a box of ammo.

Yeah, they're well-made little things, but that doesn't address the main point. Hi-points, ugly as they are, shoot the seriously effective calibers. Things like 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 . A Mak is a decent pocket holdout backup gun, but...it's not a .45, no matter how well-made it is. :) It does NOT hit as as hard as a 9mm Luger, by any mark. And it's not what I'd choose for a serious home-defense pistol.
 
Couldn't resist running out and buying one

This is my first-time post on this forum, or any other gun forum.

Its been years since I've had time to shoot (married and have young children). I have been wanting to buy some quality firearms to fill the many empty categories in my puny collection. I recently purchased a SIG Hammerli .22 Trailside with 6" barrel and it shoots like charm right out of the box. Real tack driver.

As I didn't own a large caliber automatic pistol (I have a used S&W Mod. 19 .357 with 2 1/2 barrel) I had a mind to get a .45 ACP and I was seriously considering between H&K or a SIG Sauer, and I may still yet buy one of those. I wanted a strong, high quality, reliable gun.

After reading your many posts, and other articles, last week I ordered a S&W Mod 638 .38+p, to arrive next week, for a pocket gun.

I am also in the market for a short carbine, and fter looking at posts and articles on the internet, I found out about the Hi-Point carbine and found that some magazines had reviewed them as quite satisfactory. They have a "unique" look to them to put it politely (certainly not an M-1 carbine copy).

I saw your many posts about the Hi-Point pistols, and since I was in the market for a large caliber (and being a very frugal person even though I've saved up enough coins to buy a high quality firearm) I decided to call my neighborhood gun dealer yesterday and ask him about them (Rich Mountain Traders in Ellijay, GA).

He said he sells a LOT of Hi-Points and they are sometimes hard to get since they sell out so quickly. He also said he has almost no reported problems with them. He only had a .45 in stock (what a coincidence).

I immediately went to see it. Since I've never owned a large caliber auto before I didn't have much to compare it too, except the S&W, Ruger and Dan Wesson .375 revolvers I've shot, and one .44 mag S&W revolver I've shot.

I guess it was ugly, but no uglier than the other "modern" looking guns in his display case. The dealer said it would feel top heavy, and it did. The price was... $149.75 ($139.95 + $9.80 tax). I couldn't control myself. I whipped out the credit card and bought it. I immediately went to our local WalMart and bought a 100-round box of Remington 230 gr. JHP. And I called a buddy to see if we could use his pasture to shoot in.

What can I say. I was a little nervous before shooting it as I'd never shot a 45ACP before, and I was concerned about the gun perhaps blowing up on me since so many people were saying it was a pot-metal piece of garbage. But I had no need to worry.

The gun shot fine.
- We shot at approx. 7 yards, 12 yards and 25 yards.
- The orange three-dot sights are great especially for shooting in end-of-the-day, overcast light as we were.
- it has good pointability (it points where you're looking)
- Right out of the box it held good groups even at 25 yards, which we did sitting with elbows braced on knees.
- No problems whatsoever. It shot where we pointed it with reasonable tight grouping affected only by the shooter's ability to hold it steady.
- Not much worse in accuracy than my little SIG Hammerli Trailside, but my S&W may be more accurate (but I was still a little anxious as I shot the HP).
- Recoil was not bad, I guess due to the heavy slide (recoil with my short-barreled S&W with heavy loads may have heavier recoil).
- The trigger pull seemed a little heavy to my buddy, but not so bad to me, although it would be nice if it was a little lighter
- My buddy thought the grips could have used some more texture to make them grip better, and I agree.
- I thought the safety looked a little flimsy and not "substantial" enough
- I would have liked if it didn't have a magazine lock which kept you from firing with the magazine out even if there is a round in the chamber
- I like that its a carefree gun. My buddy said it would be great to own a decent shooting pistol like the HP which you didn't have to worry about getting scratched up or perhaps even stolen
- My hands are small and I didn't like or need the grip extension located on the bottom of the magazine
- Neither of us tried single hand shooting
- would have preferred if it would have allowed me to cycle back the slide while the safety is engaged which it prevented, but I don't know if this is standard on auto pistols
- the magazine release was located fine, it was forward enough to not have to worry about accidentally releasing the magazine in the heat of firing.
- the gun is a big brute with metal cut markings on that part which can be seen inside the exjector port (sorry I don't know what that part of called, may the "bolt"?)

I plan on really putting some rounds through it to test it. Does anyone know where some decent .45 ACP JHP ammo can be found cheap in bulk?

I feel a little funny owning such a "cheap" gun, as I swore I'd never own anything but "quality" again. But it appears this gun certainly gets the three main functions of an auto done: cycles rounds, goes bang, and more than reasonably hits the target where you point it.

What more could any man desire. Plus it allows ALL Americans the opportunity to purchase a gun without the huge mental hurdle of spending $500, and they then become an advocate of gun ownership.

While it would be interesting to see how it does in a 5-10,000 round test shoot, the Hi-Point may very well be the WalMart of gun sales. They even do better than Walmart - they're made in the USA.

I'll try to keep you posted in a few weeks/months after I've been able to see how it handles a larger quantity of rounds.

Thanks for all your quality posts. I hope this one isn't too long for ya. Have a Happy New Year.
 
Mr Jody Hudson said:
To the best of my knowledge you have already found the good practice ammo, the Walmart, Winchester White Box .45 JHP is about as good and cheap as it gets.

Nice report by the way!

I didn't know Winchester packaged JHP's in the value packs...is this something new, or did you mean FMJ?
 
Hear Hear!
Everyone should get a set of Al-Mar stainless damascus!!!

Croyance said:
People without money are the ones living in neighborhoods where they are most likely to need a gun. A lot of honest people live in bad neighborhoods.
Have you seen the kitchen knives most people have? Garbage, with those stupid mini-serations, like the Ginsu knives. If you have one in your kitchen, then you have no room to complain about the Hi Point.
 
I for one. I bought a 45 just to see how well it would shoot and see how long it would hold up. Someone at my club has a 45 with probably between 2-3k rds thru it with no problems so far. Mine has about 500 problem free rds so far. And yes, I can afford better and do own better pistols.
 
Ergonomics

But, I don't judge a gun for its ergos. Never crossed my mind about "ergos" until I started reading all these whinny posts about a gun not "fitting the hand".

Ok, that's all very well and good.
I happen to be one of those "whinny" people.
I have small hands.
Full size guns with large double stack mags cannot be made to fit my hand. The Glock 30 is an example.
I compensate by shooting it's smaller brother: Glock 36.
Life's to short to be struggling with a gun that does not fit!! ;)
 
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