Lusting after an H&K

[TunnelRat]

The timeframe you mention is when I had my experience.

I’ve had good luck with Glock, but I have only used them rarely.

I have had much better luck with SIG in recent years. Back around ~2010 I had some horrible experiences with them. The last few times I’ve used them (say 2018 onward) they’ve been quite good.

All of this is hard to judge one customer service rep at a time.


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[cslinger]

. All of this is hard to judge one customer service rep at a time.

Yep and truth be told I’ve had to have so little interaction with any of them that any of it could be luck of the draw. The reality is any of the big players make a great product today and they have all had their product and or CS ups and downs over the years.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by cslinger

The reality is any of the big players make a great product today and they have all had their product and or CS ups and downs over the years.

I think most manufacturers generally make good products, but I've still had better luck with some either quality control wise or customer service wise. My point was more it's hard to figure in where one person's experience fits in the grand scheme of the sheer quantity of firearms that are put out these days. At the same time, people generally don't ignore their own experiences. Negative experiences generally hang around in our consciousness even more than positive ones, and this is very evident in online reviews I read. I think companies are realizing that in an age where it's so easy to share negative experiences, ensuring good experiences is important, even if it's often difficult.

[cslinger]

My wife and I were talking about this today.

When I look at reviews for any product I look for patterns. If you run into few torqued off folks with disparate thoughts that worries me far less then when I find several folks all complaining about the same issue and those usually have some credence behind them.

Not to sway super far off the OPs topic and to bring it back around, by in large I have found HKs to be superlative products. Yes they have shi……errrr combat triggers but nothing that cannot be overcome but they are extremely good very well tested guns. Don’t go into them buying into the HK hype/or snobbery or you will likely be let down, but If you go in looking for an excellent “combat” handgun I think you will be happy.

[Skarekrow88]

My first pistol when I turned 21 was an HK USP 45 manufactured in 2009. The guys at the gun store tried to talk me into an HK45 but I just didn’t love it and I don’t regret my decision. Recoil is very mild for .45 auto due to the recoil spring design. I thought briefly about trading it for an FNX45 but a friend talked me out of it citing that I would likely find the USP to be softer/better shooting.

Only complaint I have, which isn’t the pistols fault, is the garbage magazine springs. I don’t know if I was just unlucky or if it was my fault for leaving the magazines loaded for years but the springs lost their power, especially so in one of the three magazines it shipped with. Wouldn’t lock the pistol open on the last round and caused rounds to nose-dive into the feed ramp. The other two got noticeably weaker but still seemed to function well enough. I just spent $20 and ordered a set of three Wolff +10% power mag springs and decided to stop leaving my magazines loaded which solved the issue so it was an easy fix.

I’ve read somewhere that the metal used by HK to make magazine springs is not the best quality, or at least it wasn’t at one point. Not sure of the validity of that claim though.

[Butzbach]

Originally Posted by Skarekrow88

My first pistol when I turned 21 was an HK USP 45 manufactured in 2009. The guys at the gun store tried to talk me into an HK45 but I just didn’t love it and I don’t regret my decision. Recoil is very mild for .45 auto due to the recoil spring design. I thought briefly about trading it for an FNX45 but a friend talked me out of it citing that I would likely find the USP to be softer/better shooting.

Only complaint I have, which isn’t the pistols fault, is the garbage magazine springs. I don’t know if I was just unlucky or if it was my fault for leaving the magazine loaded for years but the springs lost their power, especially so in one of the three magazines it shipped with. Wouldn’t lock the pistol open on the last round and caused rounds to nose-dive into the feed ramp. The other two got noticeably weaker but still seemed to function well enough. I just spent $20 and ordered a set of three Wolff +10% power mag springs and decided to stop leaving my magazines loaded which solved the issue so it was an easy fix.

I’ve read somewhere that the metal used by HK to make magazine springs is not the best quality, or at least it wasn’t at one point. Not sure of the validity of that claim though.

Glad you solved your problem. BTW, magazine springs are not weakened by compression. They are weakened by compression, decompression cycles.

[JohnKSa]

BTW, magazine springs are not weakened by compression. They are weakened by compression, decompression cycles.

Every magazine I've tested so far shows that the spring is weakened by leaving it fully compressed (leaving the mag fully loaded).

So far I haven't tested one where the spring weakened so much that it would no longer function (although it is possible to find anecdotal evidence that such a thing can happen--as the post two up from this one), but they all weakened measurably.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

Every magazine I've tested so far shows that the spring is weakened by leaving it fully compressed (leaving the mag fully loaded).

So far I haven't tested one where the spring weakened so much that it would no longer function (although it is possible to find anecdotal evidence that such a thing can happen--as the post two up from this one), but they all weakened measurably.

This is my experience as well.

Over the years here I’ve seen the claim that spring compression alone does not weaken a spring but rather compression and release. While I can see how that would weaken a spring more, I have had a number of cases personally where compression alone weakened a spring.


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[Skarekrow88]

BTW, magazine springs are not weakened by compression. They are weakened by compression, decompression cycles.

"Magazine springs are not weakened by compression" is a bit of an absolutist statement if you ask me.

While I do acknowledge that compression and decompression cycles weaken springs much more substantially than just leaving them compressed, I have found in my experience that leaving certain magazine springs compressed does in fact weaken them to some degree. My HK USP magazines being the most effected by being left fully loaded of all my other pistols. My theory is that the metallurgy or heat treatment of the USP springs I had were sub-par. I have many other magazine for other guns that I have left loaded for just as long if not longer and they dont seem to be weakened anywhere near as much as my USP magazines were.

