This was interesting. It was not the quick and easy “Take it to the range and make sure it works” trip I as expecting.

Loaded up a Pmag with some Federal 55 gr, racked a round in, pointed downrange, pulled the trigger and -bang-. Just so. Pulled the trigger again. -click-. Round ejected but didnt feed next round. Hmm. Racked it and ran it again. Same result. Over and over.

Ok, now I’m annoyed. You spend a grand on a gun you expect it to work, y’know. So, when something doesnt do what you expect it to, you start methodically changing the circumstances. I tried different magazines, different ammo, and different gas settings. (Say what you will about HK stuff….lack of a gas system to futz with is a nice thing.)

Took it home, disassembled, lubed it all up, read the manual (again), and headed back to the range. Annnnndd…I think I figured it out.

It’s short-stroking, but why? Well, its a ‘pistol’ right? But you don’t hold it like a pistol. You hold a pistol with two hands out in front of you with, usually, one arm locked. (yeah, yeah, I know…but work with me here.)

But a ‘pistol’ like this doesn’t lend itself to that sort of thing. You basically hold it at your hip like a submachine gun. And thats where, I think, the issue was. By holding it that way, the guns recoil carried it backwards to such an extent that energy that would go into throwing the bolt all the way back was throwing the gun back as well and the gun was short stroking. Or, in pistol terms, limp-wristing.

Interesting theory, right? How do we test it? Well, we hold it in an isoscoles stance and, sure enough, reliability was suddenly there. I experimented some more, different mags, ammo, etc., and quite clearly the gun functioned much more reliably (not 100% but pretty close) when there wasnt enough ‘give’ in the way I was holding the gun for it to move backward very much.

For those of you who are physics challenged, look at it this way: if you’re in a swivel chair, put your feet on the wall, and shove off, you go sailing down the hallway, right? Because the wall had no give you wound up with all the energy going into moving your fat butt. Now, imagine your coworker is also in a swivel chair and you put your feet against his chair and kick off…same amount of force exerted but you don’t go as far because some of your energy went into pushing the coworkers chair away from you.

So, to cut to the chase, this thing is really meant for a wrist brace but we all know how that turned out.

So, without putting a stock on this thing, what can I do? Well, I can be aware that I need to hold it in such a manner as to give a rock-steady hold that will allow the gun to cycle with all its energy going into the operating system…or…I suppose I could contact the folks at PSA and see if they offer a gas plug with a slightly larger setting.

But, its also entirely possible I simply need to shoot a few hundred dollars rounds through this thing to ‘break it in’. I guess I’ll just have to experiment and find out.

Also, the handguard heats up a it so a VFG would be a nice touch but, due to VFG not being kosher on a pistol, you’d have to go with an angled foregrip.

So, for now, it’s a ‘pause’ on if this gun is a buy or not buy.