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The striker-fired Heckler & Koch VP9 9 x 19 mm semi-automatic pistol is by Heckler & Koch, a premier small arms manufacturer headquartered in Oberndorf in the southwest corner of Germany not far from France and Switzerland. While the gun is made there, it is imported by Heckler & Koch USA which maintains its primary North American sales offices in Columbus, Georgia and Ashburn, Virginia.

Key dimensions start with its 4.09” long barrel. The length is 7.34”, height is 5.41” and width is 1.32”. Weight with an empty magazine is 25.56 ounces, which is 1.6 pounds.

Many companies make pistols that seem to borrow from the same design. But the striker-fired Heckler & Koch VP9 9 x 19 mm semi-automatic pistol is different. Its design is functional, cohesive and purposeful and the gun comes in colors such as black, FDE and Midnight Bronze.

Let’s start with the slide. The slide has diagonal front and rear cocking serrations, but the ones at back are especially recessed while a long bevel channels from the front of the slide through the front serrations to about midway. The company initials HK, the gun’s VP9 and “9 mm x 19” are engraved along the left. Also at the back of the slide are two extrusions HK calls charging supports that make it even easier to grip the slide for charging.

The front and back sights are standard three dot white night sights, and in between them is a sight radius of 6.38”. (As of 2020, front is white dot and the back is black.) That said, the slide is already pre-cut for optical sights and comes with a placeholder rectangular cap plate to permit owners to upgrade to more than five different reflex optical sight adapter plates to mount optical sights from Trijicon, Leupold, C-More, Burriss and more.

At back is a ready to fire indicator.

It’s not surprising that Heckler & Koch has used a polymer frame since it was an early pioneer in this area for firearms. Moving to the polymer frame, the disassembly lever and one slide release are both on the left. They have matching horizontal serrations and similar proportions. On the right is a long lever slide release. The beavertail is docked.

The barrel is cold-hammer forged and has a six-sided polygonal bore instead of grooving, which is a more expensive, but more efficient system of keeping gases behind the bullet on its way out. The barrel has a 1 to 9.8” right-hand twist.

Below the muzzle is a four slot Picatinny MIL-STD-1913 rail molded into the frame for accessories.

The trigger guard has an almost flat forward face with horizontal serrations and a gentle bulge below the trigger. As it moves toward the grip, it has a shallow undercut and, very interestingly, paddle magazine releases on the back of the trigger guard instead of circular or rectangular one aft of it on the pistol grip where they are normally. It’s worth noting that there is also a Heckler & Koch VP9-B (as in button) North American market only model that has the more traditional button magazine releases in place of the paddles.

Inside the trigger guard is a VP trigger with a built in safety. Trigger pull is 4.5 to 5.4 pounds, while trigger travel is only a quarter of an inch.

The grip has three finger recesses, mild texturing and three curved horizontal bands that curved vertical ones to evoke a large spider web. The grip panels and the backstrap are all removable and can be replaced with others, and each gun comes with three different pairs of grip panels and three different backstraps.

The Heckler & Koch VP9 has many configurations based on color, number of magazines, and whether or not it comes with night sights. The standard black VP9 comes with either two 10-round or 17-round HK P30 pistol steel magazines, while the VP9-B with the button mag release has either two 10 or 15-round mags. The VP9 is also available in either FDE or Midnight Bronze with either 10 or 15-round magazines and with or without night sights.

All VP9s are also compatible with 15 and 20-round magazines.

Regardless of capacity, the magazines are not fully flush as their floorplates extend below the pistol grip.

The Heckler & Koch VP9 guns are Made in Germany.

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