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Honor Guard HG9SC 1,000 Round Test

Jeremy S. - comments No comments

Early last summer TTAG received a press release regarding the Honor Guard HG9SC‘s approval for officer use as a back-up firearm within a couple police departments. Honor Defense asked if we wanted to do another article on the gun, but Nick had already reviewed it. I suggested a 1,000 round test . . .

Generally speaking, TTAG doesn’t torture test a gun. We don’t perform endless mag dumps or bury guns in a sewage pit. In this case, we simply wanted to run 1,000 rounds through the Honor Guard over the course of a few hours to see if it could fire them all without cleaning or additional lubrication. For much of the consumer market, a baseline of that sort checks off the “sufficiently reliable” box.

Honor Guard agreed with the idea. They sent us a pistol with both a sub-compact and a long slide and 1,000 rounds of Sinterfire 9mm. They were also kind enough to send a couple dozen extra magazines so we wouldn’t be loading two or three non-stop.

Deciding to do the test with the sub-compact slide, as it’s the more popular configuration, Nick and I hit the range. And . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U2F5wUp41g

We did not have good luck. Two feed issues practically right off the bat, but that cleared up and the gun ran fine for a while. However, around a dozen-or-so magazines into testing the trigger began failing to reset. The HG9 would fire, the slide would cycle, the next round would chamber, but the trigger was dead.

After a few magazines where this happened once or twice, I began cycling the slide manually with an empty gun and encountered the issue at approximately a 50 percent rate. No trigger reset.

Nick field stripped the pistol and everything looked fine internally. We couldn’t identify any parts that were broken or loose or gunked up. No foreign material was in the gun other than some flecks of unburned powder and little flecks of brass from the cases. Normal amounts of normal stuff.

In an attempt to figure out if something was wonky in the trigger and fire control parts inside the frame or if it was something in the slide, we swapped to the long slide. The trigger did, indeed, feel slightly better after the swap. The pull weight dropped a little and it was smoother. We couldn’t reproduce the reset problem by manually racking the slide.

With that resolved, we went back to shooting. Unfortunately, it seemed like the additional mass from the long slide didn’t play well with the ammo and/or the recoil spring that was pre-installed in the long slide.

The HG9 was short-stroking. Ejecting weakly in all cases and failing to feed the next round in some cases. It would either go back into battery without picking up the next round at all, or the slide would catch the round at some point beyond its base and cause a jam as seen in the video thumbnail.

We wanted to give the Honor Guard a second chance before publishing our results. TTAG tries to do this when a single sample of a firearm may be a “lemon.” If the replacement unit would have run flawlessly we would have reported on that while also mentioning, of course, the issues that we encountered with the first one. All in a single article covering the experience with both guns.

Fast forward to today, and the replacement unit that Honor Defense sent was the one we tested for drop/impact safety. A test it did not pass. Given that result we had to return the second gun as well. And it no longer made sense to wait on publishing the initial 1,000 round reliability test findings, as we won’t be getting a third sample.

TTAG takes no pleasure in publishing negative results. It’s particularly sad when the outcome impacts a young, private, veteran-run company. But TTAG publishes its results come what may. Full stop.

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Jeremy S.

Jeremy is TTAG's Deputy Editor, working mostly behind the scenes but, when he attempts to write, he focuses on comprehensive gun & gear reviews. Jeremy strives to collect objective data whenever possible, and looks to write accurate reviews that reflect the true user experience. He lives outside of Austin, TX.

0 thoughts on “Honor Guard HG9SC 1,000 Round Test”

  1. Be very cautious about touching a woman if you choose to instruct them. NRA recommends not touching a student unless absolutely clear why/ how it will be done. Make sure others are around to provide eyes on.

    Reply
  2. It’s almost as if we didn’t have enough home-grown scvmbags so we had to import that one.

    There’s not much we can do about native-born lowlifes except to put them in prison or elect them to national office. OTOH, there’s a lot we can do about imported fiends — like keeping them out of our country and forcing them do their killing in England or France.

    Reply
  3. Far too many quality guns out there to waste time on a gun with significant issues.
    I have a few cheap guns but they all go bang when they should, load properly, and don’t go off when dropped.

    Reply
  4. They are utter crap and no, I would *not* be okay if they were not issued ex parte. GVPO, or whatever bs name they call them, are nothing more than an expansion of prior restraint, which is wrong and anti-American. Full stop.

    Reply
  5. I’ve just realised there’s two questions I feel I should ask of all those who feel that simply being trans makes one crazy, dangerous, criminal or otherwise deserving a prohibited person status in regards to guns.

