who all has a HK P7? this is in my opion the best gun in my safe I have three sig’s,four kimbers and three glocks If someone has a P7 for sale let me know here is a pic of mine ( also my AR )
It gets my vote for the neatest pistol ever. When I was growing up in the mid-80s it was THE uber pistol. Even Jeff Cooper liked it. Doctrine has since tilted heavily towards high-capacity so it has kind of been left behind. If this was 1987 and I was a smooth classically-educated international terrorist I wouldn’t be caught without one.
Exactly what Greg said…we must have been drinking the same stuff in the 80’s…
I carried a P7M8 for about 7 years. It shot exceedingly well, was quick into action, and with the right holster, carried well too.
However, as a practical piece, the Glock 19 or a SIG P228 has it all over the P7.
Same size pistol, double the capacity, and a whole lot less money.
Best trigger I’ve felt on a striker fired gun
I am on the look out for a P7 M8 myself and believe that this might be on of the very best CCW weapons ever made.
If anyone has a line on one, please contact me!
C4
Grant is right. It is one of the best CCW weapons ever made. Here is a list of stuff I came up with about 10 years ago…
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Squeeze cocking. IMHO the safest gun for daily carry. The gun goes from perfectly safe to perfectly deadly in a split second. If you drop it you may have a heart attack because it might get scratched but you can rest assured it won’t go off. This gun is incredibly fast.
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Trigger pull. Thanks to the squeeze cocking system the gun is safely equipped with an excellent single action trigger pull. I’ve had die-hard partisans of every type of gun praise my P7’s trigger.
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Compact. Although it has full-size controls (no pinky hang), the gun is sized like a compact approaching a subcompact. It is much thinner than almost any handgun.(1.1-1.2 inches).
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Full-size barrel. Despite this gun’s compact size it has a full 4-inch barrel.
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Fixed-barrel. This gun lacks the tilting barrel assembly of most other full-sized guns. This lends the gun exceptional accuracy. In combination with the aforementioned trigger, this barrel makes the P7 ultra-accurate.
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Low recoil. This is debatable. I have always felt that this has the least recoil of any 9mm. Some disagree, most don’t. This is likely result of the guns low bore/axis and gas system (although some say the gas system should have no effect).
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Tough! This gun is CNC milled from a solid steel forging. The gun is so solid it could be used as a nasty set of brass knuckles in a pinch. Without picking one up it is hard to imagine how solid this little gun feels. When I had mine hard-chromed the smith complained endlessly about how hard the P7 was to machine.
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Excellent sight radius. Although the gun is short, HK maximized the sight radius by pushing the sights as far apart as practically possible.
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Oddball manual of arms confuses bad guys and know it all buddies. There are many accounts of cops loosing their P7’s to bad guys who were, in turn, unable to figure out the squeeze cocker. On the lighter side, a know it all at a local gun shop had just explained to all of his bad experiences with the P7 when I handed it to him only to watch him fumble around unable to cock it! Hilarious.
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Chamber fluting allows the gun to function even if the extractor is broken. This feature really makes you think when you are trying to determine which gun you want to bet you life on (no offense, but this a much more serious advantage than being able to freeze the gun in a bucket of ice or whatever).
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Easily childproofed. The P7’s striker can be removed without tools (and without any other disassembly of the gun). The striker can be re-inserted into the gun in roughly 1 second. This could be a major consideration to those of us with small children and stupid friends.
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Ambidextrous. With the exception of the slide catch and take down buttons, every model of the P7 is completely ambidextrous.
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Ultra-fast magazine release. This has to be experienced to be understood. Rambo types complained about the PSP’s lack of rapid magazine release. HK, Germans that they are, decided to give them what they wanted—a magazine that ejects so fast and powerfully that they could be used as back-up projectiles in an emergency.
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Ultra fast slide release. Simply squeeze the handle and the slide will be released.
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110 degree grip angle gives the gun natural pointability. 110 degree grip angle makes the gun point just like you finger.
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Low profile slide. The P7’s low profile slide means that there is very little recoiling mass relative to the frame. This, along with the above mentioned 110-degree grip angle makes reacquiring targets a breeze with the P7.
Con
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The gun gets uncomfortably hot after 60 (or so) rapid shots. More of a training problem than a “real world” consideration.
