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Croatian PHP's

14K views 47 replies 20 participants last post by  StarBfan 
#1 ·
After seeing the price at SOG I got the bug and orderd a pair. I have to say these are some interesting pistols. They seem to be very well made and finished.They are truly hefty pistols with a solid feel in the hand. BTW, a large feel in the hand also. These two look new and unfired to me. The bores are mirror and no markings on the feed ramp and bolt head, just grease.The stamped holster was with the 5" gun and it is very nice. I really like the front stamp and there is a real neat one on the back too. They for some reason even included a hard case for one, nice little bonus. I almost hate to take them to the range being how nice they look. How about a few pics..........
 

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#2 ·
Some more pic's
 

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#3 ·
Some mag pics. Notice the notch on the ss mag looks made with a file. The PHP factory mags have aluminum followers.
 

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#7 ·
Hate to say it, but my php is probably the worst handgun I own. It's not like a bad copy of a 1911 where the design is good but the manufacture is bad, as my opinion is that the design of the PHP is inherently terrible but the manufacture is ok.

As a curio it's great because it is truly an oddity, but I'd never feel ok about this being a utilitarian weapon. I certainly hope your experience differs.
 
#8 · (Edited)
More pics. The two pistols are different in the design of the way the firing pin is held in. The 4" pistol uses a cylinder retainer to keep the pin in.The 5" uses a leg on the site base as the retainer. Be sure to check the sight retaining screw on your pistols as one of mine was lose. If I has shot it I'm sure it could have easily backed out and caused damage. The 5" gun had its screw held in tight with some kind of lock-tight. I will use lock-tight when reinstalling.The extractors do look like a weak design.
I bought these as curios and how they look unfired to me I think I will keep them that way. I plan on making a wood display box for them. For what they are they are quite interesting. I read somewhere that a 6" target modle was made, I would like one of those to add to these:crossfingers:
 

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#11 ·
The XD uses a release centered at the front of the magazine body, the ambidexterous magazine release retracts the catch when either side is pushed in. A loophole in the now-defunct AWB/Hi-Cap ban was that pre-ban high-capacaity magazines could be modified to fit in the HS2000 (precursor to the XD) so long as they functioned in the original pistol. So people would make the hole in S&W 59 series and even Beretta 92 magazines.

In this case, the Croatians did the reverse and cut a side catch for an older pistol.

I would love to see them become C&R, I acutally asked the Congressional Croatian Caucus to look into this. However, its not particularly large.

Might be time to start targeting indivicual Congressman on this one.
 
#13 ·
First as always check to make sure empty;) remove mag then rack and lock the slide.


Rotate the take down leaver straight down, its in front of the slide hold. Be sure not to remove the take down leaver.


Ease slide forward and depress trigger, now ease slide to the marked line and remove spring.


The slide and barrel assemblies will now slide off frame.


Now lower the barrel and rotate it as shown then remove.


Reassembly is pretty much reverse.
Gurn


Note, the 4" barrel is a bit more difficult to remove as the front site wants to keep you from turning the barrel. It can be done just dont force it. There is a sweet spot to it.


Note 2, to remove firing pin and other parts on slide refer to post 8 pics. and be sure rear site screw has lock tight on it.
 
#16 · (Edited)
I wanted to add to this thread because there appears to be another manufacturing variation in the evolution of the PHP’s production run. I have a PHP MV-9 with a S/N of 14,6XX that is different in the way it can be broken down. To disassemble this late model variation, you lock the slide to the rear, rotate the take-down lever 90 degrees, ride the slide into battery, depress the trigger to allow the hammer to drop------now here it where it differs-----slide the slide forward till the front of the frame is about ¼” away from the hash mark on the slide (it will not slide forward far enough to align the hash/frame like other PHP’s), now simply lift the front of the slide off the frame and slide off----no need to haggle with fishing that stupid spring out of the frame—as it just stays in place. The barrel is removed from the slide in the same manner.
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What allows this new takedown to happen are cut-outs in the barrel block channels on the frame that allow the front of the slide to lift up. There are also cut-outs on the slide channels that allow the slide to be rotated up after the barrel block has disengaged. Also, the barrel block channel on the slide abruptly ends about ¼” away from the locking block cut-out. This feature makes it impossible to reassemble the pistol by sliding the slide onto the front of the frame like other PHP’s.
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Another feature that is different about this PHP is the ejector it mounted on the left side instead of the center. I’m not sure why the ejector was moved to the left side, but doing so caused several milling changes (perhaps the shells were ejection back into the shooters face on center-mounted models). This sample also has a round firing pin. I noticed that the PHP MV-17 that Gurn blanston posted above has the ejector channel cut on the left side, as well as a round firing pin—but there are no pics of the frame or ejector. Perhaps this one is an old MV-17 frame that was used toward the end of production.
Does anyone else have a PHP that can be disassembled like this one? Ejector on the left side??
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Tom
 

