The eye burner 5000!

[Buddy1211]

Hi points get a lot of hate. I'm sure this one will be no different. I'm done with "purpose driven" and "use case" projects. Those projects/builds are complete for the time being….now it's time for some silly ideas and shenanigans to happen!

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[TTSX]

Is it supposed to look like a Victorian orphan's crutch?

 

[Tlock]

Its a.....I mean.....if it makes you happy thats all that matters

 

[TTSX]

Its a.....I mean.....if it makes you happy thats all that matters

View: https://youtu.be/dyihQtBes1I?si=zKCPrHBzlAQf77x6

 

[NeoBlackdog]

Gotta love a Hi Point!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpZdUgBzh7Y

 

[Tlock]

Is it supposed to look like a Victorian orphan's crutch?

Poor little tiny tim.....

 

[titsonritz]

Poor little tiny tim.....

God bless us, every one.

 

[lucusloc]

My "trash build" PCC project is a 10mm Hi-Point carbine. Cheap optic, cheap light and laser "combo" (which was really separate light and laser in the same box) and a suppressor adapter. Whole thing was under 450, and the suppressor adapter was almost a quarter of that by itself (that is the one thing you don't want to cheap out on).

And you know what? It works decently well. It in no way shoots as nice as the delay blowback PCCs that cost 4 or 5 times as much, but it can keep up with them if you do your part. It is heavy, has the ergos of a brick but for the price you cannot beat it.

For all the hate that Hi-Point gets there is a reason they are still doing well as a company. They make stuff that works at the lowest possible price. You just have to sacrifice every other "nice to have" like comfort and quality (I had to trim the mold flashing on the grip off myself, for example). But it does go "bang!" every time. Can't argue with that.

 

[Koda]

just curious, how accurate are the Hi Point carbines?

 

[Nosferatu]

just curious, how accurate are the Hi Point carbines?

It's one of the few firearms where your distance from the equator and the moon phase actually matters.

 

[Knobgoblin]

I personally appreciate how rusted the assembly hardware is.
Being a coastal resident myself.

 

[Buddy1211]

I

I personally appreciate how rusted the assembly hardware is.
Being a coastal resident myself.

I bought it used probably a year and a half ago for a rainy day/ fun project for a whole like $200 I think. I don't think I shot it. Crammed it into my spare/ project safe and forgot about it. I found it this afternoon, hardware rusty and all hahahaha…..depending on how it groups it may be my first form 1. If it's a terrible shooter it may end up a short terrible shooter.

 

[Buddy1211]

just curious, how accurate are the Hi Point carbines?

I don't know, but I'm gonna find out!

 

[lucusloc]

just curious, how accurate are the Hi Point carbines?

TLDR: More accurate than you would think and comparable to other PCCs, but still sucks compared to a rifle of similar size/barrel length.

PCCs are never known for great accuracy, they are short range weapons that can struggle with pinpoint accuracy past 50 yards. The bullets, being pistol caliber, are typically short and fat, so dispersion is an issue no matter how well you tune the system. 2 MOA groups are a pretty standard top end to the class from a bench, and that opens up a lot with cheap ammo. "Keeping it on paper" is the basic benchmark when run-n-gunning, and while you can lob rounds out past 100 and try for hits, I would make sure you have a pretty big gong if you want those hits to be somewhat consistent. The nature of the bullets means that ~2 MOA group close in can disperse to 5-6 MOA at range. By the time you are out to 200 yards keeping every shot on a 16 inch gong is going to be pretty iffy, even if you put a magnifier on a 2 or 3 MOA dot.

