Range Report
I field stripped, cleaned, lubed and took the HK45 out to the range today. I am very happy! Not so happy about the price of ammo, but I think the Norinco stuff is just as good as the rest. Plus, I am not sure why, but over the whole shoot, I was most consistent with the Norinco ammo. Anyways: Here is the story.
Here she is all apart:
It was very easy to take apart. Similar to a Glock in that you grip the slide in one hand and slide it back until the notch lines up with the "axle" of the slide release lever. With your other hand you pull out the slide release lever.
Going back together:
Looking good! It is a damn fine looking gun:
At the range ready to go with four different .45 Auto 230g FMJ boxes. $130 total - ouch!
Nice windows on the mag:
Loaded Chamber Indicator (The red top of the extractor):
Dirty girl! Shot 140 rounds today:
Now for the targets. 10 meters. Top left - Fiocchi , top right - Blazer, bottom left -American Eagle (Federal), bottom right - Norinco:
For comparison the one on the left is shot with my Glock 17. As you can see I am far from a expert pistol marksman. The one of the right is 10 rounds rapid fire at 5 meters with the HK45.
I am overall very happy with my purchase. It is hard to describe how one gets a bigger smile from a certain gun over another, but the HK45 is tops. It feels like a fine piece of engineering, looks ###y, and shoots great! It has a similar snappy-ness as my G17, but with more oomph. The recoil is less than that of a .45 Glock I have shot. The mags slide in very nicely and the magazine release integral to the trigger guard took a moment to get used to, but I quite like the idea. I left the small backstrap in and it fits my hand a little better than my gen3 G17, but I was hoping it would be just a little slimmer. The safety/de-cocking lever is easy to use with your thumb, and requires a deliberate pull down to take it past the F and into de-cocking. The three dot sights are easy to line up and the grip angle is very natural. The first time I brought up the pistol to the firing position the sights were lined right up.
Pulling the trigger in single action is very smooth with not as short of a pull as a revolver, but still quite short. It was consistent and easy to learn where it breaks. The double action was a fairly long pull, more so than my glock, but again very smooth.
My shooting overall is not the best, but at ten meters standing with two hands I am very happy with the gun, and I think I am more accurate with it than my G17. I am quite happy with the Norinco ammo for the money. The one flyer in the bottom left I felt coming. I could not shoot well with the Fiocchi for the life of me! I am not sure why. I will be picking up a bulk pack of Norinco until I can get a reloading operation going. I had no failures of any kind with all 4 types of ammo.
Now to clean the dirty girl!
PS: Just noticed how well the glow in the dark sights work. They were glowing as I put the clean gun in the safe and I said 'Hey!' then ran with the gun into my dark bedroom to search for boogeymen and closet monsters. They are very bright after 'charging' outside today.
