I Tested a Colt 1911, Glock, S&W Revolver & Hi-Point — A Clear Winner!

📖 Get The Old Gun Hand, fifty years at the gunsmith's bench, written down: https://ivansjournal.com Four handguns on one table, about twenty-six hundred dollars of them. A Colt 1911, a Glock 19, a Smith and Wesson 686 revolver and a Hi-Point C9. And the gun that made the most expensive one look bad cost less than a fifth of its price. Most of us carry the same price ladder around in our heads. The Colt is the aristocrat, the Glock is the tool, the revolver is the old reliable uncle, and the Hi-Point is the punchline. By the end of the day, that ladder had a couple of rungs missing. So nobody writes in about it, here is how I judged them. No group sizes from a few range sessions dressed up as lab data. Only what I noticed shooting and handling these guns, plus what is documented: weight, capacity, price, cost to practice, parts support, warranty, and what each gun asks of the person who owns it. One specification decided the whole thing, and it is not the one gun counters argue about. It is capacity against weight. The Glock 19 carries fifteen rounds at about twenty-one ounces. The 686 holds six or seven at nearly forty. But "buy a Glock" is not the simple sentence it was two years ago. In October 2025 Glock confirmed it would stop shipping almost all of its Gen 3, Gen 4 and Gen 5 commercial models, and the new V Series took their place. Some internal parts do not carry over, and that matters to anyone buying right now. What we go through: The Colt Series 70 Government, the best trigger on the table and the fewest rounds of the semi-autos The old line that 1911s jam, and why it is lazy The Hi-Point C9, why it looks like a cinder block, and the lifetime warranty that follows the gun Mixed Hi-Point reviews and what that spread tells you The Smith and Wesson 686, .357 Magnum that also shoots .38 Special The ten-pound double-action trigger people underestimate The standard 686 now marked discontinued on Smith and Wesson's own site The Glock 19 and the rounds-per-ounce math The Glock V Series, what changed inside, and what no longer fits California AB 1127 and what it does and does not cover Clearance pricing that shrinks the gap between the Glock and the Hi-Point Which gun lost worst against its own reputation The clear winner, and who should ignore it Said plainly on safety: verify any gun is unloaded before you inspect or clean it. Use the ammunition the manufacturer says it is designed for. Wear eye and ear protection, lock it up when it is not under your control, and take anything past routine cleaning to a qualified gunsmith instead of a forum thread. Check your own state and local rules rather than trusting a headline. Every hard-earned ownership lesson I have picked up over the years, including paying for reputation before I learned to pay for function, is in my book at ivansjournal.com If you could keep only one of these four, which one stays in your safe? And if you think I got the Colt or the Hi-Point wrong, tell me why in the comments. I would rather hear a real owner's argument than a hundred people agreeing with me. #IvansJournal #Glock19 #Colt1911 #HiPoint #SmithAndWesson686 #GlockVSeries #HandgunComparison #Revolver #9mm #357Magnum #FirstHandgun #GunReview #Handguns #GunOwnership #BudgetPistol