But the Hi-Point carbines keep up with the best in the arsenal (for my 10mm collection that is a CMMG Mk 10 and a Stribog SP10). The 9mm and .45 collection show a similar pattern, with bench rest groups all keeping pretty close within each class. 9mm and 10mm have the tightest groups then the .45s take up the rear position. That makes sense when you look at the bullets, and I cannot imagine the 9mm and .45 versions of this gun will perform any worse. And of course this is all FMJ, I am sure if you put fancier HPs in there it would not get any better due to the even worse BC and dispersion characteristics of those profiles. I shoot mostly whitebox ammo out of mine so I expect ~3 MOA or worse at 50 yards, but with the close ranges these operate at that is not really a big deal. Remember, 3 MOA at 50 yards is still only a one and a half inch group, which is well within the 6 inches of a typical A zone.

I have not put it on a bench but the Hi-Point 1095 can keep all the rounds in the A-zone off hand out to 25-30 yards or so as long as I do my part and am not dumping rounds at top speed. With a little care I do not think it is any less accurate than the rest of them. The recoil impulse is significantly worse than anything delayed, however, so the faster you shoot the more your groups are going to open up. That is the big difference here, as I can keep the CMMGs, Stribog and AP5 more on target at faster rates of fire than any of my direct blowback carbines regardless of cartridge. This is just physics, so no amount of training is going to make this better, the delayed actions are just nicer to shoot period. And when the paradigm of your platform is predicated on volume of fire this matters, and I consider this the biggest factor in accuracy on any PCC. As far as I am concerned single shot accuracy is only important for cartridges that can deliver enough energy in that one shot. PCCs do not do that so fast follow up shots are every bit as important as first shot accuracy. The Hi-Point (as well as any other direct blowback platform) really suffer here, and you have to slow down quite a bit to get accurate follow up shots, comparatively speaking.

I have also tested this with really nice optics with fine dots and super clear glass and while they are subjectively slightly better than the cheap Pan AV clone I have dedicated to this build I do not think optic quality makes that big a deal on these types of platform. Get a 2 or 3 MOA dot, aim for direct center and hope for the best. If you do your part all the rounds will land close enough to count. The only thing better optics get you is durability, and that only really matters if you want to use the gun for real. I think the Hi-Points are perfectly adequate for a non-enthusiast to use as a bedside gun as they are more than reliable enough for the task, but I think anyone who wants a true duty grade firearm will be better served looking elsewhere simply because of the better ergos and recoil mitigation higher quality guns bring to the table. Hi-Points are bare-bones and minimum viable functionality, best kept to across the room distances if things get serious. If you ever actually need to hit a man-sized target out past 100 yards with this platform you might want to seriously reconsider the life choices you made to be in that situation with that gun, because there is probably quite the story to tell there.

How durability and barrel life affect things is another question entirely, and I cannot speak to that at all with any of my platforms. I simply do not shoot them enough, nor do I know of anyone doing burn-down tests on PCCs, let alone 10mm PCC trash builds. I cannot imagine barrel life will be a problem though, these are straight-walled low pressure cartridges after all, they are probably not hard on barrels or actions. The springs seem pretty beefy, and the action is a solid block of pot metal so I doubt there will be any reliability issues long term. The thing is a massive PITA to tear down, so I probably will never do that again. Once was enough for me, and I just dump solvent and lube into the action when it needs to be "cleaned". Even if the barrel does burn down or the action wears more rapidly than higher quality counterparts the question is if anyone would actually notice. I am just not sure if it really matters for the use case.

Anyway I think baby boy has finally nodded back off to sleep, so I am going to attempt to do likewise. Having a new kid really kills the rem cycles.

 

[1911Fanatic]

Yeah OP, I know what you mean. Sometimes I like to get super cheap guns. But the 200 dollar deals that zi get are usually quality, mid priced guns that are being blown out, discontinued, etc.

I am looking to get a Lorcin, just to show my granddaughter the difference between a crappy firearm and a decent one, and just how crappy crap can get. I won't pay more than 50 bucks for one though. And, with things like High Points, the used prices are so close to new, that one may as well buy new.

But high points are miles better than the old Ring of Fire guns.