    My first question is, how many cases of trans people going funny in the head and actually killing someone simply for being a conservative (or for a similar reason) can you prove?

    I know, the lady from the article definitely has some issues. Well, many conservatives have issues too, and the amount of keyboard patriots one meets here is proof enough that both sides of this problem have their crazies. But how many trannies have actually gone and started shooting? When some Joe Random or Jane Random kills some people, we’re quick to point out it would be wrong to punish law-abiding gun-owners for the actions of the criminals. So why treat trans gun-owners any different?

    My second question is, do you really think that insulting people who never asked to suffer from not fitting the male-or-female simplification is going to help? Sure, many of them are so “progressive” that talking to them makes one wonder how they’re able to lace their shoes. But some are gun-friendly libertarians or other sensible people who already have to take sh*t from the progressives. Do we really wish to appear as crazy and hateful as the progressives?

    Let us assume that gender dysphoria occurs in 0.005% of men, which is about the lowest estimate you’re likely to find. That’s more than 7000 patients in the US alone. Most estimates are significantly higher, and going with the Massachusetts estimate of 0.5% (not the highest one, but high enough), we’re talking about more than 700000 people. Most people here would scream murder if we were to talk about restricting gun rights of people based on things they have no control over, like their skin color. Well, being trans is something that one didn’t chose and it doesn’t make one inherently dangerous to others. So if you think that being black should never be a reason for anyone being denied their gun rights, and I hope that we can agree on that, the same should hold true for trans people.

    Reply
  6. In case any of you forgot about last month: They’re also not drop-safe. If you drop the gun, there’s a good chance it will fire. The company’s response was that “all guns will do this if mishandled”. Right..

    Reply
  7. No. He!! No! Women(and kids and men) lie sometimes. Like the witchhunt in hollyweird going on. My insane EX lied about me. As mentioned most gals aren’t shot to death either…

    Reply
  8. Optics Planet has a 4×32 Trijicon ACOG, dual illumination, with mount, for $956.99. And those things are battle proven.

    This is what I call a pricing failure on the part of Meopta.

    Reply
  9. At contact distance, the .22 RFM is an awsome round!! Remember: this is NOT designed to be your PRIMARY EDC, other than those circumstances which REQUIRES a deep hide-out! Trauma…well YES. FIRED when IN (near) CONTACT with the sternum will lacerate the heart. Hitting the the “X” between the eyes with a bullet path leading just below the occipital “bump” WILL achieve INSTANT INCAPACITATION. At that distance, your typical J-Frame’s only advantage is that it makes a decent bludgeon!

    Reply
  10. Glock 43, Shield 2.0, Sig 365
    Overall length 6.26 in., 6.1, 5.8
    Height 4.25, 4.6, 4.3
    Width 1.02, 0.95, 1.0
    Unloaded Weight 17.95 oz, 19, 17.8
    Barrel length 3.39, 3.1, 3.1
    Capacity 6+1, 7+1, 10+1

    If the Sig 365 turns out to be a durable, reliable pistol. This will be quite the accomplishment.

    Reply
  11. Not a SIG customer (yet) but let’s say one was left-handed. Will the P365 work as well as my P30SK? Didn’t see any mention of ambi controls.

    Reply
  12. Dang it to hell!!
    Now after buying 2 guns in the last 2 weeks looking for more capacity without a much larger grip then my Officers 1911.
    I bought a 13+1 SAR B6P. And a S&W 4 inch M&P 15+1. Both a tad too big in the grip length department for me.
    Sig has to come out with this one.
    Ive sworn off SIGs in general due to their costs.
    Although other then capacity my P938 is a very dependable carry piece.
    Im going to have to try 1 of these now too.

    Reply
  13. A special lower, with a special BCG?

    Yea, that’ll really take off in the AR product space.

    Why not just shove a .375 pill on a necked-up, blown-out .308 case and call it good?

    Reply
  14. I shot about 50 shells with one a few weeks ago. Various loads. Fun for the range, but I’m not running out to get my own.

    Reply
  15. Here is the simple difference:

    Australia: Firearms ownership is a privilege that must be requested in the form of a license from the state.

    America: Firearms ownership is a right that the state is prohibited from infringing upon.

    And it is this simple truth that will ensure that an “Australia” never happens in America.

    Reply
  16. My choices are a Ruger Blackhawk 6.5″ bbl in .41 mag with Packmayr grips does wonders on just about anything. If the hike is long enough to require a pack then I would add a Henry AR7. Never, I mean NEVER leave the house without at least two blades. That should cover most anything I would encounter anywhere I would be hiking. I do carry “bear loads” in the .41 though.

    Reply

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