Tactical Jackalope
New member
Am I a few decades late? 
Anyway, let's get started. I've gone back and forth between P226/P229/P228 SIGs, Glock 19, 17, 34, Smith and Wesson M&P 9L and 2.0, and HK USPs.
Pros and cons to all. They're all equally reliable and each one has gone into tactical/self defense courses with me. Mostly the SIGs. (I used to go a lot more often back when) More recently though, it's been the M&P and HK pistols.
Now that there background on the actual pistols are out there, the training is irrelevant for this thread.
HK USP 9 Compact:
I had this gun before and sold it for reasons of not being used to it. I had others, so why adjust to this one when I can ditch it and carry something else that I already have and am comfortable with.
The "issue" was my big hands getting pinched on reloads/top-offs. The thing is I've been in jobs where I'm required to carry, allowed to carry, or they don't care if I carry. This year I moved out from the usual industries I was used to after about 10 years now. And into a place where I am prohibited from carrying my gun.
Well, disagree if need be but there is willing and able versus "allowed" so I needed to get something smaller. As you see, I'm usually in the realm of long slides and full-sized service pistols.
Carried the P229 at the start and while I don't concern myself too much with printing, I didn't want to even remotely get cause at the first "outside the usual" job this year. An optometrist office as a technician. (I am now at an office in a building working a 9-5 Monday - Friday like a good old fashioned American) So I went with something I remember being a great shot with. Fast, accurate as can be, and just consistently clean draws.
The USP 9 Compact. I felt like my friend who moved on to work with a certain unit that carried Glock 22 pistols. He hated it. But HAD to learn it and be proficient. I needed to sort out that magazine "issue" and I did. With lots of dry practice and live fire drills from from all my previous instruction worked out just fine. It's a small cant outward from the palm on reloads with a full firm grip on the pistol, insert and go.
The USP 9 Compact is about the size between a Glock 26 and Glock 19. I don't need a magazine extender to get my full hand on the gun but the width of the grip is really small and I do manhandle the ever-living out of it. So forget about recoil. There practically is none.
I use factory 13+1 magazines, preferably with the straight/plain base plates from HK. Until recently, a company called Solum Tool came about. So I have the +0 base plates in black that add a nice weight to the magazine. The second I grab my fresh magazine and come up to my magwell and hit that button, hat magazine comes flying out even faster. I have a +5 in black on the way to me and they also have a +3. Granted, I will heavily test these before I trust my life to them. Solum Tool uses Wolff springs for the magazines, so that's a good sign.
I have Meprolight sights on them this time instead of Trijicon HDs (they don't make the XRs yet) because I want to maintain the same combat sight hold from the factory. They're nice and bright. Along with the HK bobbed hammer, they don't snag.
The holsters I use are T5 Custom Kydex. The hitchhiker is a sidecar style holster. Where the gun is one the dominant hand and the spare magazine is on the support hand. I have on for the gun alone and one for the gun with a GG&G rail and TLR-7. Until Surefire comes out with a comparable size and lumen count as the Streamlight, that'll be my WML of choice.
Magazines are loaded with 124gr standard or +P Federal HST or 127gr Winchester +P+ Ranger T rounds.
I have a Safariland duty holster in case I want to pick up some shifts at the local ranges as an RO.
The pistol hasn't had a light strike or any other type of malfunction as of yet aside from some mag issues from a day of outside drills with magazines hitting the dirt/mud about a hundred times. This didn't start until the end of the day. So granted, in a gun fight I don't think there's a case of standing in the same spot all day dropping empty magazines and picking them up to reload them again and again.
So, the USP Compact is only "outdated" with its accessory rail. Everything else about this pistol has been phenomenal.
My only small grip with it that I picked up from class and that I can do much, much, much better with a striker fired pistol is the draw and shoot into the T-Zone from 15-25 yards. Seeing as this is a DA/SA pistol, that's going to prove challenging. The trigger has a nickel plated sear spring which cleans it up a bit. Not that clean.
Other than that, this is a 8.5/9 for more EDC needs.
