Hi-Point C9 2,000-Round Test: 900 Rounds In

Boy, it’s been a while since the last update. Sorry about that. Between the holidays and SHOT, running this gun has been on the back burner. But, we’re back with the latest installment in the Hi-Point C9 2,000-round testing.

We mentioned, after our initial testing of the Hi-Point C9, that maybe it should be cleaned and lubricated to see if that cleared up some of the malfunctions. That was at the 300-round mark, and we have not cleaned or lubricated it since. We put an additional 294 rounds through the C9 in this update with the following caveat as previously mentioned: the 10-round magazines consistently failed to lock back when empty, a phenomenon not seen when using the 8-round magazines.

For this round of testing, we had Browning 147-grain FMJ, SIG Sauer 147-grain FMJ, Federal Premium American Eagle 115-grain FMJ, Aguila 115-grain FMJ and Federal Premium DEEP 135-grain JHP ammunition for testing. As in previous updates, the bulk of shooting was performed with the full-metal-jacket ammo, with only 20 rounds of the Federal DEEP fired. Again, this is an approximation of the “real world” shooting likely to be performed with a Hi-Point C9.

Number of malfunctions experienced in this round? Zero. Every single round fed, fired and ejected cleanly, despite the Hi-Point C9 being dirty from the previous outing. While it’s certainly not conclusive, it does lend credence to the theory that the initial failures were part of a “break-in” period that some firearms experience. With the third round of testing showing no issues, the only thing to do is to keep pushing on. We’ll continue to run the C9 with no additional cleaning or lubrication unless and until it appears to be having problems.

Lastly, to recap, we’re fired 911 rounds through the Hi-Point C9 and experienced four malfunctions: Round No. 58 (Aguila) saw a failure to feed, round No. 202 (SIG) was a double feed, round No. 238 (SIG) was a nose-down and round No. 436 (Syntech) was a stovepipe. It does not appear that any one particular type, weight or style of ammunition is more or less reliable in the C9.