I purchased two new 9mm pistols recently, and one has become my new favorite, while the other had issues right out of the box.
First is a Walther PPQ M2 Navy SD 9mm. I added a set of Meprolight night sights and a Talon rubberized grip. This pistol is absolutely amazing! It fits my hand perfectly and is very accurate. I shot 300 rounds through it the first time out at the range, and it was 100% reliable. Prior to purchasing the PPQ, my Hk VP9 was my go to 9mm pistol. I actually prefer the Walther slightly more now.
My second purchase was a new Magnum Research MR9. It is a Walther P99 clone, with the frame resembling the PPQ more than the P99. The frame is made by Walther, and the slide and barrel is made here in the US by Magnum Research. I picked it up at my local Cabela's for $375, which was a good deal. While I like the feel of the MR9, the performance was severely lacking and left me disappointed.
Right of the bat, the MR9 was disassembled, inspected, cleaned, and lubed. I did notice that there was a slight ding in the feedramp of the barrel. Running my fingernail across it, I could feel a slight depression there. I didn't think much of it at the time, and figured I'd see how it performed at the range.
First magazine was an utter failure. Every 1-3 rounds was a FTF. The mouth of the casing was catching the ding in the feedramp and causing the round to stay facing upwards, instead of feeding into the chamber. This caused the gun to jam. The slide had to be locked back, and the round that failed to feed had to be removed.
So after two magazines worth of this, I was fed up with the MR9. I know that new pistols have a break in period, but this problem wasn't going to correct itself by shooting the gun. I still had 6 fully loaded magazines though, and rather than remove all of those rounds and load them into my PPQ magazines, I decided to run a little experiment.
At home, I had these two pistols disassembled side by side, and the internals are almost identical, and the frame/slide dimensions are identical. I ended up mounting the PPQ slide on the MR9 frame, and vice versa, and both functioned properly when dry firing, locking the slide back, etc. While at the range, I put my PPQ slide assembly on the MR9 frame and shot all 6 magazines, 90 rounds total, without issue. It functioned 100%.
I took the MR9 barrel and polished the feedramp until it is glass smooth and looks like a mirror. I am going to take it back to the range in the next couple of days and see if that corrected the issue. I believe that it will.
First is a Walther PPQ M2 Navy SD 9mm. I added a set of Meprolight night sights and a Talon rubberized grip. This pistol is absolutely amazing! It fits my hand perfectly and is very accurate. I shot 300 rounds through it the first time out at the range, and it was 100% reliable. Prior to purchasing the PPQ, my Hk VP9 was my go to 9mm pistol. I actually prefer the Walther slightly more now.
My second purchase was a new Magnum Research MR9. It is a Walther P99 clone, with the frame resembling the PPQ more than the P99. The frame is made by Walther, and the slide and barrel is made here in the US by Magnum Research. I picked it up at my local Cabela's for $375, which was a good deal. While I like the feel of the MR9, the performance was severely lacking and left me disappointed.
Right of the bat, the MR9 was disassembled, inspected, cleaned, and lubed. I did notice that there was a slight ding in the feedramp of the barrel. Running my fingernail across it, I could feel a slight depression there. I didn't think much of it at the time, and figured I'd see how it performed at the range.
First magazine was an utter failure. Every 1-3 rounds was a FTF. The mouth of the casing was catching the ding in the feedramp and causing the round to stay facing upwards, instead of feeding into the chamber. This caused the gun to jam. The slide had to be locked back, and the round that failed to feed had to be removed.
So after two magazines worth of this, I was fed up with the MR9. I know that new pistols have a break in period, but this problem wasn't going to correct itself by shooting the gun. I still had 6 fully loaded magazines though, and rather than remove all of those rounds and load them into my PPQ magazines, I decided to run a little experiment.
At home, I had these two pistols disassembled side by side, and the internals are almost identical, and the frame/slide dimensions are identical. I ended up mounting the PPQ slide on the MR9 frame, and vice versa, and both functioned properly when dry firing, locking the slide back, etc. While at the range, I put my PPQ slide assembly on the MR9 frame and shot all 6 magazines, 90 rounds total, without issue. It functioned 100%.
I took the MR9 barrel and polished the feedramp until it is glass smooth and looks like a mirror. I am going to take it back to the range in the next couple of days and see if that corrected the issue. I believe that it will.
