Honest Owner Review: Springfield Hellcat

hello everybody this is hammer striker here today we've got a Hellcat and no it's not an evil feline or a hopped-up muscle car it's the latest from the Springfield Armory and their concealed carry yo lined and it's a single stack and a half super small concealed carry gun that holds either 11 or 13 rounds depending on which magazine you put it in and it's actually got a couple other really cool features so what you can see there is the sight which I'll show you in a second so let's just this thing up start with of course its unloaded and you can see that polished feed rib that's one of the features that all of the XD and XDM series have that's carried forward to this gun one thing you'll see you'll notice from the XD and XDM series that did you carry forward is the grip safety now this still is a drop SAF weapon it has the split trigger like Glocks and many of the others to prevent initial pulse and it has a striker block so it shall show you when I get it apart so it is dropped safe but this was a polarizing thing a lot of people hated it a lot of people love that most people didn't care and that grip safety is not present on this gun which also means you can put sleeves on it if you need to make the grip a little thicker which hammer might do just to fit in your hand if you've got larger hands few of the features that it's got is primarily its size it's six inches long it's between four and four and a half inches tall depending on which magazine if you have the flushes of the flush base plates it's four inches tall if you have the extended magazine it's four and a half so you do have a very small gun with quite a bit of capacity it's got a shorter trip than a lot of them with six or seven rounds of capacity we kind of showed that in the quick first look we did earlier in the week and it's an inch thick so it's a little thicker than some of the single stacks now by a whole lot couple tenths of an inch but with that minor thickness you get a significant upgrade in capacity also look at the sights it has you down you know a lot of times you'll hear the clock once called you dot and they're kind of more of a square dot this is actually you the back is just white it's a bright white paint the front is a tritium fiber-optic sight that also has a rim around it yeah we actually got it right there you can see a nice ring around it so when you're using these sites at the range it's really clear and easy to see there's enough of a gap that you can find your target but not so much of a gap that you're sloppy it's really easy to pull nice groups with this you do have to get a good grip on it but if this texture that they've got really does fit they call it an adaptive texture and it's to Heights of little pyramids the tallest pyramids are chopped off and the light the lower pyramids still have their point on them so that when you get into it it kind of your skin gets into it and grabs it but it doesn't feel abrasive or sandpapery I'm going to try to put a picture up on screen because it'll be impossible to focus on this so you can see even with the picture even zoomed in you can't really see the little pyramids but that's what's how they describe it looks like sandpaper doesn't really feel like sandpaper but it does fit in your hand and hold nice and it's all the way around the grip even where you can put your thumb there is no texture on the front here for to put your finger for some odd reason they've got some texture on the front of the guide rod but I wouldn't recommend putting your finger there when you're shooting it and there's even a little bit here to Center your finger for keeping your finger away from the trigger whether you're left or right-handed and to that note the magazine release is reversible the slide stop slide release is only on the left side for right-handed shooters but overall the gun is really easy to use one thing you will notice about the guide rod is it sticks out a little bit that's not a defect or a bad design it's kind of designed to be a little bit of a standoff so if you're in an up and close and personal situation and don't push the gun out of battery let this first before hitting the slide and pushing the slide out of battery ensuring that the gonna still operate there's a couple different you know I've seen that in a couple different guns from different manufacturers in different ways some will put a flange here but this that's actually a pretty good little design for that the height of it in the weight of it and the size of it make it perfect for pocket carry inside the waistband deep concealed and only weighs seventeen point nine ounces that did make it a little bit on the snappy side but not ridiculous it was still comfortable to shoot and plus shoot but it will want to flip a little bit more than a larger gun mainly because of the weight the trigger on this is a little bit unique it does have the split trigger like Glocks and many others but you notice when the thing is down the trigger is basically flat at the face it has a little bit of curvature around the edges and it's a little bit rounded but it's pretty much a flat face trigger which seems to be kind of being popular these days maintain maintenance of it is easy we'll get to that a little bit later in the video show you how to take it apart it also comes in an optics ready version in the optics ready version there's a plate here that you can take off and put a red dot on it didn't get that version of it because it seems to kind of defeat the purpose of what this gun is for you know that ultra deep conceal once you buy the time to put a red dot on it starting to now