OK, well, make of this what you will.  It's a good pistol, and I have
never seen anybody do a 1,000 round test of any firearm before.

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1,000-Round Review of the Heritage Stealth<BR>
by Brian Miller<BR>
(Hicks in the Sticks Labs)<BR>
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<P>This is a basic user review of the new Heritage Stealth self-loading
pistol.  The test was conducted with one case (1,000 rounds) of Federal
M882 ball ammunition (military surplus), 50 rounds of JP Ammo FMJ
remanufactured ammunition, and 25 rounds of something else
remanufactured with lead bullets.  All of the ammunition was fired
through the pistol with no cleaning of any part.  Before the test was
started, the pistol was fully cleaned and lubricated with Tetra Gun oil.

<P><B>Quick summary:</B><BR>
Good pistol.  I'm glad I bought it.  It takes a little bit of getting
used to its feel and operation.  The trigger feel is light and constant.
There were two stovepipes in the first 200 rounds, and none after that.
There was one jammed case with the JP reloads which needed to be removed
with a cleaning rod.  At 950 rounds, I fired the remaining fifty M882
into an NRA B-27 target (man-sized) at 50 yards (that's right, yards,
not feet) from a Weaver stance.  There were 42 hits on the paper:  1 in
ring 10, 9 in ring 9, 7 in ring 8, 9 in ring 7, 10 in the black
(including one in the neck and one in the center forehead), and 6 in the
white.  Discounting the head and neck, there were 14 in the upper-right,
4 in the upper-left, 13 in the lower-right, and three in the lower-left
black part of the target.  When the gun was disassembled for cleaning, I
found that the gas piston pin had broken in two.  Believe it or not,
this broken pin DID NOT affect the operation of the pistol at all.
(More about this later)

<P><B>Features:</B><BR>
The Heritage Stealth holds 10+1 rounds, has four different safeties
(manual, open breech, magazine, and drop), stainless steel 17-4
(self-lubricating) slide and barrel, polymer frame, and a 4lb. trigger
pull.

<P><B>Disassembly and cleaning:</B><BR>
The pistol is disassembled by pressing in on both take down buttons and
moving the slide back and up.  The striker is removed by pushing in and
rotating the back plug 90 degrees.  Then it takes a little push for it
to pop out.  The firing pin spring is seated very firmly into the
striker plug, so it's essentially one unit.  There is a buffer spring in
front of the striker unit.  The striker itself (according to the manual)
consists of the firing pin and firing pin housing.  I could not easily
disassemble the striker unit, so I just left it alone and cleaned the
two together.

<P>The other easily disassembled part of the slide is the gas piston. The
gas piston is held in place with a pin and two buffer O-rings between
the piston and the slide.  The piston has a normally loose, wobbly feel
to it.  It doesn't need to be removed for cleaning, but if your as fussy
as me, it's not that bad.  Replace the gas piston by inserting the gas
piston pin in part way and putting one of the O-rings over it.  Put the
gas piston in, then smoosh the other O-ring into place.  Use a toothpick
or a small wood skewer or something to get the O-ring centered.  If the
O-ring is not centered, it will have a section punched out of it by the
gas piston pin when you move it fully into place.

<P>The trigger mechanism and slide support assembly cannot be removed for
cleaning.  I know, I tried to get the barrel assembly out, and the
trigger mechanism is underneath it.  The best you can do is use
Birchwood-Casey Powder Blast, brake cleaner, or something equivalent to
spray out all the powder particles.  The gas piston hole can be brushed
with a 6.5mm bore brush. Use a brass brush and pipe cleaners for all of
the other accessible surfaces on the barrel and slide.  A pipe cleaner
will fit through the firing pin hole.  Wipe lubrication onto the
striker assembly, gas piston, outer barrel, and slide supports.  Even
though the manual says that the supports don't need lubrication, it is
shipped from the factory with some kind of grease on it.

