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Hi Tech carbine.
- Thread starter USNRet93
- Start date
If it is indeed like the Hi Point pistols, then i would pass on it.
Hi Points are wonderfully accurate. But their magazines are junk!
Lots of failure to feed.
Can you modify the mag to work? Yes. There are a dozen Youtube videos on how to.
But i feel it should work without needing to modify things.
Hi Points are wonderfully accurate. But their magazines are junk!
Lots of failure to feed.
Can you modify the mag to work? Yes. There are a dozen Youtube videos on how to.
But i feel it should work without needing to modify things.
Other manufacturers make 9mm and .40 S&W carbines. That work well, using, for instance, Glock magazines, that cycle well, even with iron sights are 50-yard tack drivers.
For fun shooting, 9mm is much cheaper than 5.56 NATO. Home defence, a 17 round Glock magazine full of good hollow point ammo, not to bad.
A Hi-point carbine? If that's all you can afford? Better than a sharp stick.
For fun shooting, 9mm is much cheaper than 5.56 NATO. Home defence, a 17 round Glock magazine full of good hollow point ammo, not to bad.
A Hi-point carbine? If that's all you can afford? Better than a sharp stick.
I have a Hi-Point 9mm carbine and it has been 100% reliable and I find it accurate at the distances I need (50-75 yards). I have had no issues at all with the 2 OEM magazines or the 2 20 round Red Ball magazines. The Hi-Point carbine bashers have clearly never had or shot one. I paid $269 for mine not on sale at Rural King. I had a HI-Point 9mm pistol years ago as my first handgun and it was also reliable until I upgraded to a lighter, thinner and more attractive alternative. I should have kept it as a reminder of where I started and got the handgun bug.
I own a TS995 and I have had trouble with multiple Hi-Point 10 round, single-stack magazines. I have measured the diameter at the feed lips on new magazines and found them to be inconsistent. In some magazines, the followers seem to tend to bind and allow rounds to nose-dive. I have had multiple failures to feed, usually from partially-loaded magazines, and I believe these were due to magazine problems.
A couple of magazines I have gotten to work tolerably well by polishing the feed lips and messing around with the springs and followers. One was hopeless and I had to send it back to Hi-Point for replacement. I have one 20 round Red Ball magazine that has functioned well so-far.
Even if your magazines work well, the limitation of factory magazines to only 10 rounds is a significant limitation for some. The Red Ball magazine doubles capacity, but it sticks way down out of the magazine well which could be a real limitation if you wanted or needed to shoot prone.
The TS995 is fun to shoot, is inexpensive, and is reasonably accurate. These are all great attributes and make it an attractive range toy where the magazine limitations and reliability issues are not critical.
There are some other limitations to the carbine, however. Controls are not well-thought out and are awkward to use. The charging handle is basically a machine screw that looks as if it came from Home Depot with a rotating knurled collar. It is always wanting to unscrew itself, even after using blue loctite. The bolt does lock back on an empty magazine, but to lock the bolt back without a magazine inserted is awkward. You have to pull the charging handle back just to the point that the knurled collar lines up with a circular cut-out on the dust cover, then push the collar down into the cut-out. To release the charging handle from this position is also clumsy. If the bolt is not pulled back to the full extent of its travel, it will fail to feed the first round from a loaded magazine. Also, the charging handle cannot be moved from the left side to the right as it can be on some other carbines.
The safety lever is a thin piece of stamped steel that is hard to locate without looking. What's more, even with my larger than average hand size I cannot disengage the safety without shifting my firing hand out of position on the pistol grip. The magazine release button works well and is well-placed, however.
There is a little shelf inside the magazine well and unless magazines are inserted very nearly perfectly square and plumb to the receiver the magazine tends to catch on it. This makes rapid magazine changes problematical.
The sights are crude in design but actually work reasonably well once zeroed. But the protective wings on the cage around the rear sight extends farther forward than necessary and this can interfere with the placement of some red dot sights in front of it on the polymer Picatinny rail. The Picatinny rail is screwed onto the top of the steel dust cover.
The sling swivels that are included can only be mounted on the right side of the carbine and will only accept a sling up to 1" in width. Take down of the TS995 for routine maintenance is rather laborious.
Once again, none of these shortcomings rule out the TS995 for use as a range toy or fun plinker. But they are severe enough that I personally would never consider this carbine for self-defense use.