limit your options where you can put it but if that's what you want then that's available to you if you take the flush mag mag which by the way does come with a pinky extender from the factory but you just use a pick right there and push that out of the way and you slide it off it comes with the replacement baseplate it's nice and flush when you grab at your really a two finger grip so whether you like to put your PIN key I'll put it up under the mag whatever you go your two finger grip and then if you put the extender back again it integrates nice and smooth like all the XDM do in the Springfield's do now you're a full three finger grip and this mags giving you another 2 rounds capacity you could even really carry it with that mag in it so we're all they've really kind of thought through all of the features that you might need to have there's a number of holsters available on the market write it right for the factory you can right now as you buy the gun there is available holsters there is this Indian here it fits nicely into now the end leaning gear does have adjustable tension and it comes with these extra little cushions that you can use to adjust the tension but this is meant to have some tension at with your belt so you would adjust it to start with if you a little bit loose just sitting here but by the time you put any tension on it from your belt it's gonna stay put the other holster that's available readily is this crossbreed this is a much lower profile holster has much tighter retention right from the get-go and it has this little screw here so you can adjust the tension on the where you on the trigger guard and that's what keeps it in place and you can get a number of different little add-on clips and all sorts of accessories unlike a lot of guns that come out you want to carry them from day one but you can't because you can't get holsters for them they are doing what a lot of manufacturers are doing now and working with the holster manufacturers in advance to make sure there's holsters on the market this gun when hammer picked it up he ordered those holsters and they came within a few days so you can really get started fairly quickly with it a couple other quick features before we actually take it apart as a single slot Picatinny rail don't worry about the fact that it's a simple slot them at the aftermarket has really dealt with that well because Glocks been a single slot for a long time so they're used to having the adjustment for it and it has a nice undercut in the trigger guard to get your fingers and your hand really high up there nice beaver tail you're not going to get slide bit by this even though it's small so I ergonomically it's really easy to live with price is pretty reasonable too MSRP is $5.99 but even now when they're scarce you're still going around five-30 and the optics ready one's only about $30 more and that's unusual they're usually quite quite a bit more for the optics ready version now might have that backwards it might be $5.99 for the optics ready in 569 for the one that's here but they're now kind of settling right around 499 500 and online as they're starting to become available so it's not an expensive gun for everything that you get it's a mellow night coating so it's going to be durable the barrel the slide and everything else and it is stainless steel so overall you've got a good quality finish so let's take it apart which is actually quite easy to do you lock it back now only thing it's a little bit difficult is you have to flip this lever up and it can be a little bit of a tight lever to put shop it may loosen up a little bit over time release it and you do have to pull the trigger and that separates you'll have a nickel boron coating on all the sear surfaces and components associated with the fire control group that makes it really smooth that gives it a nice smooth trigger stripper ramp is very highly polished as a double guide rod similar to the Glocks and then the barrel now the memo night coding and Glocks are doing the same thing right after the first box of ammo you kind of get this scuffing it's smooth when your any finger across it you don't feel it and it won't go any further than that and the new gentrified Glocks are doing the same thing I don't see any problem with that with this being stainless steel even the in of course the mellow night actually penetrates in so overall I don't see this as a rust or corrosion issue highly polished feed ramp it is conventional rifling get some light in there you can see the conventional rifling and typical Springfield everything is well machined and well done and if you were to look at the barrel from the side you might kind of a mistake her for a Glock barrel because of your very similar in design characteristics and then if I go to the slide without the barrel there's a few relief cuts and things like that here's your striker block for the safety overall just one machining no no extras nothing mess in no burrs I didn't have to do anything to this gun from day one drop the ball back in this drop the recoil spring back in lock it back in place and it does do a pretty good job of self centering and then let's look at the frame again nickel boron coating on the fire control group nice robust rear rails front rails are integrated with a locking block so that can be replaced if it gets damaged turn a little bit get some light on it you'll see a little bit of initial wear from being run but that that's pretty normal it'll start out that way and then a nice polished the initial feed wrap at the bottom overall well designed now that I've got the slider II assembled got the frame of my hand put it back