Woman Requesting Help with Carry Choices

[Excaliber]

I think you two are conducting the most organized and dispassionate pre purchasing exercises we've seen described on this Forum. An assessment spreadsheet is really impressive. I fully expect to see an RFP (Request for Proposal) next.

It's the engineer in me, Excaliber ... yes, the next step ordinarily would be an RFP if I were buying services, or test driving if I were buying a car so in this case the next step is to go to some of the places that allow rentals/trials and put hands on and boolits through some of the likely candidates based on the specs.

W.r.t. Excaliber and Yankee Girl, what a coincidence [or not] that both of us are female engineers and into specs. Hoi Polloi, "paralysis by analysis" makes me chuckle, too. Some of us enjoy the “journey” more than others.

This morning I went with my husband to the gun store so he could buy some gun oil, and I ended up making a purchase myself, a used (of course) H&K P7M8. I was reading about 9 mms on a gun-focused forum and saw interesting stuff about the H&K P7. It turned out the store had one so I looked at it. The grip and balance felt really good, and I am thinking the unique squeeze cocker will work well with my hands. (It is not hard to squeeze.) As you said, Excaliber, I won’t discover the negative individual selection issues until rounds are being launched downrange in a gun that I now wholly own. But the risk is mitigated somewhat as my husband said he wants the gun if I don’t. Of course the "rubber meets the road” in the shooting – I’m waiting to try it Monday evening at the range (Ladies’ Day) and will let you know how it goes.

Congratulations on your purchase. The H&K P7 is a very well made, easy to shoot pistol and the squeeze cocker mechanism is a unique approach to both safety and reducing the trigger pull.

A couple of things to be aware of with this gun include:

1. Compressing and releasing the front strap safety / cocking mechanism has a sound signature that's not as loud as racking a 12 gauge shotgun, but it's not a whole lot quieter either. If you're trying to be subtle, this is something to keep in mind. Anyone nearby will clearly know when the gun is ready to fire and when it is not, and the unusual and distinctive sound will definitely attract attention to you.

2. Keeping the front strap cocking mechanism depressed can be tiring to the hand.

3. Holding the gun with the front strap uncompressed requires a less secure grip than what is normally used on a handgun without this feature. This makes it somewhat more vulnerable to being dislodged from the hand either by accident or a gun takeaway attempt by an opponent. Tactics need to be adopted to address this.

[surprise_i'm_armed]

CC Italian (my paisan friend!):

Thanks for your clarification.

My Rossi is a 4" barrel, not a snubbie, and I still would not
carry it as my primary with .357's unless I could be assured
that my gunfight would only need 6 rounds.

The .357 makes a loud, powerful statement but I'll continue
to use my 10 + 1 PT111 as primary since my 2 backup mags of 10
each can be loaded more quickly than fumbling with a speedloader.

SIA

[ChattyKat]

A couple of things to be aware of with this gun include:

1. Compressing and releasing the front strap safety / cocking mechanism has a sound signature that's not as loud as racking a 12 gauge shotgun, but it's not a whole lot quieter either. If you're trying to be subtle, this is something to keep in mind. Anyone nearby will clearly know when the gun is ready to fire and when it is not, and the unusual and distinctive sound will definitely attract attention to you.

2. Keeping the front strap cocking mechanism depressed can be tiring to the hand.

3. Holding the gun with the front strap uncompressed requires a less secure grip than what is normally used on a handgun without this feature. This makes it somewhat more vulnerable to being dislodged from the hand either by accident or a gun takeaway attempt by an opponent. Tactics need to be adopted to address this.

Excaliber, thanks for listing additional considerations about the H&K P7. I look forward to shooting it tomorrow evening. Another thing about this gun is that it heats up fast and is not a good range gun. Fortunately I don’t desire to shoot many rounds at one time at the range (for the purpose of hand preservation).

[Excaliber]

A couple of things to be aware of with this gun include:

1. Compressing and releasing the front strap safety / cocking mechanism has a sound signature that's not as loud as racking a 12 gauge shotgun, but it's not a whole lot quieter either. If you're trying to be subtle, this is something to keep in mind. Anyone nearby will clearly know when the gun is ready to fire and when it is not, and the unusual and distinctive sound will definitely attract attention to you.

2. Keeping the front strap cocking mechanism depressed can be tiring to the hand.

3. Holding the gun with the front strap uncompressed requires a less secure grip than what is normally used on a handgun without this feature. This makes it somewhat more vulnerable to being dislodged from the hand either by accident or a gun takeaway attempt by an opponent. Tactics need to be adopted to address this.

Excaliber, thanks for listing additional considerations about the H&K P7. I look forward to shooting it tomorrow evening. Another thing about this gun is that it heats up fast and is not a good range gun. Fortunately I don’t desire to shoot many rounds at one time at the range (for the purpose of hand preservation).

It's been so long since I shot one I had forgotten about the heat issue. It's caused by the pistol's unusual recoil system. Unlike the tilt barrel system found in the 1911 style and many other semiauto pistols, the P7 series has a fixed barrel and a gas retarded recoil mechanism. Pressure from the burning powder gases is bled into a gas cylinder located underneath the barrel. It contains a piston which retards the rearward movement of the slide until chamber pressure drops to a safe level. Those gases are HOT and are being directed into the part of the receiver directly above your trigger finger. This is what heats up that area of the gun, and it's a characteristic that's inherent in the design. You can find detail on operation, cleaning, and maintenance in the operator's manual. A copy can be found here.

NJ State Police issued them for a while, but ran into lots of problems. Many were training related - failing to keep the trigger finger out of the trigger guard when reholstering or putting the finger on the trigger as the gun just cleared the holster with predictable results - Glock leg without the Glock. The biggest issue I remember was insufficient attention paid to the amount of training required to transition successfully from a double action revolver to a semiauto that is effectively an off safety single action as soon as you get a grip on it. Many troopers who had been trained to put their fingers immediately into the trigger guard of their revolvers as they drew them(not that it was ever a good idea, but the revolvers were more forgiving) had a very tough time adapting to the new system in the training time allotted.

Gun buying tip: For carry guns, it's generally best to stick to models that are in both current large volume production and wide use. Those that don't meet these criteria often have significant kinks that underly their lack of favor in the marketplace.

[ChattyKat]

Excalibur, thanks for the link to the manual -- it is different than the manual I had found online (which we used to clean the gun before shooting it). So I'll be checking the version in your link for additional information.

Well, I shot the H&K P7 last evening, and it went fine. What I like most about the gun is the squeeze cocker. On other semiautomatics the thumb-activated safety is a problem for me, and I was glad to find an alternative.

[Excaliber]

Excalibur, thanks for the link to the manual -- it is different than the manual I had found online (which we used to clean the gun before shooting it). So I'll be checking the version in your link for additional information.

Well, I shot the H&K P7 last evening, and it went fine. What I like most about the gun is the squeeze cocker. On other semiautomatics the thumb-activated safety is a problem for me, and I was glad to find an alternative.

ChattyKat,

The manual I linked to is for the P7M8, which I believe is the model you indicated you had purchased. You may have a manual for the earlier P7 model which is similar but not exactly the same.

A quick way to tell: If the manual you have shows the magazine release at the butt of the grip instead of behind the trigger guard, it's the version for one of the earlier guns.

Here's a link to the manuals for several of the P7 variants in case I misidentified the one you need.