 

[dangerranger60]

The HiPoint has similar accuracy to an old Camp 9 carbine I've had for years. At 50 yds I can keep them in a 3 " target off hand. From the bench I can do about the same at 100 yds. The reason I keep them is they are fun to shoot, and my wife and granddaughters can shoot them. anyone can pick them up and hit close in targets without being beat up by the recoil. We bought it to try 3 gun, but have yet to shoot a match with it. DR

 

[Alexx1401]

Those carbines they make get a LOT of hate and fun made, but they just work. There is a lot of video of people buying some of them and trying really hard to break them. Finding out its pretty damn hard to do. For the price they give an amazing amount of value.

 

[gmerkt]

For all the hate that Hi-Point gets there is a reason they are still doing well as a company. They make stuff that works at the lowest possible price. You just have to sacrifice every other "nice to have" like comfort and quality (I had to trim the mold flashing on the grip off myself, for example). But it does go "bang!" every time. Can't argue with that.

I don't have a Hi-Point of any type. I like guns for what they are, and the nicer they are, the more I tend to like them. However, and this is a big one. Not everyone who buys a gun is a "gun person." Some people actually buy guns for what they do, not what they are. So the Hi-Point and its low price may be exactly what an undercapitalized person might want and be able to afford. Last time I was in the gun shop where I do business, they had a Lorcin and a Hi-Point in the case, .380's, looked like new guns, $100 apiece. These aren't collector item pistols, but they might just do for self defense. They may only need one shot to get the job of defense done.

Re. pistol caliber carbines in general. I had a 1997 Ruger PC4 carbine, that's the .40 S&W. I owned it when I had a .40 Ruger pistol. At the time, it seemed to make sense. They took the same magazines. I've often fallen into the interchangeability chasm. It was good enough for what it was, decently accurate out to 50 yards. But these days, my personal philosophy is that a rifle should be chambered in a rifle cartridge. I have one exception, a .357 Magnum rifle but that arguably straddles the line a bit.

 

[lucusloc]

I don't have a Hi-Point of any type. I like guns for what they are, and the nicer they are, the more I tend to like them. However, and this is a big one. Not everyone who buys a gun is a "gun person." Some people actually buy guns for what they do, not what they are. So the Hi-Point and its low price may be exactly what an undercapitalized person might want and be able to afford. Last time I was in the gun shop where I do business, they had a Lorcin and a Hi-Point in the case, .380's, looked like new guns, $100 apiece. These aren't collector item pistols, but they might just do for self defense. They may only need one shot to get the job of defense done.

Re. pistol caliber carbines in general. I had a 1997 Ruger PC4 carbine, that's the .40 S&W. I owned it when I had a .40 Ruger pistol. At the time, it seemed to make sense. They took the same magazines. I've often fallen into the interchangeability chasm. It was good enough for what it was, decently accurate out to 50 yards. But these days, my personal philosophy is that a rifle should be chambered in a rifle cartridge. I have one exception, a .357 Magnum rifle but that arguably straddles the line a bit.

For duty use I would agree with you on rifle size guns shooting rifle size cartridges. Today there is very little reason not to. The only place I see PCCs filling a duty role is as "sub compact" long arms. Some of mine are truly tiny and no platform capable of shooting rifle cartridges can come close.

Of course that tinyness comes with its own drawbacks, but it still gives you greater capability than a pistol. They bridge the gap and fill a specific niche. Granted it's a small niche but if that is what you really need a PCC is one of the few viable options for you. Every one else probably either needs a real rifle or needs a real pistol.

But where they really shine is as a range toy. My larger PCCs are hands down my favorite guns to shoot. They are fast, low recoil, fairly cheap and can be tricked out to run with the best competition guns I have. I submit there is not a more fun run-n-gun platform out there.

Yes a PCC can do well enough as a "duty gun" for a non-gun person. They work and pistol cartridges can still put down bad guys even if they are not exactly optimal for that. But there are better options out there, so I would only recommend a PCC for such use in special cases. A Hi-Point carbine could be one such case where cost was a significant factor. If you cannot afford better it is hard to go wrong with one of these.

 

[1911Fanatic]

Split the difference….Tech 9 baby!