🚀 go-pugleaf

# I saw an article and thought "whatta stupid gun!"  The promotion I saw
# was in the Nov 92 Hand Gunning.  The thing weighs 43 oz empty: 4 oz
# more than a 1911A1, & 20 oz more than a Glock.  Not too impressive for
# something designed to be a "compact".  For some reason, the vels
# seemed pretty low also, maybe the gas delayed blowback?  Either that
# or the "factory vel ratings" for .40 are unrealistically high:

I have seen an explanation for this added weight, which, IMHO, makes a
lot of sense. .40S&W ammo are extremely fast to burn. This is why the
slide and the barrel start to recoil even before the firing pin has
gone back to its original position. This explains the vertical marks
on the primer of the delayed blowbacks .40. This also explains their
lack of accuracy: the barrel has significantly moved, even before the
bullet has gone out.

I guess that there is only two easy ways to cure this.  Either you make
the slide much heavier, to slow its motion down, or you use a much stronger
recoil spring. Of course you can use a balance of both. It appears that
this is what HK did. The result is a very heavy and not so compact gun,
but it is also extremely accurate, very stable during the fire and the
recoil of the slide is mauch smaller than the ones of other mechanisms.
If you can live with this added weight, these advantages are, IMHO, worth
the problems they create.

# 	The looks are not too keen either: It kind of reminds me of a
# fancy version of those cast zinc Stallard Arms blowback .40s.  For
# 1200 bucks you'd expect HK to sharpen it up a little.

Here, I entirely disagree. The HK is one of the best made pistol, and I
appreiate a lot its look.

Emmanuel Baechler.                        | Tel.: ++41-21-693-2732
Laboratoire d'Intelligence Artificielle   | e-mail: baechler@lia.di.epfl.ch
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne  |     or: baechler@liasun6.epfl.ch
MA-Ecublens                               | Standard Disclaimer
CH-1015 Lausanne	Switzerland

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