Daniel Defense H9 | First Impressions - We've Got a Problem Here...(Non-Sponsored, Real User Review)

The Daniel Defense H9 was one of the most exciting announcements to come out of Shot Show 2024. After purchasing the rights to the original Hudson H9 design in 2020 and spending 4 years developing and re-engineering it from the ground up, Daniel Defense has finally released their very first 9mm pistol -- but was it worth the wait?

In this video I go over my first impressions of the Daniel H9 after completing the 200 round break-in period. I'll have full range footage soon (and hopefully an optic plate for my red dot), but wanted to provide my viewers with the story so far... before I send it in for warranty repair.

Under live fire, I've had no issues with failures to feed, or failures to eject, failures to lock the slide back - really no failures at all. However, when loading a fresh magazine from slide lock and using the slide release lever to load the round into the chamber, about 80% of the time, the slide will fail to go into battery. Sometimes the round is sticking up into the chamber, other times the slide is only 1 or 2mm out of battery. If I tap the rear of the slide, it chambers, and the rest of the magazine fires without issue. Very strange.

The other issue I've noticed is that it's very difficult to manually unload the Daniel H9 by racking the slide to eject a chambered round. The round gets stuck on the extractor and requires several hard pulls before it ejects the round. Very strange again, and potentially unsafe when it happens with live ammunition.

I've reached out to Daniel Defense and will be sending the gun in for warranty service. They estimated a 2 week turn around. I'll be very interested to see what happens when I get it back, and even more excited to get it out to the range for a full range day.

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