New HK PISTOL--P2000

[Greg Bell]

Guys,

Go take a look at the P2000 at HKPRO.COM. This is the best brand- specific gun website, IMHO.

I have to admit, as the picture loaded I was really hoping that the P2000 would be an updated, cheaper P7. Screw DAO. Build a USP compact style gun with a squeeze cocking system. The ultimate in saftey. You could even put an additional (optional) saftey on the slide for those who can't seem to live without them. Lets start a letter campaign! Don't give up on the squeeze cocking system. It is the best all around for saftey and you get a kick butt trigger-pull to boot. Plus, if you ditch the fixed barrel and gas system you could develop reasonably sized 40, 357,45, 10, etc. P7000!!!!!

GHB

[hksigwalther]

Well this sucks.

I still have to get the compact versions of the USPs to complete my collection, and now they come up with another one. I wonder how much they're paying Walther for the adjustable backstrap.

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- Ron V.

[sox]

That is crappy looking. Build a polymer/titanium P7. Better still anything smaller than that blocky "compact"

[cobraman]

USP variant 100. Yawn. Bring back the P7 quality of pistols and I will consider an Hk

[Matt VDW]

That pistol looks a lot like a Ruger P95. What a great leap forward!

[BigMike]

Yeah, I think it looked kind of ugly. I think cobraman said it best.

Mike

[BrokenArrow]

As good as the P7 is, the market has spoken, and it wasn't in P7ese.

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>>>>---->

[Greg Bell]

BrokenArrow,

There isn't exactly a Porsche 911 Turbo in every garage either!

GHB

[viper]

O.K guys, I'm gonna' give it to you hard and straight. Ever since H&K went under British ownership, it hasn't been the same company where civilian products are concerned. This is a fact.

Now, that said, they still have an interesting product line in terms of shoulder-mounted weapons for the military and paramilitary market, but even these new guns(G36, UMP .45, PDW) have cost in mind and are not really innovative. The G36 uses an updated AR-18 mechanism, and the PDW concept in 4.6mm is an old idea of theirs from the late '70s. The UMP is a simple blowback subgun. All these guns are also much cheaper to produce than the roller-locked guns of HK's past. Are they all well executed? Looks that way. The G36 looks to be exceedingly reliable and easy to keep on target. But is it innovative innovative? No. Would I like any of these guns? Bet your ass I would. Given a choice between the UMP and a factory MP5 in .45, would I pick the UMP? No f$#@%! way. The roller-locked operation is superior in that it is smoother and the gun in general is higher quality.

With regard to handguns, H&K used to make handguns like the P7 and P9. This was when H&K was known for innovation above all else. Now, they make affordable firearms with as high quality as that affordability allows. Still good stuff, just not great.

If you compare the P7 to the USP, you can see the embodiment of H&K's philosophical change. They basically decided they want to compete with Glock. You can't do that when you make $1200 handguns.

Squeezecockers cost money. Striker-fired guns with quick-removable(3 seconds with no tools) firing pins cost money. Premium steel like that used in the P7 cost money. The public doesn't want to spend it, so H&K doesn't want to make it. I don't blame them.

The P7M13 was, in a nutshell, like pearls before swine. I'll come out and say it right here. The gun was simply too refined and expensive for the average guy. It's a white collar gun in a blue collar world. The P7M13 only has three flaws: it gets hot as a b@#$!, it doesn't have a rustproof finish, and it's heavy to carry when fully loaded. If they gave the P7 a polymer frame(with polymer cocking lever) and tenifer finish on all the parts, all these problems would be immediately solved, and you would have the best combat 9mm handgun in the world -- period, end of story.

Just my 2 cents.

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Let's just hope we don't get Gore'd in November.
I don't know about everyone else, but I'd much
rather get some Bush.

[Greg Bell]

Amen

[Tamara]

Ironically, the P7 and the Glock both suffered from an identical problem when they first came to market: both were a little too "outside the box" for immediate acceptance. There was one big difference: Price. Half the Glock could be made by squirting some goop into a mold and letting it cool, whereas almost every bit of the P7 was painstakingly milled from high-grade steel/unobtainium alloy . As a result, Glock could use agressive pricing strategies to bludgeon their way into the LE market, while keeping the civilian price low enough for the adventurous to spring for one just to see what they were like.

