My wife gave me this gun last year for Christmas and while I've had it to the range a few times, I haven't reviewed it yet.
Some basics.
The gun is STI's rebadge of the Grand Power K100 pistol. It is FULLY ambidextrous. The frame is polymer, it's a hammer fired, DA/SA pistol with a frame mounted safety (up for safe, down for fire). Barrel length is 4.25" and the gun has an accessory rail.
Magazine capacity is 15--the manual states that there are 17 & 19 round mags available but I've never seen any. In fact, standard 15 rounders are pretty hard to find. The gun came with 2 magazines initially and I have managed to scrounge one more in a year of trying.
Sights are of the 3 dot variety with a front sight that is a sturdy polymer blade which appears to be attached to the slide in a very solid fashion. The rear sight is steel and is windage adjustable by loosening an allen screw and drifting the sight.
Trigger weight is 4lbs 3oz in SA. The reset is positive and very short. I tried to measure the DA trigger but my scale only goes to 8lbs. Not to worry, the DA pull is smooth and I didn't find it to be an impediment to shooting accurately.
The gun comes in a somewhat flimsy plastic case with a very abbreviated manual, 2 magazines, a basic twisted wire cleaning rod with an attached nylon cleaning brush and an allen wrench for the rear sight.
The field strip is weird, but roughly similar to the Walther PPK takedown. The trigger guard unlatches and "flexes" downward (there's no hinge). The slide can then be pulled back all the way and will lift up off the frame to be brought back forward off the gun. The recoil spring guide is captive but the spring comes off. It's very quick to do once you get the hang of it. The barrel lifts out of the slide as normal.
Reassembly is a little trickier since you have to get the barrel "staged" in the slide so it will mate properly with the locking pin before reassembly. There are videos out there that show the process.
Ok, enough of that.
The first trip to the range I fired 250 rounds of a variety of ammunition including WWB and American Eagle. At one point the magazine dropped out while firing, but that hasn't happened again so I'm going to suggest that perhaps the operator (me) didn't seat it properly.
There were also a few malfunctions where a round would not fully chamber and the slide would not fully close. This happened perhaps once every 50 rounds for the first 300 rounds but has not occurred since. I wasn't able to correlate it to any particular brand of ammunition being used.
Accuracy was definitely better than just acceptable. Of the 3 five shot groups done for record at 25 yards during the first range trip, one was 2.75" center-to-center (using American Eagle), and the other two were 3.5" and 3.6". I suspect that the gun may be able to do better than that, but I don't like shooting handguns from a rest and the groups listed are about as good as I can shoot offhand at 25 yards these days.
The second trip to the range, I let a couple of other shooters fire the gun. They were both impressed with the ergonomics and how easy it was to keep rounds on target. One failure to fully chamber a round (similar to the problems noted during the first shooting session) was noted during this shooting session.
The third trip to the range I fired 100 rounds of WWB, 50 rounds of American Eagle, 50 rounds of Blazer Aluminum, about 125 rounds of Hansen (IMI) JHP and about 20 rounds of Federal 9BP JHP. During this trip I had one stovepipe and on a couple of occasions, during the middle of a string, the slide stopped during the feeding process. When I pulled the trigger, the force of the hammer drop "prompted" the slide to complete the chambering process and the gun fired normally when the trigger was pulled again.
Accuracy was again very good. Towards the end of the shooting session, I shot 4 groups of 5 shots each at 25 yards for record using American Eagle ammunition. The best 5 shot group at 25 yards was 2.7" with 2 more hovering around 3.5" and the final group opening up to about 4.4". The average of all 4 groups was about 3.5".
I didn't clean the gun after the second shooting session, and by the end of the third shooting session, the gun had seen about 325 rounds without cleaning. It was pretty filthy when I got it home, but in spite of that, there were fewer malfunctions during the 3rd shooting session than in the first one.
Over all the range trips with the gun so far there have been 7 five-shot groups shot for record at 25 yards. The average of all 7 is about 3.4". If you take the best 4 groups and average them, you get right about 3". Probably more representative of my limits than the gun's. The best group shot during the third session consisted of three rounds in one hole, and two more rounds in a second hole about 2.7" away from the first 3 rounds.
Shooting slowly at 25 yards for accuracy is not really what this gun is all about even though the on-target results are great. Recoil is soft and the gun tends to come straight back without a lot of muzzle rise. The light SA trigger and positive, short reset makes it really easy and fun to put shots on target rapidly at 5-7 yards. It will make you look good at the range with just a little help from you.
During the second range trip when I had some friends shoot it, each person who shot the gun, ripped off a mag, put the gun down and turned around with a big smile. It's that kind of gun.
Cleanup is easy. The gun is pretty simple inside--not a lot of nooks and crannies to be brushed out or for fouling to hide. The extractor is very easily removed for detailed cleaning/replacement although the feature is not documented anywhere that I could find. There's a plunger that holds the extractor in place. Depress it and the extractor pulls out of the gun forward, toward the muzzle. Be careful not to lose track of the extractor spring or the spring that tensions the small plunger.
I bought the gun primarily as a fun range gun and it's definitely that. It's easy to shoot and very accurate. I like the fact that it's a little bit uncommon, it also has a somewhat unusual operating system with the rotating barrel lockup. It's not just your everyday black polymer high-capacity 9mm.
If I had bought it for self-defense, I'd be a little irritated with the malfunction rate so far. I expect a good quality semi-auto to have a malfunction rate of 2 or 3 rounds per 1000 or less and the GP6 isn't meeting that expectation right now. That said, I'm optimistic that the function issues will continue to decrease with use--there were about 6 malfunctions during the first 325 rounds but only 3 problems during the last 350 rounds. That's encouraging. We shall see how things progress.
