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Commenter JKing hit on something.
FN's High-Power isn't competing with the old Hi-Power.
It's competing with... Every other 9mm being made, or ever made.
They specifically mentioned girth.
If your new gun is bulkier than a Beretta 92, you've kind of failed.
Your gun has to be as good or better than the gun to beat.
When the Hi-Power was introduced, it was the gun to beat.
Beretta did that with the 92, then it was the gun to beat.
Glock supplanted the 92...
The SIG 320 might be on its way to being the gun to beat with it in so many law enforcement holsters and its adoption by Big Mil.
Many designs reach equivalence to the gun to beat, they're real contenders, but they tend to be "also rans" than becoming the gun. My M&P 9 is in this category. It tends to be the striker fired polymer gun you get when, for some reason, you don't want or can't have a Glock.
The M&P almost made it to being the gun. There was a lot of Kool-Aid being distributed by a lot of bloggers back when. Then, one day... Back to Glock.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Glocks. I tend to like them better than the M&P, but I got outvoted in the standardization meeting.
I am considering getting a new rig to pack Glock this winter. The Glock 45 would be just dandy in a shoulder holster...
But I digress...
Something that often is forgotten about guns is they don't have to be brutally functional things. They can exist simply to delight the owner.
Nostalgia fueled more than one purchase sitting in the safe.
Delight is why there's so many .25's in there too.
My M1873 Artillery model has no practical purpose than to make my happy neurons fire.
The new High-Power might not beat the best gun out there in any objective manner. That might not be the goal at all.
Sadly, FN has an alarming tendency to make a good gun and then drop it after a very short period of time. Kinda like a European Ruger in that regard...
Kilobuck pricing will keep my happy ass away from them. It's why my OGHP is an ex-Israeli police gun.
I am most at risk of getting one of those new metal framed M&P's than a new HP.
There's even a small risk of me getting an M17 version of the P320.
But probably just be buying ammo and magazines (and holsters) what I already got.
"Something that often is forgotten about guns is they don't have to be brutally functional things. They can exist simply to delight the owner." - Yes, this. I see it all the time with shooters who just see guns as bullet launching devices. Aesthetics and joy don't equate. Why not have it all? There are guns that can launch a bullet and also look/feel good while doing it.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Glocks; I've had a few. They're the AK47 of the pistols; simple, reliable, easy to maintain, runs like a typewriter, ugly, not too accurate, ergos are wonky. I respect them heck out of them even if the aesthetics/ergos aren't for me. Sure there's other plastic fantastics out there but I think Glock still hit the magic formula best with simplicity/reliability AND doing all that across a broad spectrum of calibers. If you can assemble legos, you can gunsmith a Glock. genius.
-JKing