P7Pro – The Legendary P7 Reborn in The USA

The H&K P7, born in West Germany in 1979, is a highly recognizable design with unique features that earned it a large fanbase. With the model discontinued in 2008, the only option to get it has been the used market, with increasing prices and minimal access to spare parts. P7Pro is changing this by setting up production of American-made P7 pistols.

More H&K P7 @ TFB:

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Hopefully, for most TFB readers the P7 doesn’t need any introduction, but for the sake of the ones unfamiliar with this pistol, let’s briefly see a few of its main features. The pistol is chambered in 9×19 mm Luger, although a version in .40 S&W (P7M10) was manufactured as well. For more detailed info, the links listed above will be helpful.

Gas-Delayed Blowback Operation

On the vast majority of the pistols currently on the market, upon firing, the barrel moves backward together with the slide, disengaging from it only when the bullet has left the muzzle and the pressure in the chamber has dropped. The H&K P7 instead has a fixed barrel, and the opening of the breech is delayed as the slide is connected to a piston acting against gas pressure spilled from the barrel, just in front of the chamber.

Squeeze Cocker

Probably the most peculiar and noticeable feature. The pistol is striker-fired and the action can only be cocked by squeezing the three-finger lever in front of the grip. Releasing this lever brings the striker back into a fully rested, safe, position, making a manual safety unnecessary.

Low Bore Axis

A feature now quite popular, but not that heavily promoted at the time of the release of the P7.

You can be the judge. For some these features are highly desirable and fully justify the interest for a 40 years old pistol that has always been expensive. For others, such as TFBTV’s Hop, the pistol is simply highly overrated.

P7Pro – Keeping the Legend Alive

Brett, the engineer founder of P7 Pro, carried a P7 for over a decade and noticed that what prevented many people from carrying it as well didn’t have anything to do with any fault of the platform. Most users were simply not capable of obtaining spare parts or support for the discontinued German pistol.

P7Pro started initially remanufacturing the springs that were more likely to need replacement. The initiative got traction on the forum HKPRO.com, and from the springs, the next step was getting all the small parts made.

Eventually, it became clear that the demand was sufficient to justify manufacturing the whole pistol. This was facilitated by gaining access to factory blueprints and finding an importer FFL who had all the spare P7M8 (single-stack, 8-round magazine) parts that were present on Oberndorf’s production line when they canceled the P7 series. P7Pro, now with Class 7 FFL, was equipped to assemble full P7 units.

These investments allowed the assembly of a few dozen units, starting in the last quarter of 2022 and throughout the first half of 2023. These orders also exhausted the supply of German barrels, but P7Pro had already started the complex process of manufacturing those, to the same standards as the German manufacturer. The attention to detail is such that instead of relying on a local supply, the same steel was purchased from the very same supplier of H&K.

In Brett’s own words:

“I purchased the same steel they used for the P7 from A&D in France, had it imported, then had custom polygonal tooling mandrels made for cold hammer forging, had the blanks cold hammer forged, then stress relieved and finish machined at Rim Country Manufacturing. After machining, they’re heat treated, cryogenically quenched and tempered followed by a low-temperature plasma nitride process for case hardness specifically developed for stainless steels. To get the supply chain in place and everything done correctly took 18 months, but the barrels are fantastic.”

The dwindling of German components meant that P7Pro had to start the process of manufacturing American-made slides. This is again a complex endeavor, as the slides aren’t machined into a single piece, but they are an assembly of three components welded together. The tolerances in this piece are in +/- 0.002”.

These slides are being used in the last batches of P7M8 models still employing some German-made components. After these, the P7Pro production will be entirely born in the USA.

Titanium Frame? RDO Cut? Modern Ergonomics? Sure!

The all-American P7M13 is getting ready to enter into larger production numbers, with limited runs into early 2025 with full production in swing by mid-2025. The frames will be available in 7068 aluminum, steel, and Grade 5 titanium as a limited production item. 

Among the options above, the titanium frames are by far the premium choice. They are marginally more comfortable against heat build-up (a shortcoming of the gas-delayed operation) and they add another level of cool factor to the model. Again, for the manufacturing nerds among us, in Brett’s words:

“The titanium frame is milled on a 5-axis milling machine from a block of solid grade 5 titanium, it is then diffusion hardened to case harden the metal, then either hard anodized or DLC finished for a lifetime of service. Titanium must be diffusion hardened if it’s going to be rubbing up against steel (like a slide) to prevent wear and galling prior to a finish.”