Some basics.
The gun is STI's rebadge of the Grand Power K100 pistol. It is FULLY ambidextrous. The frame is polymer, it's a hammer fired, DA/SA pistol with a frame mounted safety (up for safe, down for fire). Barrel length is 4.25" and the gun has an accessory rail.
Magazine capacity is 15--the manual states that there are 17 & 19 round mags available but I've never seen any. In fact, standard 15 rounders are pretty hard to find. The gun came with 2 magazines initially and I have managed to scrounge one more in a year of trying.
Sights are of the 3 dot variety with a front sight that is a sturdy polymer blade which appears to be attached to the slide in a very solid fashion. The rear sight is steel and is windage adjustable by loosening an allen screw and drifting the sight.
Trigger weight is 4lbs 3oz in SA. The reset is positive and very short. I tried to measure the DA trigger but my scale only goes to 8lbs. Not to worry, the DA pull is smooth and I didn't find it to be an impediment to shooting accurately.
The gun comes in a somewhat flimsy plastic case with a very abbreviated manual, 2 magazines, a basic twisted wire cleaning rod with an attached nylon cleaning brush and an allen wrench for the rear sight.
The field strip is weird, but roughly similar to the Walther PPK takedown. The trigger guard unlatches and "flexes" downward (there's no hinge). The slide can then be pulled back all the way and will lift up off the frame to be brought back forward off the gun. The recoil spring guide is captive but the spring comes off. It's very quick to do once you get the hang of it. The barrel lifts out of the slide as normal.
Reassembly is a little trickier since you have to get the barrel "staged" in the slide so it will mate properly with the locking pin before reassembly. There are videos out there that show the process.
Ok, enough of that.
The first trip to the range I fired 250 rounds of a variety of ammunition including WWB and American Eagle. At one point the magazine dropped out while firing, but that hasn't happened again so I'm going to suggest that perhaps the operator (me) didn't seat it properly.
There were also a few malfunctions where a round would not fully chamber and the slide would not fully close. This happened perhaps once every 50 rounds for the first 300 rounds but has not occurred since. I wasn't able to correlate it to any particular brand of ammunition being used.
Accuracy was definitely better than just acceptable. Of the 3 five shot groups done for record at 25 yards during the first range trip, one was 2.75" center-to-center (using American Eagle), and the other two were 3.5" and 3.6". I suspect that the gun may be able to do better than that, but I don't like shooting handguns from a rest and the groups listed are about as good as I can shoot offhand at 25 yards these days.
The second trip to the range, I let a couple of other shooters fire the gun. They were both impressed with the ergonomics and how easy it was to keep rounds on target. One failure to fully chamber a round (similar to the problems noted during the first shooting session) was noted during this shooting session.
The third trip to the range I fired 100 rounds of WWB, 50 rounds of American Eagle, 50 rounds of Blazer Aluminum, about 125 rounds of Hansen (IMI) JHP and about 20 rounds of Federal 9BP JHP. During this trip I had one stovepipe and on a couple of occasions, during the middle of a string, the slide stopped during the feeding process. When I pulled the trigger, the force of the hammer drop "prompted" the slide to complete the chambering process and the gun fired normally when the trigger was pulled again.
Accuracy was again very good. Towards the end of the shooting session, I shot 4 groups of 5 shots each at 25 yards for record using American Eagle ammunition. The best 5 shot group at 25 yards was 2.7" with 2 more hovering around 3.5" and the final group opening up to about 4.4". The average of all 4 groups was about 3.5".
I didn't clean the gun after the second shooting session, and by the end of the third shooting session, the gun had seen about 325 rounds without cleaning. It was pretty filthy when I got it home, but in spite of that, there were fewer malfunctions during the 3rd shooting session than in the first one.
Over all the range trips with the gun so far there have been 7 five-shot groups shot for record at 25 yards. The average of all 7 is about 3.4". If you take the best 4 groups and average them, you get right about 3". Probably more representative of my limits than the gun's. The best group shot during the third session consisted of three rounds in one hole, and two more rounds in a second hole about 2.7" away from the first 3 rounds.
Shooting slowly at 25 yards for accuracy is not really what this gun is all about even though the on-target results are great. Recoil is soft and the gun tends to come straight back without a lot of muzzle rise. The light SA trigger and positive, short reset makes it really easy and fun to put shots on target rapidly at 5-7 yards. It will make you look good at the range with just a little help from you.
During the second range trip when I had some friends shoot it, each person who shot the gun, ripped off a mag, put the gun down and turned around with a big smile. It's that kind of gun.
Cleanup is easy. The gun is pretty simple inside--not a lot of nooks and crannies to be brushed out or for fouling to hide. The extractor is very easily removed for detailed cleaning/replacement although the feature is not documented anywhere that I could find. There's a plunger that holds the extractor in place. Depress it and the extractor pulls out of the gun forward, toward the muzzle. Be careful not to lose track of the extractor spring or the spring that tensions the small plunger.
I bought the gun primarily as a fun range gun and it's definitely that. It's easy to shoot and very accurate. I like the fact that it's a little bit uncommon, it also has a somewhat unusual operating system with the rotating barrel lockup. It's not just your everyday black polymer high-capacity 9mm.
If I had bought it for self-defense, I'd be a little irritated with the malfunction rate so far. I expect a good quality semi-auto to have a malfunction rate of 2 or 3 rounds per 1000 or less and the GP6 isn't meeting that expectation right now. That said, I'm optimistic that the function issues will continue to decrease with use--there were about 6 malfunctions during the first 325 rounds but only 3 problems during the last 350 rounds. That's encouraging. We shall see how things progress.