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Finish lacks durability. Blued finish wears quickly and is very little protection against corrosion.
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Very expensive. At over $1000, this gun is out of the range of many buyers.
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The gun’s design is such that it gets dirty quickly when shot.
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The gun malfunctions when not maintained properly. While this is true of all guns, the P7 seems to be more sensitive than most modern autos. The solution is to keep the gas cylinder clean.
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The P7’s cocking lever emits a click when released. This is more of an issue with SEAL wannabes than real people. The theory is that the noise will alert the bad guys to your presence. Easily overcome with technique anyway (press in cocking latch at top of cocking lever while releasing your grip). With this technique the gun is almost silent and certainly quieter than any SIG or USP with decocking lever.
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Low capacity. Except in now unavailable M13 (LEO only) and M10 (discontinued for ugliness), capacity is limited to 9 rounds (with one in chamber).
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Grip screws come loose too easily. Use lock-tite.
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Can’t use lead bullets (see cleanliness issues above).
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Slide lock button too small for some.
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Magazine release on M8/M13 too sensitive to careless holstering (accidental magazine ejection). PSP model doesn’t suffer from this (Euro-magazine catch).
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During an emergency a user might accidentally squeeze the trigger while squeezing the cocking lever. I personally think this isn’t a problem. The P7 was designed with a fair amount of take-up in the trigger so the gun is tolerant of some sloppiness. The moral of the story is to keep you finger off the trigger until you are ready to kill something. It should also be noted that your trigger finger is relatively independent of your other fingers. I can’t remember the physiological term, but the other three fingers usually act in unison while the index finger is only partially connected. Still, in an emergency anything is possible–practice proper form with all firearms!
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For some, seriously ham-fisted users, the gun might be accidentally disassembled if the take down button is inadvertently pressed while the slide is being racked. This is extremely unlikely, however, it can be done with practice.
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Disassembly not for mere mortals. A “detail strip”
can involve a lot of head/heart ache. The gun has a fair number of parts but the real problem is the gun’s unorthodox design [Expert reassembly tip, use grease to hold in the mag release spring–otherwise you will go mad trying to hold everything together while attempting to drive in the assembly pin]. An armorer at HK told me that they regularly have to reassemble guns for owners who let curiosity get the better of them. Fortunately, there is really no reason to strip it down beyond a “field strip.” Just spray in some gun oil and wipe. -
Possible difficulty depressing cocking lever with weak or injured hands. My father has weakness in his right hand related to a stroke he had a few years ago. For a while he was unable to cock my M8. On the other hand, once the lever is squeezed it only takes about a pound and a half to keep it cocked.
It makes all other guns seem to be plebian. The next step forward in pistols is a phazer.
Took my shooting today. I have the P7 “tattoo” on my right hand at the vertex of the thumb and trigger finger where my gasses escaping out the back when the slide cycles leave a little black mark.
I just don’t shoot mine well. Went back and forth between my P7 and my Sig X5 Tac today and there was a marked difference. I try to use a really high grip on it, but it naturally is a high-holder because the bore is so low. It feels good in my hand, shoots nice and soft, but I shot a hand size group at 7 yards with it.
The range owners where intrugued by it, and rather confused by the mechanism. He did do a guy-sound low-rumble “Hoo,hoooo” when he saw that the grip safety would drop the slide after a reload. That is cool. If only it dropped an empty mag at slide lock when you’d repress the squeeze cock.
If you see one in the gun store and it seems weird, that’s natural. There is something about dry firing it and handling it that just goes away when you are going to shoot. It becomes totally transparent.
They do get HOT! I only have one mag right now, and I put about 50 rounds thru it in about 10 minutes and it was starting to get uncomfortable, not searing, but I didn’t want to put another 20 rounds thru it.
Greg, Wow. Just really wow.
Wish I had done that good of a pro/con list before I married my first wife. I’m still with her.
Be prepared to spend some money on some good leather. The P7 series is very butt heavy, especially the M8 and M13’s. You really need a good design to pull the butt back into you.
Kramer, DelFatti and Mitch Rosen are the names I hear the most, and I’m partial to Kramer’s horsehide stuff.