A handgun is not just barrel, frame, and slide, and P7Pro is also investing in progressive stamped die tooling to manufacture both the magazines and the other stamped components. Effectively P7Pro is setting up a full domestic supply chain, with both stamping and machining to meet the quality and quantity specs required for larger-scale production. Quite a feat for a small operation.

P7Pro is planning to have some models readily available in rather stock configurations while allowing customers willing to wait longer to configure their pistols to their liking. The choices are not only on frame material but also covering the trigger guard shape, slide length and features, and barrel length.

To be fully transparent, the P7 is not the greatest 9mm suppressor host for three main reasons:

The chamber is fluted to ensure repeatable extraction as some gas leaks around the casing, in the flutes, preventing the brass from sticking to the chamber walls; this translates into gas escaping backward.The gas piston system leaks out small amounts of gas forward.The original barrel can only accommodate subsonic loads with 124-grain projectiles due to its throat geometry.

P7Pro already worked on an altered chamber geometry that, together with stronger recoil springs, allows the efficient use of 147-grain loads making the threaded barrel option more valuable for the user.

In the future, there will be suppressor-optimized SD models without flutes as well as gas ports and recoil springs dedicated to 147-grain loads.

B&T has in their catalog a dedicated silencer for this platform, however, it may not be particularly common on the market, and P7Pro offers standard threaded barrels in both ½”x28 and 13.5x1mm LH for any common 9mm suppressor. 

A good option of a 9mm silencer easily accessible on the market is the Dead Air Odessa 9, this model, already a favorite of the TFB crew, offers a wide range of modularity. By varying the length of the suppressor, the user can opt for either portability or maximum signature reduction.

Silencer Shop makes getting suppressors easy and you can buy the Dead Air Odessa 9 from the link below.

https://www.silencershop.com/dead-air-odessa-9.html

A point to be taken into consideration here is that the P7, unlike the vast majority of pistols on the market, doesn’t require a Nielsen device (booster) to operate reliably with the added mass of the suppressor hanging off its muzzle. The assembly on the fixed barrel of the P7 calls for a specific Fixed Mount, available in either of the barrel threading options provided by P7Pro.

P7Pro – The Legendary P7 Reborn in The USA – A promotional photo from Dead Air Silencers suggesting exactly what we had in mind (Credit: Dead Air Silencers)

Future Plans

While P7Pro is willing to stay true to the original features of the P7, Brett is targeting continuous improvement on the platform. For example by minimizing the heat build-up in the frame thanks to

a different design of the gas block area. Overall there will be full modernization and engineering improvements, well beyond “simple” restomod/cloning.

P7Pro – The Legendary P7 Reborn in The USA – Quite a complex system of minute components hides beneath the grip panels

In terms of calibers, 9 Luger will be the primary model, however, there are plans for a limited run of .40 S&W and maybe .357 SIG. On the other hand, while highly requested, .45 ACP, with the low pressure of the cartridge mixed with the high projectile mass would be a poor fit for the P7 operating system (H&K did a single prototype in this caliber). 10 mm would actually be a better choice, but the complexity of manufacturing reliable magazines compatible with the grip angle of the pistol makes this development unlikely.

In a different direction, the P7K3 is also planned for release in 2025 as a limited-run item, with .380 ACP being the primary focus.

Conclusions

There are good chances that among you TFB readers there are some who daydreamed about bringing the P7 back to life. Seeing that someone is finally able to accomplish such a dream is truly fascinating.

What do you think of this development? Which discontinued firearm model would you bring back to life? Would you go through the pains of building from zero a full supply chain as P7Pro did?

In terms of calibers, 9mm Luger will be the primary model, however, there are plans for a limited run of .40 S&W and maybe .357 SIG. On the other hand, while highly requested, .45 ACP, with the low pressure of the cartridge mixed with the high projectile mass would be a poor fit for the P7 operating system (H&K did a single prototype in this caliber). 10mm would actually be a better choice, but the complexity of manufacturing reliable magazines compatible with the grip angle of the pistol makes this development unlikely.

In a different direction, the P7K3 is also planned for release in 2025 as a limited-run item, with .380 ACP being the primary focus.