<P><B>Design and mechanical operation:</B><BR>
According to the manual, the "Stealth uses a Gas Delayed Straight
Blowback Recoil System and a Striker Firing mechanism."  The pistol is
set to fire when the slide travels forward.  The striker assembly
catches on the "transfer bar" (this is what the trigger moves) and is
held there in a half-cocked state.  The rear pin end of the striker
assembly protrudes through the striker plug, and can be easily felt with
a finger to know if it is ready to fire.  Squeezing the trigger will
move the striker to its rear-most position, disengaging from the
transfer bar, and allowing the striker to move forward on its own.  When
the cartridge fires, the bullet will move forward and allow gas to fill
the gas piston hole.  The gas pressure will keep the gas piston forward
until the bullet has exited the barrel, and then the slide can travel
back to complete its cycle. The slide is supported by the fixed barrel
in the front and two slide supports in the rear.  The trigger provides a
consistent, light feel.

<P>The Stealth has four different safeties.  The manual safety is behind
the trigger, and must be rotated 90 degrees for it to engage or
disengage.  I have small hands, and I can easily swipe it on and off
with my thumb.  The magazine safety engages when the magazine is
sticking 1/2-inch out of the magazine well.  The open breech safety
"engages" when the breech is open 3/16-inch.  This safety is really the
byproduct of the fact that the transfer bar can't push the striker back
far enough.  I did not fire-test the breech safety.  Not yet, anyway.
The drop safety is another transfer bar/striker feature. I tried to make
the striker drop by bashing the Stealth with a large rubber mallet, but
it remained in the half-cocked position.

<P><B>1,000 rounds:</B><BR>
Stovepipe jams can be cleared by dropping the magazine and racking the
slide, or you can turn the pistol ejection port down and then racking
the slide.  The brass cannot be cleared by sweeping the slide with your
palm edge because it sits too far down in the chamber.  The case jam
required all rounds dumped from the magazine, the empty magazine
inserted and the slide pulled back to activate the slide stop.  The case
was removed by banging it out with a cleaning rod.

<P>The slide had difficulty closing three times sometime past 900 rounds.
The slide did not snap shut about the last quarter inch or so with two
rounds of the Federal M882 ammunition (it did close, but slowly), and
one round of the JP ammo (not the one which jammed) was chambered very
slowly.  Yeah, the chamber needed cleaning.

<P>The sight picture actually includes seeing some of the slide top.  This
will initially fool the shooter into shooting WAY LOW, like at 15 yards
you will get consistent crotch hits when you think that you are aiming
at the chest.  This happened to both me and an elderly German visitor to
the club.  After 15 shots he was hitting dead center, though.  It was
interesting watching him aim the pistol -- arms straight out, pistol
upwards, then slowly lower the pistol down, then BANG!  I'm sure this
fellow was an officer in WW-II.

<P>The magazine is made by Meggar.  It holds ten rounds, and has slots for
a magazine catch on both sides.  The magazine follower catches on the
unused slot during cartridge loading.  The magazine catch looks as if it
might be reversible, but if it really isn't, then the unused magazine
slot should be removed.

<P>The ejector nearly turns the spent cases into lethal projectiles.  If
you're going to save the brass for reloading, then you will develop some
serious Easter egg hunting skills to find where the cases landed.

<P>During rapid fire the frame will heat up so that a Weaver grip becomes
very difficult.  Expect to go through at least fifty rounds before it's
too hot to handle.  The trigger will also heat up.  While the gas delay
is good for increased velocity, it does result in a hot pistol.

<P>The sights on the Stealth use a vertical, three bar pattern.  The front
sight is molded into the slide, and the rear sight is made of plastic.
The rear sight needs improvement.  The sight is push adjustable.  I mean
you can push it back and forth without the use of a tool, like a drift
punch.  You just need firm hand pressure.  The white paint in the sights
only covered about half of the slot, so I took a toothpick and scraped
it out.  Then I painted the sights with Bright Sights fluorescent
yellow.

