Review: Steyr GB - a high-cap Austrian 9mm

hey guys today I'm gonna talk about the Steyr GB this is one of the most wondrous of the wonder nines of the early era because it holds 18 rounds which was the most rounds in any semi-auto handgun at the time when it came out which was in a way it was in the early 70s what happened with these guns is kind of interesting the history on them in the 1970s there was a stye reporter named Elias incorporated in Illinois and they received blueprints to these guns the manufacturing details and everything before steyr actually got around to add to producing them themselves so this Elias incorporated kind of jumped the gun a bit and details are kind of hazy on this as to whether they got permission or not but they started producing them on their own and they called them the rogue act P 18 unfortunately for steyr rogue AK was just not very skilled at producing these things they didn't have the technical expertise they made the guns completely unreliable the way this gun works on a gas delayed-action and what that means is that there's a little hole at the top of the barrel about right here and as did the ball is escaping gas comes up through that hole and it prevents the slide from going back but like I said rogue AK R Elias incorporated this wasn't good enough in making guns that that this fine mechanism they couldn't get the timing right and everything so half the time that the the guns just plain didn't work in that way it would become a straight blowback gun which is obviously not pleasant to shooting nine-millimeter lots of problems feeding problems they were just pieces of junk basically so eventually in 1980 steyr came in post-op they took over and started making these themselves tires were actually much better made you know they're a solid company with a good reputation they're based in Austria there are three variations that they produce during the 80s during went the time when stai are actually made these this one is a commercial model which you can tell because it's black it's got this crinkle finish on it which is kind of hard to see but it's it's a little bit similar to sort of like a rhino coating that you that people put on their pickup truck beds like a truck liner it's a lot smoother than that though it kind of has an interesting weave pattern to it but um so this is a commercial version there were two commercial versions and then also a military version which was parkerized with sort of a green phosphate finish and the two versions of the commercial ones were there was one with a rounded hammer and then the later ones had this spurred and the spurred ones were apparently the best overall because they were the latest guns they had the best triggers best build quality all of that started only ended up making about 20,000 of these they never sold amazingly apparently they sold pretty well at a pretty decent pace up until the mid 80s but then Shire decided they needed to up the price because they just weren't making enough money on them their number one importer which was guns south whose importer mark is usually found on the top of the gun there it's actually pretty subtle you don't usually see it but they said you know why this nobody's gonna buy him at this increased price you should probably just pull the thing from the market so that's what steyr did in mid 80s they the mid to late eighties they stopped producing these altogether after about 20,000 had been made the army ones are especially rare in the United States I think less than a thousand of them have ever actually made it over the gun itself is huh as you can probably tell it's a double-action single action semi-auto it's all metal this it's kind of hard to tell with this crinkle finish on it but it is actually metal underneath there I used to think it was plastic interestingly the trigger guard is plastic which I believe was done as a money-saving measure because the these were getting pretty expensive to make especially after the the design and R&D and everything that went into them so this is plastic apparently some of the military ones had a metal trigger guard the guns chambered in 9 millimeter and there are several things that are pretty innovative about the gun really I already mentioned the gas delayed-action which by the way is where the gb name comes from it stands for gas flimsy which in german means gas break that alone is pretty interesting also the barrel is fixed which you don't usually see in 9-millimeter pistols and the just the capacity 18 rounds at the time was just a really high capacity hand gun unfortunately it never took off too much like I said because of the price and also because when they were selling these in the early 80s 9 millimeter wasn't a big thing in the United States yet and then they lost a couple government contract contests to beretta Glock six-hour I think did pretty well too so people just weren't gonna be buying these for the premium that they were charging it's not a small gun by any means I pulled out my beretta as usual give you a size comparison it's about the same size and as you know the beretta is not small but um with two little thinner than the Beretta although I have some aftermarket wood on there but you know it's just basically the size of the Beretta which is a which is to say it's a large gun doesn't weigh a whole lot thoughts about 34 ounces same as a Beretta talked about the ergonomics and the features a little bit pretty straightforward for the most part you have mag release there this is a slide release this here is a decocker so when you talk the gun you pull that down and it's d cocked everything else about it is pretty standard the breakdown is a little bit interesting because the barrel is fixed there's this bushing here that you have to unscrew there are actually some really good videos on the breakdown procedure of this gun so I'm not really gonna get into that if you have one of these look on YouTube there's a there's a couple actually out there I'll pop the mag out because the magazine is kind of interesting if you see it's a double stack and it kind of feeds similar to like an AR magazine actually you put one round in you just feed them straight down and they go back and forth like this it's definitely a sturdy magazine it's very robust and well made and these magazines are ridiculously expensive they go for about three or four hundred dollars a piece believe it or not so fortunately I got that my guy I got my basic Lee Newman box that came with two mags but I'd