Daniel Defense H9 - The Hudson Reborn

[Ronin]

Looks like Daniel Defense has resurrected the Hudson H9 pistol. Apparently not much is the same between the two pistols - the function is similar, but the DD H9 is supposed to be more reliable. Proprietary mags, so meh. Price is supposed to be around $1300, so more than the original H9.

Not sure if I'm interested or not. I wanted an H9 when they were new, but the reports of reliability problems, as well as their financial issues, gave me pause. Even had the chance to get a used one for next to nothing, but I passed. Kind of glad I did.


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[Ronin]

[General Geoff]

Looks like a great carry gun due to its thinness.

15+1 round capacity in an all-metal gun that weighs under 30oz empty? Outstanding!

[bortle]

Am I the only one that's never heard of a Hudson?

[arjohnson]

Looks pretty good, but not 1300.00 good.

[RockIsland]

Am I the only one that's never heard of a Hudson?

[markshere2]

Looks pretty good, but not 1300.00 good.

If I'm shelling out $1300 for a handgun, it's because it's worth $1500 and will appreciate, vs depreciate.

Always keep in mind, they ARE disposable. If you have to use a gun in a real life self defense situation, you WILL lose the gun. You may or may not get it back when John Law is done with his investigation, but it will probably be engraved with some markings and will probably be rusty and dinged up.

My carry stuff is reliable and inexpensive. On purpose.

[Ronin]

If I'm shelling out $1300 for a handgun, it's because it's worth $1500 and will appreciate, vs depreciate.

Always keep in mind, they ARE disposable. If you have to use a gun in a real life self defense situation, you WILL lose the gun. You may or may not get it back when John Law is done with his investigation, but it will probably be engraved with some markings and will probably be rusty and dinged up.

My carry stuff is reliable and inexpensive. On purpose.

No one said you had to buy it for SD or HD. You could buy it for competition or a fun range toy. Or you could be collector who just likes neat stuff and have the disposable income to afford such things.

[arjohnson]

If I'm shelling out $1300 for a handgun, it's because it's worth $1500 and will appreciate, vs depreciate.

Always keep in mind, they ARE disposable. If you have to use a gun in a real life self defense situation, you WILL lose the gun. You may or may not get it back when John Law is done with his investigation, but it will probably be engraved with some markings and will probably be rusty and dinged up.

My carry stuff is reliable and inexpensive. On purpose.

That*s not why I*d buy something for x amount of money, buy it because I want it. This particular gun is just a fancy looking striker fired gun, and it just does nothing a 600.00 gun wouldn*t do and may not even be as good. Time will tell.

[masakarijoe]

Here is info that I posted on other forums:


I used to own the older H9, so I bought one of these.

I have fired 200 (now 350, see below) rounds through it and plan on firing more. There were zero stoppages, however I noticed a significant number of design deficiencies, and here are the areas in need of improvement:

Grip- The spot where the frame and the backstrap meet is not well blended. The backstrap beavertail has sharp edges that don't properly line up with the frame. This results in these edges digging into the shooter's hand. I recommend better machining in this area.

Slide stop/release- This extends far back, and I was having intermittent failures to lock back due to interaction with my support hand palm. I believe that the slide stop/release itself should be shortened, so that it does not extend as far to the rear. As is, it is very susceptible to conflicts with modern firing grips.

Barrel/recoil spring- This firearm is far too picky about how the recoil spring nestles into the barrel. A modern pistol should be difficult or impossible to put together incorrectly, not the other way around. I strongly recommend a redesign of this interface so that the pistol cannot be easily reassembled incorrectly.

Magazine- While cycling, the slide tends to push the next round in the magazine forwards slightly while in the pistol. This means that when ejecting a partial magazine, the top round may cause the magazine to fail to eject, requiring manual stripping for removal.
I recommend a redesign of the interior geometry so that the top round in the magazine cannot cause this failure.

Follower- I know that Daniel Defense has a thing for yellow followers, but they don't contrast enough with brass cases, especially when trying to see how many rounds are remaining in the magazine through the witness holes in the back. This follower should be another color.

Manual ejection- when manually unloading the pistol, rounds are particularly difficult to clear from the chamber. They stick on the extractor and this requires sudden force to overcome. This could be a safety or even tactical hazard.

Trigger- it's mediocre. I can live with it, but would really like a stronger reset.

Sights- The Hudson H9 had a similar issue in which it was calibrated for a so-called "combat hold", and therefore POI was low. On the H9, this was remedied with a shorter replacement front sight, but on the Daniel H9, I found that the POI was so low that it was below the torso at 25 yards, and I am not sure that there is a low enough front sight to fix this. Therefore, a taller rear sight would be the next step. I have ordered replacement sights from Trijicon, but it is hard to tell if this will even fix the issue, as they are both a standard Sig #8 height.
In my opinion, there is no need to reinvent the wheel here; pistol sights have been utilized one way for more than a hundred years and it has worked fine. In fact, in the Daniel H9 manual, it even shows that the POI is at the tip of the front sight blade. Intentionally creating a pistol that shoots low, especially that low, is nonsensical. I recommend that the guns just ship with a taller rear sight, or better yet, taller, optic compatible sights.
Additionally, my pistol was not firing center due to sights that were installed visually off-center from the factory. I confirmed this with a set of calipers after the fact. This is a QC issue that should not be present on such a firearm.
Because of these issues, I was not able to properly measure the accuracy of this pistol, however it did not appear to be particularly accurate. This is concerning, as detailed in the next point below.

Barrel- I have seen reports online of the barrel failing to stabilize ammunition, resulting in a "keyhole" effect in which the bullets tumble. This is a serious defect, and if as widespread as I suspect, requires a new barrel for every pistol. My pistol was so hard to group due to the previously mentioned issues with the sights, that I could not get a good judge of the accuracy, but it did not seem particularly accurate. I will be testing this more during future range sessions to see if this is a problem for me as well. Looking through the barrel though, I can see that the rifling is not as crisp or strong as I would expect, which does not instill a lot of confidence. With this rifling design, even slight over-boring would result in the issues with keyholing and accuracy.

Optic plates- optic plates are outdated and inferior to slides that are directly cut for optics. I have not had the ability to mount an optic to this pistol yet because the plates are not yet available, but it appears to be a flawed design from the start. The slide should be RMR cut from the factory, period. This is a modern combat pistol, and should have a durable system for mounting optics, especially with the aforementioned issues with the iron sights.


This pistol is not quite ready for serious usage, in my opinion. Hopefully they fix these issues with the next generation.

---------

Shot another 150 rounds today. Still no stoppages, except for several failures to lock back when empty. This is due to the size and location of the slide release. It needs to be smaller or located further forwards.

Pistol seems accurate, now that the sights are actually centered. No keyholing. Still shoots very low; shots land in the chest, below the neck, when aiming at the very top of the head at 50 yards (head completely obscured by FSP). I really wish that they didn't do that stupid center hold POA/POI. This is with Trijicon DI sights, so I might have to find a wide but short front sight to replace the DI one. The stock sights shot even lower. This type of sight picture really limits the range of this pistol. This is all exacerbated because of the crappy optics mount system and non-availability of plates.

Rear beavertail sharp points were solved by hand filing. Really silly that I had to do that, but it's comfortable now.

So right now, my main gripes are the slide release and the low POI. Both are fixable issues. The other issues that I listed earlier are all still present as well.

Overall, it's a good gun and, in my opinion, just needs an update to address these issues. It really shouldn't be hard for DD to accomplish that.