Hudson H9: Striker Fired 1911

For at 0900 today, the latest profanation of the 1911 As JMB Wrought It hits the market, or at least, SHOT Show. The Hudson H9 has been teased a bit on the company website and at Recoil magazine that we can make some statements about what it is and what it isn’t.

It is, basically, a 1911 form factor frame, widened to accept a double-column, single-feed magazine, that may hold 20 rounds; the frame houses a trigger that moves straight back — As JMB Wrought It. Some of the pictures show a Glock-like trigger safety, albeit hinged at the bottom of the trigger…

….but the patent drawings show a very conventional 1911 style trigger and trigger bow. Likewise, the patents show an ambidextrous manual safety, ambi slide release, and a coventional 1911 grip safety. The prototypes show a manual safety on the left side only but an ambi slide release.

The weapon is easily taken down by a takedown catch that moves 90º. Prototypes are made of billet steel (slide) and CNC milled billet aluminum (frame). Production slides are machined from drop-forged blanks. Teaser images shown by Hudson show a 3D printed development dummy gun…

The pistol does indeed look like a kitbash of a Glock and a 1911. The slide looks like it escaped from one of Gaston’s sweatshops… apart from the “long face”:

And indeed, its most unconventional feature visually is its long face or deep chin, containing a patented recoil mechanism. The patent application for this feature is dense lawyerese, prolix and vague, and runs to 42 pages (an additional design patent is just a couple of pages), so it’s rather difficult to discern just what exactly they’re claiming (lawyers love this… it guarantees their guild lots of chances to run the meter).

The objective of the new recoil system, in which a groove in the barrel acts as a pivot point around a steel crossbar that is also the take-down latch, is apparently to reduce muzzle flip and allow the barrel to be seated lower in the firing hand than is possible with a conventional 1911 where the recoil mechanism is over the trigger rather than in front of it as in the H9. With that, and the weight of a fullsize pistol loaded with lots of rounds, the H9 could be just the ticket for speed shooters, guaranteeing fast follow up shots.

Hudson claims that test-firing validated this:

The first round left the chamber and with it all concern vanished. Thanks to the extremely low bore axis, the felt recoil and muzzle rise were virtually imperceptible. All the pieces had finally fallen into place.

That is a predictable result from a lowered bore axis, and it gibes with what users of other lowered-bore pistols like the Steyr and the Caracal (which is to be reintroduced at SHOT) have experienced.

In any event, the low bore axis of the H9 appears to be a reality.

We hope to update this post (and we hope we don’t have to correct it) once the reveal is made.

For more information:

• Hudson H9 Teaser Website
• Hudson main site (Live 0900 9 Jan 17)
• Hudson twitter
• Hudson Facebook
• Recoil Mag teaser on the H9 (lots of photos)
• US Design Patent USD 742,985 S [.pdf] or abstract.
• US Patent Application US 2016,0047,613 [.pdf] or abstract.

Finally, Hudson’s Director of Training is well-known Ohio instructor Chris Cerino, a former cop and Air Marshal and a top competitor. Chris is facing a pretty tough challenge right now – cancer. And chemo’s kicking his ass. If you’re a former student, worked with him here or there, or want to drop him a word of support or encouragement, his family set up a Facebook page. Don’t expect an answer, because 100% of his energy has to go into beating the big C so that he can get back to a new normal. If you’re a praying man or woman, you know what to do.

Update

After the reveal, there’s more information on the Hudson Manufacturing website. We did have one error above, the basic mag holds 15 rounds (we thought the 20 rounds in the ammo box in one of the photos was A Clue®. Nope, it was A Prop®). Also, the manual safety is optional, and there’s no mention of a grip safety, even though the prototype and patent illustrations showed one.  Some excellent “upgrades” are standard on this gun including a Trijicon night front sight, G10 VZ grips and Hogue lower backstrap. Alas, no threaded barrel?

The list price is $1,147 and the H9 will be sold only through channels (jobbers, distributors). Here’s a quick table of specs (metric are our calculations from Hudson’s figures, rounded).