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#32 ·
OK I now have two of these variants. However I think you are wrong about it being a "screw" holding the rear sight on. On both of mine that hole above the firing pin contains a spring loaded plunger. You push into then hole with a punch and you can slide out the sight. Both of mine are in the 02xxx serial number range. I'd be interested to know what you serial number is. I don't see it on the PHP Database.

Weasel
 
#19 · (Edited)
Tombstone, my PHP is like yours and in the 140XX SN range. Ejector is on the left, round firing pin, and sight screw. Only diff is that my frame doesn't have the cut out on the left forward portion. It's still a pain to take apart.
Also, mine came in a plastic case with HS molded on the lid. Unfortunately, the case fell from a shelf and cracked off a corner.
Pics came through upside down, sorry.

Do any of the short bbl pistols have recoil spring plugs like the long versions do?
 

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#23 ·
I own a MV9 serial# 0033x is this a first run? Bore is bright and shiney any info on this run would be appreciated slide and mechanism works well trigger pull a little stiff as if it hasn't been fired much same for cocking hammer tight as well have only dry fired a few times to get feel have not live fired yet
 
#24 ·
Check your gun and how it looks it was made, apparently the first production series (or one of the first) were made entirely by milling the chunks of steel (slide and frame and some other parts), since that proved, no surprise, very expensive and demanding,
later for bigger serial production they switched to investment casting of these parts, I don't know exactly when and by numbers.

First series had wooden grips, and that was soon changed to much troubled low quality plastic ones that like to broke a lot, especially when gun is dropped at cold weather.
Unfortunately an example of bad production and design feature, a step back rather than improvement on the gun.

They experimented with 4 different barrel lengths and eventually settled on 103mm length (not sticking out of the slide), calling the model that has it "compact" (funny name cos the gun is full size military hangun, no compact in any nature).Apparently the gun works with no problems with any of the barrel length (if the barrel is switched).

I will post pics from some old article when I could, showing these things what I've said.

Also, this is interesting; http://www.gunauction.com/buy/10541647/pistols-for-sale/imp-php-mv-9-pistol-9mm-luger-parabellum

Gun from this auction with SN of 15xxx (could it be higher than that??)
has a different take-down lever.

Seems like the designer and producer experimented quite a bit with his precious PHP design, trying to improve it to the very end...
 
#25 ·
Gun from this auction with SN of 15xxx (could it be higher than that??)
has a different take-down lever.

Seems like the designer and producer experimented quite a bit with his precious PHP design, trying to improve it to the very end...
Over on this thread, post #94; there is a MV-9 in that same 15.7k serial range with the exact same take-down lever. Unfortunately neither set of pictures show weather or not these have the round/rectangular firing pins. I have a hunch that these have the same odd take down as Tombstone's MV-9 with the 14k serial.

Weasel
 
#30 ·
Picked up a PHP MV9 the other day. It only came with one magazine, which I suspect is a HS2000 magazine with some work done to the mag catch. Tried looking around for another 15 round HS2000 magazine without any luck. Anyone know where to find one?

Also, tried a new XD magazine which fit but it was a 16 round magazine and did not fit flush. Has anyone tried a 15 round XD magazine and does it fit flush?

Curious as well, if anyone has tried if a Beretta Mag will fit and feed without any mods.
 
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