Love my P7M8…others have done an excellent job covering the pluses and minuses…for me, I shoot the P7 better than any other pistol…granted, I’ve moved on to a Glock 19 for many uses…it’s an advance in terms of weight, capacity, etc.
Most surprising thing for most people about P7s is the weight…when you see it sitting on a table, it looks like a .380 or something, but its actually a 4 inch barreled solid steel 9mm and it weighs in accordingly…ain’t no plastic to be found except the grip panels and the heat shield in the trigger guard.
As has been mentioned above, mag changes with the P7M8 are FAST…must be seen to be believed…empty mag FLIES out when you hit the release, and the cocking lever releases the slide so its not an extra step, since you sqeeze the cocking lever when preparing to fire anyway. It’s all one very fluid motion.
They do get hot like crazy…I actually gave myself a pretty wicked burn on one occasion when I put 100 rounds down range without letting it cool off…I was concentrating on my shooting and didn’t notice that my finger was frying like a bacon strip til it was too late.
In terms of holsters, I’ve actually had good luck with several of Comp-Tac’s offerings for the P7.
Jim is right, the Comp-Tac C-tac is perfect for the P7.
Greg Bell nailed it. I carried a P7M8 for a couple of years for a duty gun and had the disassembly problem twice during training. I also saw it happen to another P7M8 shooter during an IPSC match in Anchorage several years ago. My hands are fairly small but I had he slide come off twice during malfunction drills. The good news is that I never had to perform a malfunction clearance for real as the gun never failed.
The only other problem I had was with the ambi mag release. Mine had a tendency to rub on the seat belt in my Ford Expedition take home and released a few times. I always checked to make sure the mag was still seated before I got out of the vehicle. Some of the folks on the Cult of the P7 site clipped the off side of the ambi safety to prevent the seat belt release.
I finally stopped carrying mine as they are now worth almost as much as gold and H&K is less than anxious to work on them if it breaks. I carried mine in a Kramer horsehide vertical scabbard for plainclothes and a Safari 6285 for uniform.
While we are all here, anybody got a bead in spare P7 PSP mags?
Not to be contrarian (who, me?) but just sort of thinking out loud …
It’s definitely safe until your hands are on it. While I don’t know I’d say it’s actually faster than other guns, it certainly has fewer steps and a more forgiving trigger than most.
- Trigger pull. Thanks to the squeeze cocking system the gun is safely equipped with an excellent single action trigger pull. I’ve had die-hard partisans of every type of gun praise my P7’s trigger.
I must just have bad luck. Every P7 I’ve ever shot (probably a dozen or so) has had a mediocre trigger with a longer-than-necessary reset.
- Compact.
One of the gun’s greatest qualities and one sadly ignored by most top-tier manufacturers today. The P7 literally disappears with the right holster. I know more than one person who CCWs with a P7 in a pocket holster.
Full-size barrel. Despite this gun’s compact size it has a full 4-inch barrel.
Fixed-barrel. This gun lacks the tilting barrel assembly of most other full-sized guns. This lends the gun exceptional accuracy. In combination with the aforementioned trigger, this barrel makes the P7 ultra-accurate.
Again, have to agree. The P7 is phenomenally accurate.
- Low recoil. This is debatable. I have always felt that this has the least recoil of any 9mm. Some disagree, most don’t. This is likely result of the guns low bore/axis and gas system (although some say the gas system should have no effect).
This has not been my experience. While the gun is certainly shootable, the relatively heavy recoil spring detracts from maximum speed.
- Tough! This gun is CNC milled from a solid steel forging. The gun is so solid it could be used as a nasty set of brass knuckles in a pinch. Without picking one up it is hard to imagine how solid this little gun feels. When I had mine hard-chromed the smith complained endlessly about how hard the P7 was to machine.
Tough to an extent. However, the gun’s dependable service life is lower than more modern designs. There aren’t many people with 30k through a P7M8.
- Excellent sight radius. Although the gun is short, HK maximized the sight radius by pushing the sights as far apart as practically possible.
Can’t argue with that.
- Oddball manual of arms confuses bad guys and know it all buddies.
Very true and there are certainly documented accounts of officers being saved by a fumbling criminal after a successful gun grab. However, the flipside is that the P7 does not easily integrate into a wider battery of handguns. For a dedicated user it’s great. For someone who bounces from gun to gun, the P7 can be challenging.
