Hi-Point C9 #1
Sorry about the lack of videos and such in the last two days. Been busy as heck. I upload these comics in advance, then go back and fill in the post as time allows. Totally forgot to update the last two.
Yes, I really do have a Hi-Point C9. No, I am not ashamed of it – I regularly put 10 rounds (extended mag) into a flower in the center of a target at 15 yards with it. Bought it used off a friend last year. Used and broken, I might add. The price was low, I grabbed it, and immediately contacted the mfr to get it repaired.
What can I tell you about this shitty, shitty gun? Well, let’s break it down:
CONS
– Ugly as hell.
– Not easy to break down.
– The antithesis of ergonomic.
– When it breaks, it breaks.
PROS
– To “clean” it, even the company just recommends scrubbing the bore and chamber. A full takedown is not necessary, thank gawd.
– When it works, it goes bang every time.
– Hi-Point is REALLY serious about their warranty.
– Easily as accurate as most pistols I’ve owned.
I’m not going to lie – I like my C9. It’s the ugliest duck in the bunch, with no hopes of being a swan. Shit, it’s a direct-blowback 9mm. The slide is slightly heavier than a couch. This is not a concealed-carry weapon, nor is it something you’d use for competitions. It is what it is. That said, you can pick one up brand-spanking-new for less than $160, and it’s a damned fine plinking pistol.
More on that in a bit – the next few strips are about this godawful weapon.
I’m a gunsmith. I like the Hi-Points, mostly because there’s just not much to them, they have a life time fully transferable warranty, and just happen to be located down the highway from where I’m at.
My typical list of things to do is:
(a) polish (BY HAND! I WILL SMACK YOU WITH THAT DREMEL TOOL!) the feed ramp and chamber. Use a Sharpie as your sanding block – it is the PERFECT size and fit. Wrap some 400 or 320 around it and scrub the paint off of the feed ramp. Jump to 800 grit and polish ramp and chamber. Proceed to 1000, 1200 or 1500, 2000 and finish with some NeverDull.
(b) Repaint the sights with some high contrast white. It really makes them easier to pick out quickly.
(c) Sand or file the mold mark off the back of the palm swell. Then get some thin, solid drawer lining rubber from some place like Harbor Freight. Use an X-acto knife to slice out a 5″ long, 1/2″ wide strip and glue it to the entire backstrap area, from magazine opening to just under the slide, with some nice, PERMANENT, vibration proof glue. This will prevent the mold mark from pinching your hand when you fire, and makes the gun a VERY comfortable fit in your hand.
(d) Pull the doll’s head and firing pin. Polish the channel lightly with some NeverDull and *grease* it with something like NRA TW25a gun grease. Also apply a bit of that grease to the ejector while you’re in there. There’s no need to disassemble it, unless you find you have a faulty one (call Hi-Point, they’ll mail you a new ejector/spring kit). Reassemble, work the slide a few times harshly and wipe any excess grease from the doll’s head at the back of the slide (with the action CLOSED). If you have grease everywhere, you didn’t follow the instructions on the bottle.
I like to avoid hollow points in these guns. Even with the feed ramp polish, they still can sometimes nose dive on feed. For practice I use Federal 115 FMJ, and for GTW (go to war) I use Federal 147 flat nose. It’ll penetrate, won’t foul on denim or leather, won’t over-penetrate, and still deforms enough to do a LOT of damage to the crack-head who just tried to swing a baseball bat at your head.
Failure to Stop drills are great with this gun. The slide is SO heavy it never really jumps off target much, so you can line up and fire three rounds rapidly. Gut, Gut, Head.
Hi-Point also sells some nice holsters custom fitted to their guns for very low prices (good quality, too!).
Just be aware that the magazines may sometimes need to be tweaked. The ears can be misaligned or (usually) too straight. They need to be bent inward JUST A HAIR on two axis. Front bent inward and top bent inward. JUST A HAIR, DAMMIT! Plain old needle noses are great for that.
My Hi-Points work like a charm, and they impressed the hell out of a group of ex-Marines who run a CC course up here in Cleveland. They were just amazed at how well they worked, and how good it felt in hand.
Then, later, they heard me bump-fire my Saiga 12 and sort of freaked out. Hahahaha. That’ll teach them to stop paying attention. 😉
This was an OUTSTANDING reply. Kick ass! Thank you!
I’ve got a Hi-Point Carbine. Ugly as sin, but fun and accurate until the day it decided that it wasn’t going to feed another round.
I can only comment about my Hi Point Carbine.
Bought it in the mid 90’s…..have put about 1500 rounds through it…and then when I moved to Chicago in 2002 I stuck it in a “leather” rifle bag and let my parents toss it into their basement for storage.
It’s going to Hi Point as soon as I get it back…and they said they are just going to rebuild it or replace it due to age.
I own a C9 and bought it back in the 90’s to get my CWP. It operated fine during my CWP test scored a 100; But after a while it started pissing me off. Hollow Points, not happening, especially Hydra Shocks. It has sat for some time and I recently pulled out all my guns and took them out to just check on how they were doing. The C9 jammed on the second round. Now, while this may seem like a negative review, let’s continue on before discounting this little monkey. I took it home, gave it a good cleaning and oiling, but after some research, I decided to polish the feed ramp and coat it with a thin layer of gun oil and as crazy as it sounds, graphite. The sucker doesn’t miss a lick now.
While I’m at it, got a JHP 45; one of the finest shooting pistols I’ve had; but I have to say, my 4595TS Carbine is a tack driving, hardcore, balls to the walls machine that I turn to first. I kid you not. At 40 yards, in the dark with a Protec Neebo HP230 Tac Light (best dang light for 30 you’ll ever find; not crazy about the switching mechanism but it’s more powerful than lights that got for 200+ and the folks a Protec are great. The crown came off one of mine somehow and no questions asked they sent me another one at no charge) I shot at a metal strip on a telephone poll behind my sons house and the first round landed just of center and the next two rounds were on top of each other only about a 16th apart and 3/8th’s inside the first shot. I don’t care what anyone says; Hi Point has raised the bar on their quality and the C9 gave them a bad wrap. I will continue to purchase their products because after near 40 years of shooting everything under the sun, it’s the best bang (no pun intended) for the buck. My 4595TS has just recently had a red dot scope added that sets just above the end sight at 100 yards (able to triangulate), and today was fitted with a lovely little Flash Hider/Compensator. It also sports a one point sling and extended mag. Love it. I’m going to pause right now and upload a pic to my website of that metal strip and the grouping. 4595TS Night Group.