Topic: Super Cheap Handgun

[trapeze]

I just saw this yesterday at my local gun dealer. I didn't buy it, of course, but I have to say that I was somewhat amazed that you can buy a huge .45ACP pistol for $189. Seriously, I thought it was a joke at first. Then I handled it and was surprised to learn that it was for real. It's big. It's kinda ugly. It's heavy despite a lot of plastic parts.

It looked pretty crappy sitting there next to a Kimber 1911 but not everyone can buy a Corvette, I suppose. Perhaps it is a reasonably good firearm...I have no idea but I would be curious to hear others' opinions on it and the rest of the product line.

EDIT:

But while I was at the gun store I did buy this for my daughter. She's gonna have to wait for several more years before she can legally own it but at least she will have a compact carry gun when she is old enough. I was able to buy 100 rounds of JHP in .380 online at Brownells last night, too. That wasn't easy. They were out of stock on just about everything but I found some on the last page I looked at. Oh, yeah...and I was at a Walmart last night and found a few hundred rounds of .380 FMJ on the shelf. They even had some 180 grain .30-06 left so I picked that up, too. Strange world we live in these days. And just for the heck of it I put myself on a waiting list for an AR15 lower receiver made by Tactical Machining. I'm thinking that it might be fun to build an AR if they ever get them back in stock.

[AmericanPatriot]

Trap, I am not real smart on guns.

Before I lost all my guns in the boating accident, I had a few deer rifles, couple shotguns and a .357 revolver. And a single shot .22 and muzzleloader

Hardly an arsenal for going to war

These look like nice starter guns for concealed carry.

Checked one of the local gun shops and they are featuring this in .380 and 9mm
The .380 is $150 with a 3.5" barrel and $160 for the 9mm with a 3.5" barrel

My very limited understanding of power is that the 9mm has more wallop than the .380. Is that correct?

Would you get either of these for easy concealed carry?

[AlanS]

Hi-Point has been around for a while. You're correct in that they're ugly and they're not tack drivers. But they do go bang will every pull of the trigger....

[Glock32]

Yeah, go to just about any gun forum and you will find threads discussing the Hi Points. They are cheap, they are ugly, they are bulky and heavy, but honestly I have never heard anything negative about their reliability. At least not with FMJ. Seems I might recall having heard about feeding problems with hollow points. Their carbines are pretty popular, and bear an uncanny resemblance to the guns in Planet of the Apes. They are heavy because they use a blowback action, which is usually limited to cartridges no more powerful than .380. To make a blowback pistol work with more powerful cartridges, you need additional reciprocating mass hence the extra bulk and weight. It's a low tech solution, but low tech certainly has its place.

AP - yes the 9mm is substantially more powerful than the .380 even though the cartridges are nearly the same size. The 9mm operates at much higher pressure.

[AmericanPatriot]

Are these gas operated guns?
I probably don't understand, but do gas  operated guns work like the old CO2 pellet guns when I was a kid?
I have seen somewhere that some rifles are gas operated
Sorry to be so dumb.

Grew up with guns but they werem't a high priority.
You just learned how to shoot and take care of them

We hunted.

I've killed a lot of deer and other smaller tasty animals

[Pandora]

Just stay away from Llama and the Chinese-made handguns; they're crap.

[Glock32]

No, they're not gas operated. In a blowback action you have the rearward thrust of the cartridge case as the bullet leaves (equal and opposite reaction) which pushes the slide back and compresses the spring. The spring then forces the slide to close and complete the cycle. In this arrangement there is only the mass of the slide and the force of the spring keeping the breech locked to the chamber, which is why .380 is usually the most powerful round a blowback action can safely contain. More powerful rounds like 9mm require some type of mechanical locking between the barrel and the slide.

A gas operated action is almost never seen in a pistol. The Desert Eagle is the only one I can think of. Gas operated means a small amount of the gas driving the bullet down the barrel is tapped and redirected through a tube back toward the action. Usually it pushes against a piston that cycles the action before being vented from the gun.

[Libertas]

Some rifles that chamber pistol rounds use a blowback system too, like the CX4 Storm, but it does appear HiPoint has found a niche using the design for all manner of offerings, they are plentiful at every gun show I have ever been to.

