Hey Guys (you get the pleasure of my first post),
As a guy not blinded by a HK (all guns are sexy to me), I'll give you my impressions as I rented one three days ago and put a few boxes through it.
Cheers:
1) It's lighter than it looks.
2) Recoil is nice, rapid fire recovery from shot to shot is GREAT. After checking the sights out to see where point of impact was (dead on), I put 2 mags through it as fast as I could settle the front sights down at 50 ft. The rounds almost all fit into about a 9" circle with more lateral dispersion than horizontal (means the gun is capable of better with practice). Anyway, it would do a hell of a job ventilating a Terrorist Torso at short range, which is what it was designed to do I'd imagine.
3) Very unintimidating to shoot for low-time Commando's. Muzzle blast is mild and it's much quieter than a handgun. The 'kick' is a more like a push than a punch. Not a lot of vertical rise either.
Jeers:
1) For as compact as it is, it doesn't feel small in the hands. Not as light as it could be either-You could be firing a rifle caliber carbine for this amount of weight
2) The grip is made for people with bigger meats than my average sized hands.
3) The mule I rented had it's plastic front sight cover broke on top, I'd rather it were steel.
4) Safety felt akward.
5) 10 rds. sucks.. Why do I have to pay for someone to convert it to the type of magazine it was intended for?
6) The idiot that decided to go with the grey stocks should be sent to work at Daewoo or HiPoint or something. Guns shouldn't look like my kid sister's old Barbie toys. Black-Yes, Olive Green-Maybe, But Grey?? What's next a Pink Versace Limited Edition? :)
7) The sights sucked and the stock is too short to focus on the rear sight. I don't have any problems with my AR or any other gun.
8) My rental gun may have been really dirty inside because it went full auto twice. Kinda Cool, but at any other range I'd have been asked to leave.
To address why the gun isn't selling, I think the color, the way it feels in the hand, the price, and the mediocre sights have a lot to do with it. Gun People may not be able to tell you what they want in the ideal gun, but without being able to explain it, they know if a gun isn't right for them when they paw it at the gun shop.
I'd like to have a USC, but to be honest, I don't think I should have to pay that kind of money for a gun that needs better sights so badly. A reflex sight of some kind would do wonders for the USC, but then you are talking about a 15-$1700 gun that shoots a (relatively) wimpy cartridge. Questions of reliablilty aside, I'd much rather have a Carbon-15 in .223 in a gunfight.
I feel that HK could have done a better job on the Ergonomics on the USC. Given how little space it takes to make a .45 subgun, and how much larger the USC is than say, a STEN gun, I think they dropped the ball. The USC is a lot bigger than it has to be.
That's my 2c worth anyway..
Dave