Today, at the American Heroes Challenge in Las Vegas (more on that in a little bit), I donated some money to charity in order to fire 50 rounds of .45 ACP through a HK USP, which had been recommended to me as a 1911 shooter by someone from this forum.
I liked the USP a lot, and once I got used to firing it, which took about 1 magazine, I started hitting the steel bam bam bam, and was really pleased with my performance. The trigger pull was good, the recoil was soft, and the accuracy seemed dead on.
My only problems with it were pretty minor. I am used to bracing my thumb against the 1911 safety, so when I used the USP with a similar grip I kept sometimes weirdly decocking the USP while firing by resting my thumb on the decocker lever. Also, my thumb position prevented the slide from locking back when the magazine and chamber were empty.
Still, though, I had a good experience. Maybe in the future I’ll get a HK USP and use it for competition if I ever want to get away from 1911s.
The thumb thing isn’t your fault. It’s because you’re not a super secret squirrel Teutonic operator yet…
An open letter to the gun community from HK’s marketing department:
In a world of compromises, some people put the bullets in the magazine backwards…But it doesn’t matter, because our gun is on the cover of the Rainbow Six video games. Look how cool that SEAL coming out of the water looks… If you buy a $2,000 SOCOM, you will be that cool of an operator too. And chicks will dig you.
At HK, we stuck a piston on an AR15, just like a bunch of other companies have done, dating back to about 1969. However ours is better, because we refuse to sell it to civilians. Because you suck, and we hate you.
Our XM8 is the greatest rifle ever developed. It may melt, and it doesn’t fit any accessories known to man, but that is your fault. If you were a real operator, you would love it. Once again, look at Rainbow Six, that G36 sure is cool isn’t it? Yeah, you know you want one.And by the way, check out our new HK45. We decided that humans don’t need to release the magazine with their thumbs. If you were a really manly teutonic operator, you would be able to reach the controls. Plus we’ve fired 100,000,000 rounds through one with zero malfunctions, and that was while it was buried in a lake of molten lava, on the moon. If you don’t believe us, it is because you aren’t a real operator.
By the way, our cheap, mass-produced, stamped sheet metal guns like the G3 and MP5 are the bestest things ever, and totally worth asinine scalpers prices, but note that cheap, mass-produced, stamped sheet metal guns from other countries are commie garbage. Not that it matters, because you’re civilians, so we won’t sell them to you anyway. Because you suck, and we hate you, but we know you’ll be back. We can beat you down like a trailer park wife, but you’ll come back, you always do.
Buy our stuff.
Sincerely
HK Marketing DepartmentHK. Because you suck. And we hate you.
See? A few more years pwning n00bs on counterstrike forums, and you’ll get the hang of it…
If you liked it, that’s what matters. I personally would rather throw a USP at an attacker than carry it as intended, though. It’s fatter than a hippo, feels like a toy, has a horrible trigger, the controls are stiff and uncomfortable and there are many better options out there imo not only from competitors but from HK themselves. For the money, a SIG will perform just as well with (in my experience) better accuracy and smoother controls. The USP is seriously overpriced. I wouldn’t pay more than Glock prices for one.
All that said, look at their newer HK45 and P30 models. The P30 particularly seems much more worth its price than other HK offerings.
I am not a huge H&K fan, but I definitely prefer them over SIGs. The P226 and 229 seem to rotate over my hand when they recoil, similar to the M&P, whereas Glocks, H&Ks, and Springfield XDms seem to push straight back against my hand. I’m sure it’s just personal preference, but I definitely like my guns to have a “low” center of gravity.
That said, I do think polymer SIGs have nicer triggers than the H&Ks. Again, probably just preference.
[QUOTE=Lord Skeletor;2465344]C’mon, dude. I can’t believe you posted that crap. lol [/QUOTE]
Just having a bit of fun amigo.
FWIW, if somebody offered me a good deal on one, I wouldn’t turn it down. I have yet to meet a single USP owner who doesn’t shower the machine with praise.
I love my USP Compact .45, but I can see how the control lever could be intrusive if you’re not used to it. Perhaps you should have a gunsmith reconfigure the gun as DAO.
EDIT: I misread, and now understand that you don’t own the gun.
[QUOTE=daddykata;2465379]I love my USP Compact .45, but I can see how the control lever could be intrusive if you’re not used to it. Perhaps you should have a gunsmith reconfigure the gun as DAO.
EDIT: I misread, and now understand that you don’t own the gun.[/QUOTE]
DK reconfigures the gun in DAO!
wetware immediately chokes on his own vomit!
It is super effective!
I hate DAO so bad… the only thing worse is those DAO 1911s they’re coming out with now.
You must have the hands for it; I liked the USP OK, but I just didn’t have big enough hands or long enough fingers when it came down to it. I had a hard time even operating the safety without changing my grip. I ended up trading it for a Glock 30, thinking I wanted something smaller that would fit in a pack, which I later sold to finance the Gun Blog .45.
