handgun?

Originally posted by on_yur_6
I may have found what I'm looking for already. I just need to go get my hands on one. It's the Beretta PX4 Storm Subcompact. It is featured in the August 2007 Guns and Ammo. Has anyone here had a chance to shoot this pistol? 3" barrel, 6.25" length, 13 rounds 9mm, 26.1 ounces, $575.00 US Dollars.

The review was outstanding, here are a few highlights. With a sandbag at 25 yards groups were between an 1 1/4 inch to just over 2 inches. The author could hit the 100 yard gong offhand 75% of the time.

Anyone out there with trigger time on this subcompact?

I don't have the subcompact, but I do have the 9mm full size which coincidentally is sat by me as I type this since I just cleaned it. These new PX4s are very nice guns with all the latest features, and they have been adopted by a number of police departments. They come shipped with replaceable backstraps, forward cocking serrations, accessory rail, and poor man's (Luminova) night sights. My pistol also came with 3 x 17 round magazines as standard instead of the usual 2. The gun is also very light, so personally I would stick with the 9mm as opposed to the .40 or the soon to be released/rumored .45, owing to increased recoil. I recommend the G model (decocker only), and the DA trigger is particularly good for a Beretta, which means it's about average compared to any other DA/SA gun. Takedown is a cinch, and the unlocking mechanism has reverted to a rotating barrel as with the Cougar. This not only helps tame recoil, but also keeps the frame relatively slim compared to some of Berettas other offerings.

I ran about 60 rounds of Speer 124 grain +P Gold Dots through it today and it performed flawlessly. Plenty more testing with cheaper ammo is to follow.

Good gun, I recommend it, mine was listed for $469 which rates as very good value, especially with the extra mag.

is an M16 a handgun?

i would like one of them

Originally posted by Dark_Ace
is an M16 a handgun?

i would like one of them

No they are not, M16 is a rifle. Now you can get one of these but I don't know why anyone would want on.

www.rockriverarms.com...

Roper

reply to post by Roper


I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit..

reply to post by watch_the_rocks


correct , the 1911/ 1911A .45acp are excellent weapons with superb stopping power. The best thing is almost 95% of the parts will interchange from one 1911 model to another 1911.. must be made off the colt pattern. machined from one solid block of steel..

want to take them down by a 1911 .45 ACP . want to waste ammo buy a 9mm pistol.

Originally posted by Nailer
want to take them down by a 1911 .45 ACP . want to waste ammo buy a 9mm pistol.

And your experience of this is..?

Seriously, you have obviously never seen what a 9mm +P JHP will do to a body. If 9mm was such an inept round, then it wouldn't be the largest selling defensive calibre world wide. I know people who's lives have been saved with a 9mm in shooting incidents in N. Ireland that would be unheard of in the states (multiple attackers armed with assault rifles usually).

People who state that a 9mm is useless tend to have no experience of the round in a shooting. 9mm is generally accepted by the majority of experienced shooters to be the minimum for defensive use. Modern bullet designs make it a very capable choice.

People don't seem to understand the concept that with a pistol bullet, over a certain calibre, it doesn't matter what size your round is. The important things are pentration, bullet design and shot placement.

The Makarov (Single Action/Double Action) pistol is decent. It fires the now easy to find 9x18 Makarov round. Hornady makes a nice JHP (jacketed hollow point) round for it. Capacity is 8+1. It is very easy to conceal, even easier to clean, and inexpensive without being a piece of junk (often

anyone have any thoughts or better yet experience with the .357sig round?

i know some of the usp-c's are out in that round and im just curious what anyones thoughts on them are.

While i don't actually have any gun time with the .357 sig, I do know that it is a .40 S&W brass necked down to a .355 bullet. Powder charges are similar if not identical to the .357 magnum and was actually produced so that one could shoot a .357 mag in an autoloader. The ballistics on it look a little slower than a normal .357 mag around 100fps or so but it's still quick at around 1350fps. All the data i saw were with standard 125 grain bullets (the same as the mag uses for standard loading data). Looks pretty solid, but not having shot one i'm just going by the data tables. I'd say with that small of a bullet and that much power you're probably going to be looking at over penetration at close range that you'd find in a home defense situation, possibly putting family members at risk.

reply to post by AegisFang


yeah i can see where overpenetration would be a concern on that one.

so, better for the glove compartment than the nightstand lol

When used with the right ammunition, the .357 Sig round isn't over-penetrative. As evidence of this, I offer you the fact that US Federal Air Marshals use this round in the Sig P229. Decompression will not take a plane down, but it is bad form to have your rounds passing through targets in such a confined and crowded environment. However, there are loadings for .357 Sig that will definitely penetrate a lot more than most other handgun rounds.

en.wikipedia.org...


