It's nice to be surprised.

P

Pond James Pond

New member
It's even nicer to be pleasantly surprised.

I might well be a revolver guy at heart and I might well be very please with sole semi auto, the SP-01, but today I laid hands on a semi that I've not seen on sale here before. I also saw another that is frequently discussed here.

So I found a new hunting/outdoor store in town today and so I naturally went to explore. Having found the gun counter I perused their selection.

They had 6 hand guns on the wall. I only handled one 9mm, did a trigger check and field strip. The brand was HS from Croatia and it was very nice indeed and well priced. Decent trigger, grip safety ambi-mag release 2 chromed magazines with 16rd cap' in the 4" compact. It had a sort of swivel take-down and the slide was really nicely machined. It seemed way more solid than the G19 I used to own and that was by no means badly built.

Below those were XDMs. I didn't handle those as my two daughters were starting to rearrange the shop's stock (especially the toddler) so I had to cut it short.

So I'd never seen either of those in the flesh and I must say I was pretty impressed. But the HS-9 and the XDMs looked very nicely put together and the grip safety is probably something I'd be happier with than just a chambered round if ever they drop the condition 3 carry law here for semis...
 
Sounds like what is imported here in the States as the Springfield XD.

Formerly called HS-2000 or some such.

They are not new but are nice pistols. I have owned two in 45 ACP and they were nice but I sold them and won't own one again for various reasons.

People seem to love 'em or hate 'em.
 
Ah, yes, the Croatian Sensation, the HS-2000. That's an old one, as Springfield has been importing them as the XD for years. Last time I saw an HS-2000 was about 16 years ago. Good, solid sidearm.
Edit to add, sorry, I forgot you are across the pond, as it were, probably still being marketed under HS over there.
 
The HS2000 is one of the very few guns I got WAY more value then price paid. They were dirt cheap before Springfield turned them into the XD and were damn good guns. I sold mine fore a tidy profit........but should have kept it.

The one problem I remember them having was with smaller or out of spec 9mm ammo. (Win White Box). They released an updated extractor to fix this. Never an issue with mine.
 
WWB out of spec? I've never had any trouble out of it infact it's probably my favorite thing to shoot in 9mm.. what's the problem with it?
 
Tell my firearms Win white box is out of spec ( Win is not going to sell o"out of spec" ammo) after tens of thousands of the stuff have been consumed by them. My main reloaded case is white box Win that services on loading after loading.
 
WWB out of spec? I've never had any trouble out of it infact it's probably my favorite thing to shoot in 9mm.. what's the problem with it?
Click to expand...

Try this: Grab 3 different boxes of WWB from 3 different lots ..... put a set of calipers to them..... OAL, case mouth measurements ..... there's a reason that stuff is cheap, and it ain't because it's well put together.
 
White box is decent plinking ammo but the rims on the cases are sometimes a hair off. Way back when the dinosaurs roamed and the HS2000 first came to are shores with the pilgrims the extractors in them didn't like white box. This could have just been a bad run of white box that year but I did get a new extractor and it was upgraded and fixed the issue.

As an aside wanna know what a tiny extractor spring sounds like as it shoots across a garage bouncing off multiple objects before being lost to history? It sounds a lot like a fat guy screaming expletives and a pipe wrench being thrown. The moral of this story is why we disassemble in a gallon plastic bag. :)

Don't get me wrong white box isn't Tula brassmax or anything like that. I swear I could drop a round of Tula brassmax bulk stuff down a length of 4 inch PVC pipe and it wouldn't come out the other side because it would jam up in there.
 
Pond, have you run across the Grand Power, as it is being made practically in your back yard? Well, maybe it would be a long drive to Slovakia but it is certainly a nicely made pistol and y'all are both in the EU together. Doesn't that keep prices down?

I have the compact and am very pleased with it.

And the new Springfield XD(E) is sort of a hammer-fired version of the small XD(S). I have that XD(E) and like it. It is also one of the Croatian-made pistols.

Bart Noir
 
Do we get so see some pics?????
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Not from me!

I only handled it. Bye-bye buy-buy; at least for now...

Pond, have you run across the Grand Power, as it is being made practically in your back yard?
Click to expand...

I've seen the brand once or twice: again it was a used gun sale. TBH, I'm well catered for with the CZ line-up. They are easy to find and if ever I went for a carry gun from them then the P-09, CZ75 Compact or Rami would do me fine.

Failing that there's Glock or Sig's 2022 in the poly options. With Glock a G19 4th Gen would be fine. With the interchangeable backstrap, I was happier with the natural POA than with my initial Gen 3 G19.

But I will say that the HS9 and XDMs looked might solid...
 
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James:

Before you look at the HS more closely, you need to get your hands on a CZ P10c. It's really opening eyes (and some pocketbooks) here in the U.S.
 
Whenever someone mentions XD to me I always reply....Yeah the old HS-2000 stuff. Literally no one who has tried to wow me with their "springfield" ever knows what I'm talking about.
 
James just read through this post and I had to look up the Baltics on wickpedia.
Forgive my ignorance but it seems you folks have the most liberal gun laws in all of Europe. Is this true?
 
Pond said:
It's even nicer to be pleasantly surprised.

I might well be a revolver guy at heart and I might well be very please with sole semi auto, the SP-01, but today I laid hands on a semi that I've not seen on sale here before. I also saw another that is frequently discussed here.

So I found a new hunting/outdoor store in town today and so I naturally went to explore. Having found the gun counter I perused their selection.

They had 6 hand guns on the wall. I only handled one 9mm, did a trigger check and field strip. The brand was HS from Croatia and it was very nice indeed and well priced. Decent trigger, grip safety ambi-mag release 2 chromed magazines with 16rd cap' in the 4" compact. It had a sort of swivel take-down and the slide was really nicely machined. It seemed way more solid than the G19 I used to own and that was by no means badly built.

Below those were XDMs. I didn't handle those as my two daughters were starting to rearrange the shop's stock (especially the toddler) so I had to cut it short.

So I'd never seen either of those in the flesh and I must say I was pretty impressed. But the HS-9 and the XDMs looked very nicely put together and the grip safety is probably something I'd be happier with than just a chambered round if ever they drop the condition 3 carry law here for semis...
Click to expand...

The HS2000 is imported into the US as the Springfield XD. I have 2. They're fine.

The XDM is related, but a little bit different internally.

It seemed way more solid than the G19 I used to own and that was by no means badly built.
Click to expand...

They're heavier. A couple different things play into that, I think. The XD sizes tend to be larger then the Glock you would think they would correspond to, and the locking block is a lot bigger.
 
armoredman said:
Ah, yes, the Croatian Sensation, the HS-2000. That's an old one, as Springfield has been importing them as the XD for years. Last time I saw an HS-2000 was about 16 years ago. Good, solid sidearm.
Edit to add, sorry, I forgot you are across the pond, as it were, probably still being marketed under HS over there.
Click to expand...

They're the HS in the rest of the world.
 
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