Hi-Point firearms... your thoughts

[Big_Dave]

I've recently fallen in love with Hi-Points 9mm, having been given one as a Valentine's Day present from my wife, but am somewhat apprehensive committing to it as my primary concealed firearm. I've read loads of reviews on them, and most are positive, but was curious was the general consensus here was.

 

[Teluch82]

I have a high point 9mm carbine while it's a fun tinker toy the quality is not there to trust the brand as a trust worthy primary carry I would seriously consider getting something better and known for its reliability. Worst thing you could do is have to use it and it fails you. Issues I have with mine are feeding jams. Not cool if you brew to fire muiltpul shots

 

[TheDoaner]

From what I've observed, I wouldn't own one and I certainly wouldn't make one my primary carry weapon. Don't take my word for it, though. Simply ask your local gunsmith what he thinks.

 

[zacklmpd]

I almost bought one of the carbines as well but hate the pistol looks cheap and I haven't hear good things about them. Not shooting them down I could see it as a fun gun but I would never carry one

 

[Joepev]

High point .i own the 380 .for how cheap they are an for what they are worth there ok .i have never had a problem with mine at all .an the good thing is if u run out of ammo u can throw it at them an do jus as much damage .lol.there built for ppl who dont have a ton of money to spend an wants a gun .is all .

 

[Doug Rowan]

Hi Point

My neighbor has one in each caliber (as well as quite a few other more notable brands) He has never had a failure and has ran thousands of rounds through all of them. I too have shot the 9 and 45 and like others said, they feel a bit cheap, but I didn't experience any failures either. One comment he made was that although he wouldn't make one of them an EDC, he has no issue leaving one in the truck in the lock box for a "just in case moment" If someone were to steal it or the truck, he wouldn't be out any serious cash, but if he needed it, it would be there and he has faith it will fire. I would trust it IF, I owned one and kept up on the maintenance and put enough rounds through it to trust it, and practiced with it. I will say shooting it reminded me of shooting something with a half filled 5 gallon water jug on top. the roll forward and back seemed odd to me, but I guess with practice it would get better just my 2 cents

 

[bryanf23]

My son ended up with one he traded some car speakers for. He had never shot it so I thought I would take it to the range and see if it would even shoot. I loaded the mag and inserted it into the gun, so far so good. I charged the gun and pointed down range. Not sure what to expect I pulled the trigger gun goes off and mag falls out of gun. I though well maybe I didn't get it installed all the way. I picked up the mag and made sure it was fully installed. Ok lets try again charge the gun and point down range, pull trigger gun goes off mag falls on ground. Ok thats when I took all the ammo out of mag and put gun back in range bag. I told my son he needs to find someone else to pawn this gem (POS) to.

 

[nca_mm]

Crap! Next question?

 

[newokie03]

The first pistol I bought was a Hi-Point JCP .40 S & W. At the time I didn't have the $$$$'s to buy anything else. I have put probably 2,000 rounds thru mine and the only problems I have had were some failure to feeds with the Winchester 165 gr bulk box from Wally world when I first bought it. A good cleaning and it has been like a charm since then. Still carry it in my truck regularly. It is heavy as all get out and would make a terrible carry weapon. The flip side of that is when shooting on the range, the weight reduces recoil and is a joy to shoot. Like I said, not my carry weapon, but fun to shoot.

 

[Woody1960]

My son ended up with one he traded some car speakers for. He had never shot it so I thought I would take it to the range and see if it would even shoot. I loaded the mag and inserted it into the gun, so far so good. I charged the gun and pointed down range. Not sure what to expect I pulled the trigger gun goes off and mag falls out of gun. I though well maybe I didn't get it installed all the way. I picked up the mag and made sure it was fully installed. Ok lets try again charge the gun and point down range, pull trigger gun goes off mag falls on ground. Ok thats when I took all the ammo out of mag and put gun back in range bag. I told my son he needs to find someone else to pawn this gem (POS) to.

Chances are good that someone prolly abused the mag and it needs replacing,or the mag release needs adjusting.


Ever notice these stories about low priced firearms? How folks always say, I read this, or I read that.They have never owned one,so how can the say if it is any good or not.There is always a story or two about how a firearm failed someone no matter what brand it is. I say if you like and it goes bang,what the hell difference does it make if someone eles likes it or not.The important thing is that your shooting and enjoying it.BTW I own mostly Rugers.And there are those that say they suck.

 

[kelcarry]

Hey Big: You like it? It shoots fine? All you will get from the forums are answers that do not mean anything, particularly from those who never owned one, never shot one, never did anything with any of them---but they know--why? because it is inexpensive, they read comments that have no real information to back it up, and it is not a glock or a sig or whoeever has the biggest advertising budget these days. So it is inexpensive--guess what?-- the kalyshnikov is a cheap rifle and is judged to be number one on the military channel's best assault rifles. You like it, it shoots well, you have not had any problems---what else do you need to know?

 

[Deanimator]

The design compromises necessary to make a blowback handgun of more power than a 9x18mm Makarov safe to shoot, make it utterly worthless to me.

There's a reason why there's never been a really "successful" 9x19mm blowback handgun. They require a slide that weighs more than some entire handguns, a recoil spring like a truck suspension spring, or BOTH.

There are SO many reasonably priced used handguns available at gunshows that I can't conceive of a situation in which I'd even CONSIDER buying a Hi Point.

I bought a well used S&W M&P .38 Special revolver from RM Vivas and Son a few years ago. It was missing a lot of finish, but was in excellent mechanical condition (as well as being slick as glass). As I recall, I paid less for it than I would have for a Hi Point. I wouldn't hesitate to carry that revolver. I wouldn't CONSIDER carrying a Hi Point.

