![The VP9SK’s three sizes of backstraps and side-panel pairs allow you to completely customize the grip to fit your hand.](http://www.handgunsmag.com/files/2018/08/VP9SK.jpg)
The VP9SK’s three sizes of backstraps and side-panel pairs allow you to completely customize the grip to fit your hand.
Heckler & Koch has been on a roll thanks to the solid, reliable and effective VP9, and now the company has introduced a subcompact version, the VP9SK. The VP9 line features the HK precision strike trigger. This is a refinement of the striker-fired system, where the precision strike has a shorter and lighter take-up than your basic spongy crunch-en-squish striker trigger. Then, once you’ve pressed through the clean break, the reset is shorter and cleaner.
I don’t want to sound too snarky, but it’s as if the engineers were told to listen to shooters and make a trigger that satisfied them and yet still had all the usual safety mechanisms built in. The trigger has a safety lever that blocks trigger movement until your finger has pressed it out of the way. There’s also a striker safety, blocking the forward progress of the pre-cocked striker until the trigger has cammed this safety out of the way.
The only other control on the VP9SK, the slide stop, is ambidextrous. It’s a low-profile lever inset on the left side and a longer lever flush with the frame on the right side. In handling and shooting, the right-hand lever never caused a problem, even though I fully expected it to.
![The pistol features an ambidextrous slide lock lever. The magazine release is an ambidextrous paddle at the bottom of the trigger guard. The trigger is crisp, with a short reset.](http://www.handgunsmag.com/files/2018/08/VP9SKSLide.jpg)
The pistol features an ambidextrous slide lock lever. The magazine release is an ambidextrous paddle at the bottom of the trigger guard. The trigger is crisp, with a short reset.
Also ambidextrous is the magazine release, and here HK and I part company. The magazine release is a dual paddle design, where the paddles parallel the bottom of the trigger guard. This is a clever, positive and solid