I watched a video by Paul Harrell where either he, or a friend, bought a Browning A5 or similar type shotgun that had been left in a closet for a multitude of years with the bolt locked open. When they went to test fire the gun it had consistent failure-to-feed problems due to the recoil spring being weakened from being compressed for that length of time. The issue was remedied by replacing the recoil spring if I remember correctly.

I wouldn't say that it is universal but I am of the opinion that its certainly possible/plausible that leaving some springs (depending on their quality) compressed can weaken them albeit not as much as a high amount of compression/decompression cycles will.

[ftttu]

I had a stainless USP .40 years ago, and I didn't keep it too long. We had to use DAO triggers, and the trigger in that pistol sent me somewhere else. I later had P2000 .40 with the DAO, but for some reason, back on 2001 or so when I got it, I don't remember it being referred to as the LEM like I've seen it now. Now THAT was a nice trigger for DAO!

I got a VP9 years later, and I was really happy with that trigger. I only got rid of that gun because I never used it. I got it after I had retired from LEO, but since I'm back, I would love to have that or the P2000 again. Both were my favorite duty weapons, and I've carried 10 so far.

[Butzbach]

Originally Posted by Skarekrow88

"Magazine springs are not weakened by compression" is a bit of an absolutist statement if you ask me.

While I do acknowledge that compression and decompression cycles weaken springs much more substantially than just leaving them compressed, I have found in my experience that leaving certain magazine springs compressed does in fact weaken them to some degree. My HK USP magazines being the most effected by being left fully loaded of all my other pistols. My theory is that the metallurgy or heat treatment of the USP springs I had were sub-par. I have many other magazine for other guns that I have left loaded for just as long if not longer and they dont seem to be weakened anywhere near as much as my USP magazines were.

I watched a video by Paul Harrell where either he, or a friend, bought a Browning A5 or similar type shotgun that had been left in a closet for a multitude of years with the bolt locked open. When they went to test fire the gun it had consistent failure-to-feed problems due to the recoil spring being weakened from being compressed for that length of time. The issue was remedied by replacing the recoil spring if I remember correctly.

I wouldn't say that it is universal but I am of the opinion that its certainly possible/plausible that leaving some springs (depending on their quality) compressed can weaken them albeit not as much as a high amount of compression/decompression cycles will.

Unless you have some new physics or metallurgical research of which I am unaware, your “sense” of your compressed springs weakening is Poppycock brother. Given the properties of metallic atomic bonds it is neither possible nor probable. How did you measure the weakening btw?

I am a big Paul Harrell fan but he is dead wrong on this score.

[JohnKSa]

How did you measure the weakening btw?

Got some new mags.

Disassembled the mags, compressed the springs to a specific length and measured the force required.

Reassembled the mags, loaded some fully, left some unloaded, loaded some partially and left them all for several months.

Then I repeated the disassembly, compression and measurement and looked at the difference.

I also found that underloading a mag by a couple of rounds and leaving it that way for a long time resulted in measurably less weakening than loading them fully and leaving it for the same period. Seems like the last little bit of compression made the biggest difference--at least in the mags I tested.

I ran one of these tests for years and found that although the weakening rate decreased over time, it was still possible to see additional weakening taking place as the test progressed.

A really quick (but not nearly as precise method) is to measure the change in the length of the uncompressed spring since a spring's force is related to the compression distance. As the uncompressed length of a spring decreases, therefore its force must also decrease.

It's not a complicated experiment--but it's the opposite of instant gratification.

Unless you have some new physics or metallurgical research of which I am unaware, your “sense” of your compressed springs weakening is Poppycock brother.

I think this is the same type of thing as the physics behind "All things fall at the same speed." They do in a vacuum, but in the real world, air resistance comes into play.

Same with springs. Maybe in the ideal case, springs that are made perfectly, heat-treated perfectly, in a design that doesn't over-compress them never weaken from compression alone. But in the real world, where things are less than perfect things are different.

I posted the results from one of my earliest tests on a couple of mags probably 6 or 7 years ago. I kept doing them but stopped posting the results because it was pointless. I came to the conclusion that when it comes to this topic people want to believe what they want to believe more than they want to know the truth.

[PzGren]

I grew up around spring piston air rifles and manufacturers like Weihrauch and RWS recommended not to leave the air gun cocked in order to avoid the springs to set.

The internet has experts springing up that know much more than the dumb German engineers, just like the fairy tale not to shoot lead through polygonal rifling. Incidentally, HK had even given reloading advice for the HK P9S with LRN and LTC bullets and I have the letter. Those loads had been tested by Pixa and that he can shoot cannot be questioned.

[JohnKSa]

I grew up around spring piston air rifles and manufacturers like Weihrauch and RWS recommended not to leave the air gun cocked in order to avoid the springs to set.

Yup. In his book on the Beeman R1, Tom Gaylord recorded the results of a test he did on various spring-piston airgun springs where he left them compressed for long periods and then recorded the resulting velocities. They weakened from being left compressed and the longer they were under constant load, the weaker they got.

[S&W-Keeper]

I have one, and like it a lot. Mine is 100% reliable.Never failed.

[Ignition Override]

Did the OP/ Prof. Young ever buy that HK .45 in his photo, or another USP?

PzGren: I enjoyed your comment (# 63) that some Internet Experts know much more than dumb German engineers.

Some of those same types of people on rifle forums seem to be as well-trained in guns and tactics as our military special ops/forces.