Hey Everyone, so I used to own 2 VP9’s, a VP9L, and a VP40. Which gives me plenty of background to discuss what I like about the VP9A1F out of the box and what feels, like a miss.

There are a lot of positives so let’s start with the misses first. The first big one is the optic plate…. like where is it. I am happy they are optics cut but the fact you have to order a plate before you can mount anything to it. At least Walther gives you 1 free plate. H&K should have just sent out RMR plates with it, and let the oddballs by their plates. EPS and DPP footprint fans are already used to doing this.

The second item to me is the auto-forwarding, typically HK guns have a really nice feature where the slide just goes forward from the magazine being inserted. Other guns you can get to do this with a bit of force, but HK did this with most standard reloads. However, on this model either the auto-forwarding requires the gun to be worn in a bit or it is like all other guns now.

Now the good, and there is a lot of changes that I really like. The first thing is this seems to fit p30 holsters, something that the legacy vp9’s did not because the polymer frame was a bit wider. The trigger has also been updated, it has less travel, a better break and a better reset than the legacy.

To me the biggest win is in some subtle but beneficial ergonomic changes. The first being the remove of the channel or trough below the trigger. If you shot the vp9’s enough chances are you got a little finger rub from the channels that used to be under the trigger which were designed to prevent gloves from snagging. Another ergo change was the grips, there are now 4 backstraps, and subtle changes in the geometry. The heel on the large grip is a bit lower on the back too, which feels great.

The sights have also been improved in my opinion as they moved away from the 3 dot sights, and embraced the blacked out rear which I prefer. The internals are also np3 coated which might help explain the trigger improvement. The serrations are improved, there are more of them and they are more aggressive. there is an index point now on the side of the frame as well for people that enjoy those.

TLDR: A bunch of quality of life improvements and it all leads to a very nice out of the box gun.

Hoping to have the video out on my Youtube shortly.