together as the zeusie is taking it apart slide it on lock it back click the little down you're back in business so like any of the XDM x d and XDM series along with the XDS it's quite easy to live with quite easy to maintain you have to show you one thing while I had it apart so I'm going to take it apart again real quick the striker has got a slightly different design to it and when we first looked at the brass it almost looked like the striker was dragging but it's actually not so I'm gonna push the safety down and push the striker forward see if I can get it turned right might be if I turn it through here there that's it right here you see the striker is not a pin it's not a little you'll thin pin sticking out it's more kind of like a little shovel with a bit of a can't on both sides it's fairly thick what that does is it makes a bit of a kind of a rectangular detent in the primer depending on how soft the primer is gonna be a little deeper so it looks like a drag but it's actually not but one of this this should actually eliminate the risk of the pin breaking one of these smaller guns have a just a kind of a thin pin sticking out and you know there's been different problems on different other manufacturers with them breaking this one actually should be pretty solid overall they've kind of sawed through some of the things that have plagued some of these smaller guns that have come out and tried to engineer a solution to them shin what they've done before they get going one other thing I'll show you is if you put the XDM and the other magazine side-by-side it's almost hard to tell it almost looks like they're the same size they're actually not magazine is a bit thinner the XDM magazine won't go in and it'll go and just as far as the bevel so that's part of what makes it smaller but it's almost an imperceptible difference yet they're still able to get that one inch thickness the packaging that this comes in is a little bit unique for these you're kind of used to the XD series the XDS series all come in our suitcase they actually come in a cardboard box and inside the cardboard box there is a really well done little pouch put the gun in and it came with the flat base plate in this little section of course we swapped it out I put the pinky extender back pinkie extender makes it a three finger grip on the short mag makes it back towards that four and a half inches tall does not add any capacity so you do it either way you want but this is really a well set up a little design for this the manuals actually kind of brings along an interesting concept down here in the corner of the manual it mentions that it's the same manual for all healthcare models regardless of caliber well right now it's only nine millimeter this would imply that other calibers may be coming along possibly forty and on their website they call it the Hellcat series which again would imply that they're really going to expand this line if it's popular and it's very possible that they're you know may do some of the things like sega's done with the XL and the SAS and all the different variations of it so I think since this probably will be popular I think you can look forward to some enhancement by the manufacturer for the overall line and if this isn't the one you want that very well may come up with something that is the one you want best thing is let me show you the trigger it has a trigger somewhere between the XDS and the XDM kind of similar to a Glock a little bit of take up and not significant nice crisp sharp break which if you're used to a software break this is more of a crisp red the reset is a long issue reset not quite all the way out but getting close and then if I do it again without letting it out got an audible tactile reset and then a little bit of take-up to give us around the wall and then a break it's actually a very nice trigger and especially for this size got a lot of times these guns in this size tab category end up having heavier triggers and longer triggers the whole you know they want to get it more like a da yo this has actually got a pretty decent trigger and when you things are for roughly the same size footprint as the p3 65 you get one more matte round in each of the two magazines and it does a Jekyll mag well so if you're in that I need to change mags during an event you're gonna be able to get the mag out having to worry about it hanging up or dragon so hey I think they've kind of hit this out of the park I think this gun is going to be quite popular for what it's intended to be you know deep conceal could be used to some defense I mean at this point you got 13 rounds capacity so it's even viable as a home defense gotten this could be one of those holster tonight stand two holsters so in one other thing if you haven't seen our first look video go take a look at it it's more than a first look we take about nine different guns the only one we didn't have to be 365 we take about nine different guns and we just kind of do side by side size comparisons fairly quick we don't go in a lot of details but you can get a good idea between Glock 26 the XDS and all the popular guns that would be competing with this what the sizes are beyond that if you're like our videos please give us a thumbs up share subscribe click that bell up there if you do to get notified check us out on gun stream or patreon on Facebook and have a great day thank you you

Channel: Hammer Striker

Views: 388,913

Rating: 4.9099588 out of 5

Keywords: Hellcat, OSP, 9mm, Springfield, Armory, XDs, XDm, review, SIG, P365, Sauer, range

Id: Q1MQzDuDbJo

Length: 17min 52sec (1072 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 18 2019