<P>If you plan to be shooting this pistol for an extended period of time
(like IPSC), then wear a glove.  The square back end of the Stealth and
the left slide disconnect button kept digging into my thumb knuckle.
After the first day was through (700 rounds) I had two small patches of
skin missing.  The next week when I went to the range I wore my
bicycling gloves.  

<P>The trigger guard is a bit small.  I can't fit my military work glove
near it enough to hardly move the trigger.  Small ski gloves or my
military dress gloves allow the trigger to be moved enough for it to
fire.  I am going to buy some different gloves for carrying this pistol
during the winter months.  I recommend a glove with no excess material
at the fingertips.  Perhaps a motorcycle glove would work.

<P>Miscellaneous:  The recoil spring is quite stiff, but it is necessary to
chamber cartridges when the chamber is dirty.  There is no decocking
lever, so the pistol must be dry-fired.  Dry-firing the Stealth is OK,
as there is a buffer spring in front of the striker to absorb the shock.
There is no external slide catch.  To lock the slide back an empty
magazine must be inserted, and then the slide is pulled rearward.  The
base of the cartridge is visible through the extractor cutout in the
barrel.  (Nitpick:) The firing pin is marked as #9 instead of #19 in
the manual.  The gas piston pin O-rings aren't listed in the manual at
all.

<P>Using the Stealth with a flashlight is almost a dream, except for one
thing:  If you hold a flashlight directly against the grip, the magazine
falls out.  What happens is that the magazine release will drop the
magazine when it is pressed flush with the grip.  The flashlight presses
against the magazine release, and out comes the magazine.  It took me
two magazine drops before I figured out what was happening.  If the
release were already flush with the grip or slightly recessed into it, a
flashlight could easily be held steady against the pistol in a good
grip.  As it is, the magazine drops out.

<P><B>It's falling to PIECES:</B><BR>
During firing I found that the slide support pin (the one in the rear of
the frame) kept wandering out.  I had to push it back in every 100-150
rounds.  Just use the side of a case to do it.  It needs the same
serrations on it as the pins which hold the barrel support.

<P>The gas piston pin broke in two.  Yep, it did, and I didn't notice it at
all until I removed it to clean out over 1,000 rounds of carbon and
gunk.  There was no noticeable change in the gas piston's play, and
certaintly no change in the pistol's operation.  The O-rings kept both
pieces of the pin from moving.  One of the O-rings was still OK, and the
other one looked slightly chewed.  According to the lady I spoke to at
Heritage, the O-rings are there just to keep the gas piston from
rattling around (and without them it does make an annoying rattle).

<P><B>What needs FIXING:</B><BR>
The size of the gas piston pin needs to be increased, and the slide
support pin needs those serrations on it.

<P><B>What I'd like changed:</B><BR>
The trigger guard could be a bit bigger for use with gloves (winter
happens).  A little more polishing could be done to the bolt face and
surrounding metal (OK, this is just for ease of cleaning and
aesthetics).  A different rear sight would be nice, like, one made out
of METAL.  I think that the sights should be built to be removable for
changing to a tritrium set.  As they are now, the front sight would have
to be machined off, which means sending the slide to a competent pistol
smith with a fully equipped machine shop.  The magazine release needs
to be made flush with the grip.

<P><B>The folks at the factory:</B><BR>
Nice people.  The lady I talked to got my impressions on it, and sent
out replacement O-rings and pin without me having to send my Stealth in
to them.  She told me that the design is the same one used by a South
African military pistol.  They licensed the design from them, and then
spent two and a half years developing the Stealth.

<P><B>Impression:</B><BR>
Its a very, very good, cheap, reliable pistol.  I think that it was much
cleaner and reliable than my brother's CZ-85 after I fired 1,000 rounds
through it without cleaning.  The slide never failed to lock back, the
trigger never felt sluggish or gritty, it just worked and worked, nice
and light, aside from three jams.  That's what, 0.3% jam rate, right?
Not bad at all.  I like it.  I'm packing it.
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