- Chamber fluting allows the gun to function even if the extractor is broken. This feature really makes you think when you are trying to determine which gun you want to bet you life on (no offense, but this a much more serious advantage than being able to freeze the gun in a bucket of ice or whatever).
While I agree that the frozen bucket stuff is silly marketing hype, the question to ask here is how often do you see broken extractors on other guns? Sure it happens, and sure the fluted chamber could make a difference, but its practical value is pretty close to zero.
- Easily childproofed. The P7’s striker can be removed without tools (and without any other disassembly of the gun). The striker can be re-inserted into the gun in roughly 1 second. This could be a major consideration to those of us with small children and stupid friends.
I can take the slide off of most guns in just a couple of seconds, too. Again, I would chalk this up in the “but how often does it really happen?” column.
- Ambidextrous. With the exception of the slide catch and take down buttons, every model of the P7 is completely ambidextrous.
While no longer a unique feature (M&P, HK P2000/HK45/P30, etc.) it was absolutely ground breaking in its day.
Ultra-fast magazine release. This has to be experienced to be understood. Rambo types complained about the PSP’s lack of rapid magazine release. HK, Germans that they are, decided to give them what they wanted—a magazine that ejects so fast and powerfully that they could be used as back-up projectiles in an emergency.
Ultra fast slide release. Simply squeeze the handle and the slide will be released.
I’m assuming you mean the forcefulness of the ejection and not the actual speed with which one can actuate the relatively small lever with its unorthodox manual of arms. While I’m sure it can be accomplished easily enough with dedicated training, its speed (better or worse) is going to depend more on skill and hand size than any true mechanical advantage. Dropping the slide on a P7 after a reload, though, is essentially a zero-time and zero-effort action.
- 110 degree grip angle gives the gun natural pointability. 110 degree grip angle makes the gun point just like you finger.
The more time I spend with different shooters using different guns, the less I believe there is a “natural” grip angle for a handgun. I’ve met too many people who swear the Glock points naturally and too many people who swear a SIG points naturally – and they’re much different – to come to any other conclusion. Pointability is much more about habituation than instinct, IMHO.
- Low profile slide. The P7’s low profile slide means that there is very little recoiling mass relative to the frame. This, along with the above mentioned 110-degree grip angle makes reacquiring targets a breeze with the P7.
As I mentioned above, I personally don’t find the P7 especially quick on follow-up shots.
- The gun gets uncomfortably hot after 60 (or so) rapid shots. More of a training problem than a “real world” consideration.
Nonetheless, if you want to train with your gun so you’ll be ready for those “real world considerations” then it’s a problem. A good friend of mine – and absolute P7 fanatic with something like a dozen of them in his safe – had to bring multiple P7M8’s with him when we went to Blackwater years back. Every few drills, he’d swap to a different gun, keeping the others in an ice-packed cooler.
- Finish lacks durability. Blued finish wears quickly and is very little protection against corrosion.
Sadly, a common problem for guns of that vintage. On the plus side, a hard chromed P7 makes grown men weep with joy.
- Very expensive. At over $1000, this gun is out of the range of many buyers.
Like me, I’m sure you’ve been in crowds of guys with $3k+ 1911s on their belts who will nonetheless say that P7s are too expensive. :rolleyes:
The gun’s design is such that it gets dirty quickly when shot.
The gun malfunctions when not maintained properly. While this is true of all guns, the P7 seems to be more sensitive than most modern autos. The solution is to keep the gas cylinder clean.
I’d be doomed right there. Anything that needs to be cleaned more than once every 2,000 rounds or so will never work for me. 
- The P7’s cocking lever emits a click when released.
As I have never been a ninja, I will not comment because this is out of my lane.
- Low capacity. Except in now unavailable M13 (LEO only) and M10 (discontinued for ugliness), capacity is limited to 9 rounds (with one in chamber).
More bullets always better. But I have to admit I could probably walk around with a P7M8 and feel adequately armed, especially with a couple of spare mags on my belt. Ideal? No. Practical? Yes.
- Grip screws come loose too easily. Use lock-tite.
Problem & solution.
- Can’t use lead bullets (see cleanliness issues above).
