Euclidean said:
I must pick your brain then good sir.
I've always been informed that if we're discussing modern high pressure cartridges, designs like straight blowbacks and top break revolvers, etc. can't realistically stand up to the stress.
Top break revolvers with old metallurgy, no. With extremely high-powered loads, most of the time, again, no.
That said, I'm up to 1k of modern 45 LC loadings through my Schofield thing. They're not smoking, 454 class loads, but the usual Speer Blazer JHP Gold Dots mostly.
Straight blowbacks do stand up to the stress - there are Uzis out there with million+ documented round counts. Ditto Thompsons and other NFA guns.
Walther PPs don't disintegrate with the substantially hotter Euro-spec loads in their blowback .32s or .380s. The Makarov, with pressure exceeding the then-conventional wisdom that you couldn't do blowback past 380 safely, survives.
The HK VP-70 handgun in 9mm was a blowback weapon. So are many others. It's not as common in 9mm and higher because the recoil can be unpleasant if the gun is not extremely heavy moreso than safety issues with modern metals, polymers, and manufacturing controls.
Even on quality firearms that use lesser calibers which use that basic design principle, once you fire enough rounds out of it, you start to have problems. My Ruger 10/22 for example, once it goes through about 400 rounds, is just too dirty to function 100% reliably. Oh it does well indeed, but once every 50 rounds or so it will not function as it should even with factory magazines.
And 22 is among the most dirty ammunition made. 400 rounds is also quite a bit of ammunition between cleaning for any realistic defensive scenario, especially for a sidearm.
My father's old .22 uses the same basic design, and it jams like crazy. It's also had thousands upon thousands of rounds through it however.
May be an ammo issue as well.
There is no doubt in my mind that such a mechanism can and will function very well for the amount of rounds one would need to fire in self defense assuming the pistol was in proper condition and clean, but I do not see how this design is supposed to stand up to the hundreds if not thousands of rounds one should fire to gain some sort of competence.
Why not? My Sig Mosquito #1 is now at 4.5k rounds through it, my new one at 1k - in 22LR on a poly frame. My PP has an unknown # of rounds through it from former police use plus a parade of owners and I've done hundreds. My personally owned (and since sold) Hi-Point in 380 digested many thousands of rounds. The first time I cleaned it was around the 1K mark - and it didn't miss a beat.
I clean the Uzis once a year. This one has eaten cases since this time last year and the new one probably almost the same.
It may be tempting to think well it's only 200 rounds a month we need to put through it, it'll be fine, but my mind wonders how well this mechanism can hold up after two, three, or five years of this.
The same can be said of any handgun realistically. That's 2.4k rounds per year - more than the price of the Hi-Point. When you've spent more on ammo than on the weapon, you can realistically afford to replace it. I'd expect it will need some level of service by year #2 at that rate - but so will many guns statistically and if you believe what the parts manufacturers tell you. Recoil springs, extractors, etc.
I know for a fact that even the beloved Bersa Thunder 380 can shoot itself too loose to function after about 4,000 rounds. There's no guarantee this will happen, but I've met someone whose Bersa crapped out on him after 6500 rounds. The sucker just would not feed or anything. The fact that I've actually met someone that's happened to makes it a credible phenomenon too me.
Ok, so it crapped out after 6500 rounds. 380 is over $120 per k.
The gun's a consumable at those round counts in all honesty, especially for the price point.
That said, I have no idea what Bersa's warranty is like. Hi-Point can and will fix it if you shoot it that loose.
6500 rounds is far more than the *vast* majority of gun owners will ever shoot in sum total in their lives.
Blaming the blowback action for Bersa's issues with a particular gun, though, is a little unrealistic. Perhaps their implementation has issues.
I've watched registered VP70s chew through 6500 in an afternoon or more at the bigger shoots, ditto Uzis and other bigger guns.
I think if you just fired it enough, say 200 times, to insure it was going to work and then put it away somewhere for a bad day, the Hi Point would be fine for the purpose. But that's assuming you had another gun to practice with consistently.
If you're going to practice that regularly, a second gun is a wise investment anyway. Parts do break. Springs wear out. It's a nature of the gun mechanism itself, not the action type or design.