If you don't like .357 Sig, you can easily convert your pistol to run on .40 S&W. The reverse is not necessarily true, however, since .357 Sig is loaded at higher pressures. The .357 Sig round is tough on barrels due to high velocities and pressures, so you can expect more maintenance over the long term.

Edit: I typed .357 as .375 every time. It's too early...

[edit on 12-12-2007 by Grozny07]

biggest reason i was wondering about anyones experience with the round is when i still had my usp40 i had found a place that made replacement barrels for the usp and offered one in .357sig so in theory a replacement barrel (possibly the mag) was all i needed to run 2 calibers off of one frame.

hey, variety is nice

Well, like I said, reverse compatibility isn't the best idea. It's okay to go from .357 Sig to .40, but not from .40 to .357. The pressures are very different. It's like a .357 Magnum revolver. You can use .38 Special in a .357, but if you tried that the other way around there would be problems.

Personally, I'd stick with the .40 USP. Great pistol, decent round that is pretty easy to find and affordable.

oh no, i think i was unclear. my changing rounds would have been due to swapping out the barrel completely, so i would have a whole new chamber/barrel that would just drop into the frame of the usp40.

so no, i wouldnt crack off a mag of .40's then slap in a mag of .357's using the same barrel.

does that make more sense? well, is it more articulate anyway?

I gotcha

The reason I was urging you to exercise caution was what I read in a wikipedia article:

Another drawback of the .357 SIG is its often harsh treatment of the pistols that are chambered for it. Many are designed to fire the .40 S&W and are later modified for use with the .357 SIG. Firing regularly at pressure levels effectively beyond what the pistol was originally engineered for tends to translate to accelerated wear on the firearm.

And this other caveat:

Most .40 S&W pistols can be converted to .357 SIG by replacing the barrel, and sometimes the recoil spring. Pistols with especially strong recoil springs can accept either cartridge with a barrel change. Magazines will freely interchange between the two cartridges in most pistols, though there are exceptions like the 357 SIG chambered Sig 239. .357 SIG barrel kits have allowed this cartridge to gain in popularity among handgun owners. However, the .357 SIG is loaded to higher pressures than the .40 S&W (a difference of up to 5,000 psi at top loads), and may not be suitable for use in all .40 S&W-chambered pistols.

So my concern would be whether or not the frame of the pistol to be converted was up to the higher stresses of the .357 Sig load. You change the barrel, but not the slide and the frame of the firearm. The slide, being designed to handle .40, could cycle a lot harder with .357 Sig. Stress fractures in both the slide, frame, and other internal components (firing pin, etc.) could cause a catastrophic failure.

Edit: Added some more information

[edit on 12-12-2007 by Grozny07]

reply to post by Grozny07


thanks for the info good stuff and good to know considering i was thinking of doing this lol

but, i found the source of my confusion. for some reason i thought hk was doing a usp varient in .357sig but their website doesnt list one.

they do however offer this sexy beast

reply to post by Grozny07


Just change the recoil spring, easy in a Glock. Once you change the barrel out you have changed the chamber so there are no worries as to failure. I don't know about the other pistols.

Roper

I forgot all about that Roper! You could definitely change out the recoil spring. You'd have to do a little research to find the exact strength spring to get to ensure reliable feeding. Too heavy and the weapon won't cycle properly. Too light, and you have the slide and frame taking a pounding. Anyone in a gun store would probably know the answer.

The H&K P2000 and P3000 are updated USPs, and I find them to be nice weapons.

To go in another direction, I must say, I'm intrigued by Ruger's new SR-9.
www.ruger.com...

Has anyone had the chance to fire one yet?

Edit: Looking back at the quotes I posted above, I see the line about the recoil spring. Hey, I was tired

[edit on 13-12-2007 by Grozny07]

reply to post by PaddyInf



I have owned both .45 and 9mm and will take a .45 acp anyday over the 9mm.. If you want stopping power the 45 has it . The 1911 .45ACP can take severe punishment and still fire accurately. The original test for the military , buried the gun in mud for x amount of days and when they dug it up ,wiped it off and fired every round in the clip.

many agencies /law enforcement/Government are slowly going back to the 45 ACP becuase of the accuracy and stopping power of the round.

The 9mm round is a high velocity round and does not have the impact force of the 45.

Originally posted by Grozny07
To go in another direction, I must say, I'm intrigued by Ruger's new SR-9.

was it ruger or smith and wesson that essentially rolled over like a dog for a treat when the govt was on them about changing their sales policies?

i know one of them did and it annoyed me at the time but i cant recall which company it was so i guess im over it lol.