It is nearly twice the price but the Ruger PCC 9 mm carbine, which I also own, is a vastly better carbine. It has better sights, a Picatinny rail milled into the top of the receiver, vastly better magazine flexibility including the ability to accept Glock double-stack 9 mm magazines, a better safety lever, a reversible charging handle that is much more pleasant to use, properly-placed sling swivel studs, and better accuracy, at least in my hands. The take-down feature also makes the PCC 9 easy to store, easy to transport, and a breeze to clean the barrel and chamber. The Ruger also comes with stock spacers that allow adjustment of the length of pull. The LOP of the TS995 is nearly 14.5" which works for me but might be a bit long for some adults and many youngsters. The trigger on the Ruger, while certainly not match-grade, is also better than that of the Hi-Point.
A couple of magazines I have gotten to work tolerably well by polishing the feed lips and messing around with the springs and followers. One was hopeless and I had to send it back to Hi-Point for replacement. I have one 20 round Red Ball magazine that has functioned well so-far.
Even if your magazines work well, the limitation of factory magazines to only 10 rounds is a significant limitation for some. The Red Ball magazine doubles capacity, but it sticks way down out of the magazine well which could be a real limitation if you wanted or needed to shoot prone.
The TS995 is fun to shoot, is inexpensive, and is reasonably accurate. These are all great attributes and make it an attractive range toy where the magazine limitations and reliability issues are not critical.
There are some other limitations to the carbine, however. Controls are not well-thought out and are awkward to use. The charging handle is basically a machine screw that looks as if it came from Home Depot with a rotating knurled collar. It is always wanting to unscrew itself, even after using blue loctite. The bolt does lock back on an empty magazine, but to lock the bolt back without a magazine inserted is awkward. You have to pull the charging handle back just to the point that the knurled collar lines up with a circular cut-out on the dust cover, then push the collar down into the cut-out. To release the charging handle from this position is also clumsy. If the bolt is not pulled back to the full extent of its travel, it will fail to feed the first round from a loaded magazine. Also, the charging handle cannot be moved from the left side to the right as it can be on some other carbines.
The safety lever is a thin piece of stamped steel that is hard to locate without looking. What's more, even with my larger than average hand size I cannot disengage the safety without shifting my firing hand out of position on the pistol grip. The magazine release button works well and is well-placed, however.
There is a little shelf inside the magazine well and unless magazines are inserted very nearly perfectly square and plumb to the receiver the magazine tends to catch on it. This makes rapid magazine changes problematical.
The sights are crude in design but actually work reasonably well once zeroed. But the protective wings on the cage around the rear sight extends farther forward than necessary and this can interfere with the placement of some red dot sights in front of it on the polymer Picatinny rail. The Picatinny rail is screwed onto the top of the steel dust cover.
The sling swivels that are included can only be mounted on the right side of the carbine and will only accept a sling up to 1" in width. Take down of the TS995 for routine maintenance is rather laborious.
Once again, none of these shortcomings rule out the TS995 for use as a range toy or fun plinker. But they are severe enough that I personally would never consider this carbine for self-defense use.
It is nearly twice the price but the Ruger PCC 9 mm carbine, which I also own, is a vastly better carbine. It has better sights, a Picatinny rail milled into the top of the receiver, vastly better magazine flexibility including the ability to accept Glock double-stack 9 mm magazines, a better safety lever, a reversible charging handle that is much more pleasant to use, properly-placed sling swivel studs, and better accuracy, at least in my hands. The take-down feature also makes the PCC 9 easy to store, easy to transport, and a breeze to clean the barrel and chamber. The Ruger also comes with stock spacers that allow adjustment of the length of pull. The LOP of the TS995 is nearly 14.5" which works for me but might be a bit long for some adults and many youngsters. The trigger on the Ruger, while certainly not match-grade, is also better than that of the Hi-Point.
Last edited:
Double Naught Spy
New member
I have shot 9mm Hi Point carbines numerous times. I have friends that have them. They are ugly, cheap feeling, accurate (certainly as accurate at my Beretta Storm 9mm) and reliable, good performing little carbines. You want a cheap, fun gun that you don't want to worry about losing or ruining, that you don't care is an heirloom gun, boy this is the carbine for you!!!
I never bought one because they only came with 10 round magazines and I saw that as a limiting factor for what I wanted.
For a fun gun, I don't think you can go wrong with one.
I never bought one because they only came with 10 round magazines and I saw that as a limiting factor for what I wanted.
For a fun gun, I don't think you can go wrong with one.