If you made it this far......
Anyway, let's get started. I've gone back and forth between P226/P229/P228 SIGs, Glock 19, 17, 34, Smith and Wesson M&P 9L and 2.0, and HK USPs.
Pros and cons to all. They're all equally reliable and each one has gone into tactical/self defense courses with me. Mostly the SIGs. (I used to go a lot more often back when) More recently though, it's been the M&P and HK pistols.
Now that there background on the actual pistols are out there, the training is irrelevant for this thread.
HK USP 9 Compact:
I had this gun before and sold it for reasons of not being used to it. I had others, so why adjust to this one when I can ditch it and carry something else that I already have and am comfortable with.
The "issue" was my big hands getting pinched on reloads/top-offs. The thing is I've been in jobs where I'm required to carry, allowed to carry, or they don't care if I carry. This year I moved out from the usual industries I was used to after about 10 years now. And into a place where I am prohibited from carrying my gun.
Well, disagree if need be but there is willing and able versus "allowed" so I needed to get something smaller. As you see, I'm usually in the realm of long slides and full-sized service pistols.
Carried the P229 at the start and while I don't concern myself too much with printing, I didn't want to even remotely get cause at the first "outside the usual" job this year. An optometrist office as a technician. (I am now at an office in a building working a 9-5 Monday - Friday like a good old fashioned American) So I went with something I remember being a great shot with. Fast, accurate as can be, and just consistently clean draws.
The USP 9 Compact. I felt like my friend who moved on to work with a certain unit that carried Glock 22 pistols. He hated it. But HAD to learn it and be proficient. I needed to sort out that magazine "issue" and I did. With lots of dry practice and live fire drills from from all my previous instruction worked out just fine. It's a small cant outward from the palm on reloads with a full firm grip on the pistol, insert and go.
The USP 9 Compact is about the size between a Glock 26 and Glock 19. I don't need a magazine extender to get my full hand on the gun but the width of the grip is really small and I do manhandle the ever-living out of it. So forget about recoil. There practically is none.
I use factory 13+1 magazines, preferably with the straight/plain base plates from HK. Until recently, a company called Solum Tool came about. So I have the +0 base plates in black that add a nice weight to the magazine. The second I grab my fresh magazine and come up to my magwell and hit that button, hat magazine comes flying out even faster. I have a +5 in black on the way to me and they also have a +3. Granted, I will heavily test these before I trust my life to them. Solum Tool uses Wolff springs for the magazines, so that's a good sign.
I have Meprolight sights on them this time instead of Trijicon HDs (they don't make the XRs yet) because I want to maintain the same combat sight hold from the factory. They're nice and bright. Along with the HK bobbed hammer, they don't snag.
The holsters I use are T5 Custom Kydex. The hitchhiker is a sidecar style holster. Where the gun is one the dominant hand and the spare magazine is on the support hand. I have on for the gun alone and one for the gun with a GG&G rail and TLR-7. Until Surefire comes out with a comparable size and lumen count as the Streamlight, that'll be my WML of choice.
Magazines are loaded with 124gr standard or +P Federal HST or 127gr Winchester +P+ Ranger T rounds.
I have a Safariland duty holster in case I want to pick up some shifts at the local ranges as an RO.
The pistol hasn't had a light strike or any other type of malfunction as of yet aside from some mag issues from a day of outside drills with magazines hitting the dirt/mud about a hundred times. This didn't start until the end of the day. So granted, in a gun fight I don't think there's a case of standing in the same spot all day dropping empty magazines and picking them up to reload them again and again.
So, the USP Compact is only "outdated" with its accessory rail. Everything else about this pistol has been phenomenal.
My only small grip with it that I picked up from class and that I can do much, much, much better with a striker fired pistol is the draw and shoot into the T-Zone from 15-25 yards. Seeing as this is a DA/SA pistol, that's going to prove challenging. The trigger has a nickel plated sear spring which cleans it up a bit. Not that clean.
Other than that, this is a 8.5/9 for more EDC needs.
If you made it this far......