 

[RJ_Whitlock]

My life is worth more than 150 dollars, the firearm I bought (first purchase ever) I trust my life on. I had to sell my snowmobile to get it. Everyone's biggest thing is when it comes to firearms and CC is cost. People just getting into it, that are new to the firearm and CC world always want to go cheap. You can't put a price on a innocent life, especially your own.

If you ever have any doubt in the firearm your going to buy, my suggestion to you is don't buy it. When I look at a firearm, I don't look at the gun itself but also the company, to see how long they've been making firearms (not just pistols).

Dates founded/Production:

Smith & Wesson: 1852
GLOCK: 1982
Hi-Point: 1992

To me these dates mean, the companies has had far more experience and time to fine tune production and quality of there handguns. Hi-point, that started that late in the game and has had the same handgun design since they started, to me means they are scared of change or know their handguns are not big sellers. More people buy their carbines over their handguns, that should say something to a lot of people.

I know this post is all over the place but I tried my best lol.

In conclusion, if you can't trust your life to the handgun your buying for SELF-DEFENSE, DO NOT BUY IT!

 

[trophyhunter]

As with anything else ! You pay for what you get. Buy Cheap, you get Cheap. Buy Quality! You get Quality !

 

[SC Tiger]

I would get something else to carry, if for no other reason than the weight. Tell your wife you just don't want anything to happen to the gun she gave you. You will probably have difficult to find a ccw holster for it also.

Besides that take it to the range and shoot hell out of it.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk

 

[BluesStringer]

I love these threads. It's always the same. People who would NEVER buy one come on to tell the questioner that they, too, should NEVER buy one, while nearly all of those who have one say they're reliable. Not purdy, not light-weight, but generally reliable.

Me personally, I have enough weight on my belt already, so I would not buy a Hi-Point, but I have nothing bad to say about them because from everything I've read and seen video demonstrations of from people who actually used them, you literally have to hammer a bolt in the muzzle and C-clamp the back of the slide to the face of that bolt to destroy one. The last time this subject came up (that I saw anyway), someone actually posted the 40 second clip of the catastrophic explosion of that C-clamp demonstration as evidence that Hi-Points are pure junk. After seeing it, I found the full-length video, and it turns out it was part of a series of torture tests that a couple of guys put the pistol through with the express intention of proving it was junk, and they couldn't make it fail except by making it into a mini-pipe-bomb. Almost every YouTube performance test/demonstration starts by the reviewer voicing his leanings towards the notion that they're junk, and by the end, they're saying how surprised they are at how reliable they proved to be.

To the OP: Practice/train with it, carry it for awhile, and if you can tolerate the weight and bulkiness, you're good to go. Hopefully you'll never need to use it against another human being, but if you do, the overwhelming odds are that it will go BANG! when it's supposed to just as often as its more expensive competitors.

Blues

 

[sigboy]

Own one fun to shoot, but probably wouldn't trust my life to a $100 dollar gun just my 2 cents

 

[Deanimator]

I love these threads. It's always the same. People who would NEVER buy one come on to tell the questioner that they, too, should NEVER buy one, while nearly all of those who have one say they're reliable. Not purdy, not light-weight, but generally reliable.

Me personally, I have enough weight on my belt already, so I would not buy a Hi-Point, but I have nothing bad to say about them because from everything I've read and seen video demonstrations of from people who actually used them, you literally have to hammer a bolt in the muzzle and C-clamp the back of the slide to the face of that bolt to destroy one. The last time this subject came up (that I saw anyway), someone actually posted the 40 second clip of the catastrophic explosion of that C-clamp demonstration as evidence that Hi-Points are pure junk. After seeing it, I found the full-length video, and it turns out it was part of a series of torture tests that a couple of guys put the pistol through with the express intention of proving it was junk, and they couldn't make it fail except by making it into a mini-pipe-bomb. Almost every YouTube performance test/demonstration starts by the reviewer voicing his leanings towards the notion that they're junk, and by the end, they're saying how surprised they are at how reliable they proved to be.

That's funny, because my observation has been 100% completely the opposite. I saw somebody bring TWO of them to our club range and NEITHER of them could get through more than a couple of rounds without a misfeed.

No thanks.

 

[kelcarry]

That's funny, because my observation has been 100% completely the opposite. I saw somebody bring TWO of them to our club range and NEITHER of them could get through more than a couple of rounds without a misfeed.

No thanks.

Trouble with your statement is that I have seen the misfeeds with people shooting sigs, glocks, etal. I'm with you BlueStringer on your reply. I do think, however, that Deanimator's reply #12, at least pointed out several REASONS for his negativity, which is more than many make when it comes to dissing the low end of gun pricing. PS: The old adage that you get what you pay for is only a saying and does not necesarily represent any kind of fact. As BlueStringer said---try the HiPoint, shoot it a bunch at a range, feel it when you CC, ask your gunshop and not just a faceless forum, and make a determination.

 

[Big_Dave]

Thanks for all the feedback, after putting about 500 rounds through it over the past week I've definitely learned a bit more about it. Just to reply to the misfeed post, I have three clips for the gun, one of them will misfeed on the second round if I have 8 in it and one in the chamber about 1/4 of the time, the other two have yet to misfeed, but I can see where a person would love to hate the gun if they happened to get just the bad clip... I think that b/c of the weight issue I might go with the lc9 (ruger) as my primary and leave the hi point in the glove box, but after 1200 total rounds since I got the gun I definitely have faith that its going to go bang if I need it to. I appreciate all the feedback, both the positive and the negative though!