There’s nothing wrong with HK, really, it’s just that they have so many followers who think they’re magical talismans of tacticality. They’re just guns.
[QUOTE=Don Gwinn;2465450]There’s nothing wrong with HK, really, it’s just that they have so many followers who think they’re magical talismans of tacticality. They’re just guns.[/QUOTE]
For me, the most agreeable statement in this thread.
That saidd, the usp still feels horrible to me in hand. The HK45 feels great, though.
[quote=zaohu;2465824]For me, the most agreeable statement in this thread.
That saidd, the usp still feels horrible to me in hand. The HK45 feels great, though.[/quote]
Eh…they feel fine in mine. If you have girly-hands (being female) or undersized man-hands, then it might not be a good gun for you to wrap your paws around. For most guys…it’s a good-fitting gun. It shoots extraordinarily well from an accuracy standpoint, although its sights are average. Does its price warrant a $150.+ over the Glock? Probably.
Does a SIG warrant a $300+ price difference over a Glock? Eh…maybe. In the end…it all depends on what you like and how much money you want to spend.
To the average shooter that doesn’t shoot that often or once/twice a month—either gun (the HK or the Sig) may not be worth the money to you. But for those of us who shoot all the time, I’d say…yeah; probably worth the money for the function, style, and reliability.
I have the exact opposite experience with SIG and HK than LS. I would say the USP should be sold for barely more than Glock prices and that the SIG is very fair priced. It’s not often that you hear somebody say the SIG isn’t worth its price tag, but its a VERY common thing to hear HKs called over priced, even among owners I’ve met. Having have owned both a USP Compact Tactical .45 and a SIG P228 myself, I would put the SIG lightyears ahead of HK in quality. The only advantage. Would give HK is weight.
Also, for me it isn’t that the HK is too big for my hands. It simply feels cheap and has an uncomfortable grip shape with controls that click instead of functioning smoothly. There just isn’t any attraction to the design for me. HK really got the new 45 right, but the price tag once again wrong imo since their compact 9 and 40 versions of the same pistol are a whole 250 dollars cheaper. Why pay more that much more for the other caliber? Anyway, were thickness an issue for me I wouldn’t be the big fan of Glock that I am.
I loved my SIG. Second most reliable gun I’ve owned behind the Makarov. What do you find overrated about the design? Don’t want to hijack the thread for a SIG discussion but I am curious?
[quote=zaohu;2466816]I loved my SIG. Second most reliable gun I’ve owned behind the Makarov. What do you find overrated about the design? Don’t want to hijack the thread for a SIG discussion but I am curious?[/quote]A group of us shot the P228/9 series side by side with the glock 19 and 23, S&W XD 9 and .40, Smith and Wesson M&P, and H&K USP. All three of us felt perceived recoil and muzzle rise at both 9mm and .40S&W SIG was highest out of those pistols, and that follow up shots took noticeably longer. The M&P was next worse after that, but the SIG had a much much better trigger. I’ve also shot the P226 in .40, and didn’t care much for that, either. Same reason as listed above: The pistol has a lot of muzzle rise compared to an XD, USP, or Glock. I definitely prefer SIGs to the M&P series. The M&P pistols have a long ways to go, in my opinion. Which is humorous, because when I first started shooting pistols, I liked them best, simply for the ergonomics.
To be fair, (and with the exclusion of the M&Ps I’ve shot), I think all of these pistols are excellent, I just happen to like the SIG significantly less than the rest of them. Doubly so after factoring in price.
That’s odd. For myself as well as all the friends of mine who have fired the P228 I had it kicked less than any 9mm I know of. For me, it was as if the muzzle rise was nonexistant, or close to it.
The P-series SIGs do have a high bore axis. The Glocks, M&Ps, etc. have the line of the bore located lower in the hand, which means that the recoil impulse is transferred closer to straight back into the bones of the arm.
How much that affects an individual shooter depends somewhat on his grip and his perception of recoil . . . . the first is kind of objective, the second totally subjective.
Ttrue, but in 9mm the difference between a high and low bore axis should be very minimal. The SIGs bore axis being “high” is a bit of an understatement in my experience, but I find it to be more of an ergonomic issue than anything else. Never bothered me. I love the feeel of the newer SIG grips.
OK, it’s basically a beefed-up hairdryer, but I love my P220 anyway.
And actually, Todd Jarrett makes a convincing case that most people really underestimate the amount of muzzle rise in most pistols, and caliber matters less than most people think. I was in a class shooting identical Commander-sized 1911 clones in .45 and 9mm, and the 9mm shooters were hard to tell apart from the .45 shooters by watching the laser dots climb the wall above the target in the shoot house. I believe there are differences, but like the differences between the “tiny” 115-grain 9mm slugs and the “huge” 230-grain .45 slugs, I believe the difference is a LOT smaller than most people think and likely to be insignificant in many situations.
