Today, I made a pretty decent deal. A couple weeks ago, I met a guy at the local boat landing and we got to talking. He was telling me that he was having problems finding a spinning rod as heavy as he wanted. I told him that I was a rod builder and could probably help him out.

He said he was a catfisherman and wanted a 7' spinning rod that was STIFF for big catfish and gator gar. I told him about a rod I had built for muskie fishing and actually used a musky rod blank. He asked if I'd consider a trade for the rod. Well, of course I'm always up for a good trade, and I wasn't using the rod anyway, so we started talking about what he had.

I wasn't too interested until he told me that he had access to Hi-Point pistols. Well, I perked right up then, because I had been thinking about getting a 9mm for my wife. I live in a good area, and I'm not worried about leaving her while I go on the road, but I sure would feel better if she had a nice little defense gun. I agreed that I'd consider a trade for a Hi-Point 9mm. I gave him my card and told him to give me a call when he had something to trade.

This was several weeks ago and I didn't think I'd ever hear from him again when my phone rang. It was Jake with the pistol! He said he couldn't get 9mm, but he had a Hi-Point chambered in .40 S & W that he wanted to trade.

I met him and showed him the rod. He played with it a little bit, I showed him how much backbone the rod actually had and he was sold. At that point, he brought out a new, in the box pistol. I checked it over and it had never been fired!

I told him that he was holding a $225.00 rod and I was holding a $150 - $160 pistol (yes, I do my homework) and if he wanted to seal the deal, he had to throw in a box of ammo. I now have a .40 S & W Hi-Point!

I got it home, cleaned it up and loaded the magazine. Taking it into the backyard, I lined up on a small tree partway up a hillside with a nice backstop, about twenty yards away. I have to say that this is a pretty nice, albeit ugly pistol. The trigger pull is reasonable and the gun goes BANG every time I pull the trigger. Even more impressive is the fact that I hit a four inch tree five out of ten shots! With 155 grain bullets, the recoil was very mild and muzzle jump was not bad at all. I think the grips are a little slick and might see if someone makes a "sticky grip", but other than that, I'm impressed with this handgun.

I hope Jake likes his new rod as much as I like the new pistol. Now I have to get Janet familiarized with the gun before my next trip.

Good deal! No Form 4473 involved in the transaction. I like it...

Yeah, I thought it was a pretty good deal. The guy gets a rod and I get a handgun.

Sure, it's not a Kimber or a Glock, but it goes bang everytime I've pulled the trigger with four boxes of American Eagle ammo through it so far.

I'm actually fairly impressed with the gun. It IS not the most attractive firearm I've ever owned, but it has a fairly decent trigger and from 25 feet, I'm now putting ten shots in a six inch circle in fairly short order.

I'm not thrilled about the size of the handgun, as it certainly isn't the most concealable pistol I've ever seen. And I don't like the grips. To me, they seem a little slick. I think I'm going to try some bicycle tape or something to see if I can get them a little tacky for better grip.

But, for a "nightstand" gun, and for reasonably cheap plinking, it is very nice.

Congratulations, Shof! Sounds like you made a good trade!