Luckily, this will only affect a small percentage of users. I don’t like to be around lead shooters, anyway.
- Slide lock button too small for some.
I don’t know if it’s just a matter of getting used to it, but I’ve had a devil of a time with it on occasion and then a few days later I pick one up and it’s nearly instinctive.
- Magazine release on M8/M13 too sensitive to careless holstering (accidental magazine ejection). PSP model doesn’t suffer from this (Euro-magazine catch).
I’ve never seen that, good to know.
- During an emergency a user might accidentally squeeze the trigger while squeezing the cocking lever. I personally think this isn’t a problem.
This was the subject that made me want to write a reply. This is an issue and many instructors have seen it. My recollection is that at one point, John Farnam stopped letting new students bring P7s to class because it had happened so often. Sympathetic grip is a reality. The “always keep your finger off the trigger” mantra only goes so far because, whether we want to accept it or not, we all know that some people under some conditions will screw it up. One may choose to write them all off as ignorant buggers but the reality is that it happens nonetheless.
- For some, seriously ham-fisted users, the gun might be accidentally disassembled if the take down button is inadvertently pressed while the slide is being racked. This is extremely unlikely, however, it can be done with practice.
I did this the very first time I tried to load a P7 … didn’t even know where the take down button was at the time.
- Disassembly not for mere mortals. A “detail strip”
… should be performed only by trained master watchmakers.
There, fixed that for you. I do agree that for a normal user, it’s a non-issue.
- Possible difficulty depressing cocking lever with weak or injured hands. My father has weakness in his right hand related to a stroke he had a few years ago. For a while he was unable to cock my M8. On the other hand, once the lever is squeezed it only takes about a pound and a half to keep it cocked.
It would be interesting to see how well one could shoot with such a reduced grip on the gun that it wouldn’t be sufficient to cock it in the first place.
P7 PSP…one left
I actually used to sell quite a few M8’s and M13’s back in the day, and guys shot and carried them.
I actually have seen one loose it’s extractor and keep on running without a problem.
Ejection pattern became erratic, but who cares…damn thing kept running.
Does it happen often? No. Is it nice that the system keeps running even if you loose the extractor? Yes.
I agree with some of the things that are said I do wish it had a high cap mag. I still find it to be the easiest gun to carry for ccw’s I have a glock 19 I still find my self take the P7 out and the glock stays home. Now don’t get me wrong the 19 is a great gun also, I have no complaints with it. If you have a P7 let’s see them. Also when I go to knob creek for the MGS you would be surprised how many people will stop and ask to look at it and then wants to buy it. I was told I have a rare P7 (it’s not the one in the pic) it was a factory hard chromed P7. Now don’t know how true this but if anyone knows if this is fact let me know.
Thanks for the info. Money is of no concern. 
C4
I carried a P7 PSP in the 80s and have had six of them. I like them. It is a great pistol to carry concealed and easy to shoot well. I accepted it’s quirks and was happy to carry it. I carried a Browning HP before that, so the P7 was more concealable, but not as much as you would think - the HP carries and shoots well. (Carry a Glock, now.)
Having said that, I wouldn’t want to “sell” someone on this gun based on the #11 point above. I’ve removed and reinstalled the striker assembly plenty of times on the PSP models (never had an M8) and it’s easy to misalign. You have to visually look at the orientation of the cut on the assembly to line it up and yes, sometimes it can be done in 1 second, sometimes, it takes 2 or 3 tries to get it lined up properly where it doesn’t cant to the right. And hope that the striker hasn’t rotated in the assembly in the process, whereby you have to pull it back and rotate it back into the notch before it will go in.
(Like I said, these were all PSPs - maybe it’s different on the M8.)
I wouldn’t rely on that at all for child-proofing the gun if I might need it in a hurry.
If I wanted to keep a gun “child-proofed” and still accessible in a hurry, I can insert a magazine and rack the slide much faster and more reliably on any pistol. Plus - it can be done in the dark. Try inserting the striker assembly on a P7 quickly. And firing. And repeat the process 10 times. And try it in the dark.
Again, I love the P7, but I think relying on disabling it by removing the striker assembly can prove very disappointing if you need it in a hurry.
Great thread.
I have a P7 (PSP-type). Don’t shoot it much, but I do like it.