I like the fixed barrel blowback design of the Bersa Thunder (itself a knockoff of the Walther PPK design), it's a nice little shooter and my accuracy is arguably better with it than anything else I fire.  Went shooting yesterday and my father tried his out since getting it late last fall.  Other than his penchant for thinking it is like shooting his Korean War MP issue 1911, for an 82 year old man he can nail center mass quite well.

I guess extrapolating to a higher caliber, all things being equal, I don't think the mass or action of the Hi Point would bother me shooting wise, but if you can get smoother and lighter option with high reliability for 2-3 x's more and not have all the carry weight, why bother?

But at those prices it, if one has plans to outfit a platoon or something, might be economical to stash a bunch away in a cache somewhere...er, boating accident, as it were.

[trapeze]

Trap, I am not real smart on guns.

I am hardly the expert, either. I am a fairly good marksman but that's about it.

Before I lost all my guns in the boating accident, I had a few deer rifles, couple shotguns and a .357 revolver. And a single shot .22 and muzzleloader

Hardly an arsenal for going to war.

That sounds like a horrible story.

These look like nice starter guns for concealed carry.

Checked one of the local gun shops and they are featuring this in .380 and 9mm
The .380 is $150 with a 3.5" barrel and $160 for the 9mm with a 3.5" barrel

My very limited understanding of power is that the 9mm has more wallop than the .380. Is that correct?

Would you get either of these for easy concealed carry?

My understanding is that, yes, the .380 doesn't have much take down ability. That is, with a larger caliber, one shot pretty much anywhere on the target is enough to end a confrontation one way or another.

But...that said, it is a lethal weapon in the hands of most people. For that matter, a .22LR is more than effective in the hands of an expert. Even non-experts (Hinckley and Sirhan Sirhan come to mind) can produce lethal results with a small caliber. Or consider fictional killers: James Bond is famous for carrying the Walther PPK which is frequently chambered in .380

As with most things in life it's all about tradeoffs. I would personally like to carry a handgun that is easily concealable and lightweight that has fifteen or sixteen rounds and is guaranteed to dispense with a bad guy with one shot pretty much anywhere on the body. But, that isn't possible to the best of my knowledge so I am forced to compromise. So, I am willing to trade unquestioned stopping power and lots of ammo for concealability and comfort.

The small frame of the Ruger LCP or the S&W Bodyguard allow it to be worn comfortably and with little indication that it is present. And yet, I know that it is better than not being armed at all. The fact is that in most situations where one feels threatened, merely letting the aggressor know (directly or indirectly) that you are armed and prepared to defend yourself is enough to end most confrontations.

If I knew in advance that I was going to a gunfight the .380 would not be my first choice. It would be a backup. I would instead choose a much larger caliber and carry two or more magazines. For that matter I would probably bring the Mossberg 500 and a pocketful of shells, too.

Fortunately, that's not my life at the moment and, God willing, it never will be.

I've never been a fan of 9mm. It seems to me that a .40SW is a better choice if I am going to go as big as 9mm.

[AmericanPatriot]

I think the local gun shop has this in 40 and 45 for $180.

Since every gun I have (had, before that terrible boating accident) was pre -1975 except one which there was no paperwork, none of those probably would have been on any radar.  Thr 357 was transferred through a dealer but that was '73 or '74.

That is one thing that bothers me now is that they know where every gun is and reluctant to get on a rada or database.

[trapeze]

After reading the comments here...

If I had no self defense gun and had limited funds I would probably buy the ugly Hi Point. It is a Hyundai of guns but if it gets the job done then it's better than no gun at all.

[Glock32]

You could do private party sales while it's still an option, if you want to get something without being put in a database. But I figure all of us here are already very much on their radar, so who GAS if they tie another Form 4473 to you. The NSA stores every email, every phone call, every packet of data traversing the Internet. It's more than George Orwell could have even guessed. I think that's partly why Obama and the Dhimmicrats are playing this game of chicken with us over things like gun rights and mandated abortion coverage. They want to see what sort of "signals intelligence" they can gather as a means of identifying who the potential threats are.

[AmericanPatriot]

I'm not sure, here in Pa, what the rules are on private party sales.

At one point I knew sombody who knew somebody who knew... that had access to unmarked guns.

I had given brief consideration but didn't go that way