To this day, I'd wager a sizeable majority of even fairly knowledgeable shooters have never shot a P7. Heck, a fair number have never even held one. (remember how scarce they were before this batch of refurbs hit the market?) This is a shame, because I'd say 3 out of 4 who try one immediately develop a bad case of the "gotta haves".

If HK could summon up just a smidge of their old-time daring and come up with a polymer-framed squeeze-cocker in the $550-$700 range, I bet they'd sell like life-preservers to Teddy Kennedy campaign staffers. Heck, I know that even if I had to sell blood to scrape up the dough, they'd sell one the instant they hit the shelves.

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"..but never ever Fear. Fear is for the enemy. Fear and Bullets."
10mm: It's not the size of the Dawg in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog!

[This message has been edited by Tamara (edited October 28, 2000).]

[Greg Bell]

Amen

[Zak Smith]

Anyone else think "SigPro" when they saw this thing?

-z

[George Hill]

Hmmm... I never thought I'ld see this.

An HK I dont want.

[dZ]

UPDATE: 11.26.00: HKPRO has obtained a first color photo of the new P2000, still in prototype stage. (This example is serial number
000004.) Shot from the right side, the most obvious feature of this new pistol is the ambidextrous slide release, allowing left handed
shooters to use their thumb to release the slide. This innovation nearly a first; for though many gunmakers have sought to make their
pistols more friendly to southpaws, with ambidextrous or switchable magazine releases it has only been done before on the Brno CZ85.
Reportedly, the P2000 magazines are NOT interchangeable with the USP Compact series. Too bad.

http://www.hkpro.com/p2000.htm

[Tamara]

...big innovation for HK. "Ambidextrous Slide Release". [sarcasm]I wonder if southpaws have trouble dropping the slide on P7's?[/sarcasm]

[CastleBravo]

Here's a thought: if you make a great product that costs twice as much as your competition you shouldn't expect to do jack squat for business. Ask Apple about that small problem they had of not selling any Macintoshes for about a decade because they cost $1000+ more than a comparable PC clone. HK are a business, and the fact that they are making really good but affordable guns instead of artisan pieces that nobody was willing to drop $1K+ on is a sign that they are NOT complete and utter morons... and by the way those USPs and UMPs at least make it economically *possible* for them to continue to sell those artisan pieces like the P7 instead of just going out of business or being absorbed by Glock.

[hksigwalther]

"This innovation (ambidextrous slide release) nearly a first; for though many gunmakers have sought to make their pistols more friendly to southpaws, with ambidextrous or switchable magazine releases it has only been done before on the Brno CZ85."

As much as I love HK, I really hate it when credit is not given to the right people. Ambi slide releases have been done by other companies besides CZ. Even before CZ introed there 85 to the public.

This is almost as bad as BMW touting their new E46 M3 as being the first production car to have an 8000 rpm redline.

[AndABeer]

blech :barf:

[Russell92]

i don't see whats so bad about this new pistol. sure it's not a P7 but that doesn't make it a bad gun just because you guys prefer the P7. not all of us can afford to own P7s and i'm not that big a fan of them anyway. the new P2000 looks pretty interesting IMHO and when it comes out i'm quite curious to see how it performs.

[JJCII]

Man I want a P7. I need an USP Expert...must concentrate on Expert. Santa help!

[tony.s]

Am I the only person here who thinks that that new H&K looks pretty darn much like a Walther P99...?

[Cheapo]

Ah, the P99. But wasn't the P88 another ambi slide release model?

Both H&Ks and Walthers also suffered from from rather bad exchange rates between US $$ and then-West Deutchland Marks$.

'sa shame I never picked up either a P7 variant or the P88.

[hksigwalther]

"But wasn't the P88 another ambi slide release model?"

Yup. So was Bersa's copy of the 88, the Thunder9. Can't remember if the Golan was ambi.

[George Hill]

It's basically an HK USP compact with a carry bevel package.