hate to have to try to to find one of these if you ever find one of these being sold without a magazine you're looking at another pretty hefty expense to find one and ergonomically I think the grips actually feel pretty good the grips themselves are plastic I'd love to be able to put some wood on there or something but I guess the black plastic kind of goes with the look it's kind of a bit funky and Spacey so it's all black but anyway the the grips feel pretty good they might be a little bit big for some people I guess I'm a bad judge at that because a lot of time big guns like the Walter P 88 apparently has really big grips but it fits me great I don't know this one though it fits me pretty well I think it has a nice curve to it feels good in the hands show you the sight picture the three dots which are very easy to see the sights work out great and shooting it is pretty pleasurable a lot of people say that it's the softest shooting 9-millimeter they've ever fired and I really find that to be the case it does it's pretty soft shooting but um you know this the gas delay in here the gas break is supposed to soften the recoil and you know it probably feels softer than then some guns especially ones with the high bore axis like you know an H&K or Sig or something but it's not like a little peashooter at shooting a 22 or anything like that trigger is pretty good for a service pistol doing single action first it's heavy I'm not gonna lie about that a little bit take up just the smidgen of creep and then it goes but it feels pretty good especially compared to a lot of guns like the beretta for example is trigger I don't really like it all double action is heavy no doubt about that but it's smooth and like I said this is a later version one of the last ones made but that has the UM the spur trigger or the spur hammer and that right there in the case that is going to have a better trigger than some of the other ones with the the rounded hammer so if I were looking for one of these I'd probably keep an eye out for this sort of profile on the hammer because it means you gonna get later gun which was better made and has a little bit better trigger so trigger is good shooting is fun it's pretty accurate it's not my most accurate handgun at least not in my hands I honestly don't shoot it a whole lot though so maybe that's part of it but it does have a really high potential for accuracy with that fixed barrel long sight radius a lot of people say that they shoot it extremely accurately and I believe it I just don't really shoot it enough to say for sure but and I'm definitely not inaccurate with it so I do enjoy shooting when I bring it out we're gonna level any criticisms about this gun one would probably just the the gas delay system it gets pretty dirty on the barrel you can see I haven't cleaned it too well but what happens is there's this little hole they've gotta take the other part you can see it there's a hole right there so a lot of this carbon gunk gets sprayed out and it coats the barrel so after shooting it for a while you end up with a completely blackened barrel and you need to clean it off for to ensure reliable function because if that gas thing gets clogged which is what happened a lot in those old rogue act guns from the 70s that gets clogged then the the whole gas brake system doesn't work and then you got a straight blowback on which is not fun to shoot another criticism going to be the expense of these magazines like I said 300 bucks maybe 250 if you get lucky not easy to find when you do they're ridiculously expensive so are any other parts really and that's the other Kristin's when this gun is it any kind of parts accessories stuff like that are going to be pretty expensive there was a compensator also offered for the gun which would screw on to the end of the barrel or would somehow attached to the end those alone go for four or five six hundred or something like that so if you ever see one of those you're looking at some money right there in really those are my main criticisms otherwise the gun is uh it's really well made I would put it probably about the same level as maybe the Walther p88 in terms of build quality it's not you know upper echelon like a sig p210 or something but it's got a nice high high polish glossy slide it's matte on top but the side is polished nicely overall build quality and feel in the hand is great it's very solidly made triggers pretty good you know I like the gun a lot they go for about prices on these started around seven hundred dollars and going up probably to the thousand eleven hundred dollars or so if you're looking for one brand new in box a little bit all over the place though because there's not really a lot of collector interested in them necessarily but they are kind of rare they're well made accurate great shooters you know so people do want them but you don't see really sky high prices all the time so usually you're looking at about 700 to $1,000 I'd say find one of these in good shape and yeah it's the Steyr GB it's a really nice gun don't see a lot of them out there and I didn't see any review videos on YouTube there are a couple takedown videos and thought I'd put my two cents out there about them mine's been totally reliable some people I think might have problems just because of that little gas hole getting clogged but they keep it clean mine's been completely reliable with any ammo I've shot through it like I said it's a good shooter one guy talked to he said that his um this magazine lip here it kind of when it recoils it bothers his pinky finger and I could see that happening I don't really have it happen with me but that is something to maybe watch out for but otherwise you know I'd recommend it if you're looking for something a little bit goofy you have the money to spend on something a little bit out there and you want something accurate unique kind of funky looking which is probably part of the other reason that these didn't do so great is just because it a little bit strange but yeah so that's the Steyr GB trigger it one more time and that's probably about five pounds something like that not too bad see thanks for watching

Channel: LifeSizePotato

Views: 104,087

Rating: 4.8400002 out of 5

Keywords: steyr, gb, 9mm, gun, review, pistol, beretta 92, sig p226, military, weird, strange, rare, exotic, austria, austrian, walther p88, handgun, service, duty, firearm, steyr gb

Id: KGFaiRBNvcU

Length: 11min 33sec (693 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 20 2013