AllOutdoor Review: Lionheart Industries USA Vulcan 9 – Double Action Plus
Eve Flanigan 11.08.23
Georgia-based Lionheart Industries USA has a new 9mm carry pistol named Vulcan 9. It was the most-talked about gun among those in attendance at the 2023 Outdoor News America Gun Writers’ conference. The event was held in October at Texas Gun Experience, where writers got a thorough orientation to the history of this new handgun and were also able to experience it on the facility’s first-rate indoor range.
Lionheart Industries USA Coverage on AllOutdoor & TFB
Lionheart Industries is under new ownership, having previously acting as importer of a pistol that started out as a South Korean Military sidearm, the K5 by Daewoo. It debuted in 1985, mostly known to the US market as the Lionheart LH9, with several variants.
American consumers liked the K5, so much that Lionheart established a stateside plant to manufacture them. Updated and rebranded as the Regulus, the updated K5 took to heart the surging popularity of modular handgun design. Soon there were a staggering number of optional configurations (slide length, capacity and finish combinations for starters), around 26,000 according to Lionheart Industries Marketing Director Rob Curtis. Other than the Browning-style action, the Regulus lacked a real identity of its own and attending to orders was cumbersome due to an overabundance of options.
Trouble in one business is just opportunity for another, and that was the case when Lionheart was purchased by a brand new team and relocated to Georgia. With modular options shaved down to a manageable handful of variants, the Regulus was again renamed, this time to LH9. The forward-looking new team understood their new product must continue to evolve with recent changes to typical handgun features, most notable being optics compatibility. Thus the Lionheart Vulcan 9 was born. It’s a match for RMSc and RMRcc red dots, and has a lower-third witness with its dovetail-set front and rear sights, but that is just the beginning of what’s new.
A ”J” trigger combines the best features of flat-face and curved models for maximum sensitivity and control. The 7075 aluminum frame is fitted with right- or left-hand-specific, highly textured G10 grips that include a ledge for the support hand thumb to push on as a recoil tamer. Metal MecGar mags are also brand new. It is with the mags that Lionheart took another step away from tradition and toward convenience. They are available with an optional baseplate that includes a tiny multi-tool embedded in it. It doesn’t interrupt the profile of the gun with its flush-fit mags.
In the face of these radical updates, Lionheart designers felt compelled to stay true to the platform’s Browning style action and to what must be a significant following among South Korean customers. There is a cultural expectation, Curtis explained, that the hammer of a carried sidearm be in the forward position to connote peace of mind regarding prevention of unintentional discharges. And this is what drove them to make the new Lionheart 9mm, called Vulcan 9, very different from a customary double/single action with a decocker and long, heavy initial pull for the first shot. Though they initially called it a “triple action,” the moniker promoted with today’s Vulcan 9 is “double action plus.”
Factory-recommended operation of the double action plus is unlike that which anyone with formal training on DA/SA or single action-only platforms has experienced. As either of those platforms do, the hammer cocks and the gun is apparently in single action mode via the act of inserting a magazine and closing the slide. If a person wanted, they could stop right there, engage the ambi thumb safety 1911-style, and holster the gun in ready, single action condition. But that entail keeping the “dangerous” appearance of a cocked hammer. Engineers at Lionheart solved this problem by creating a hammer that’s meant to be thumb-pushed forward for carry. This has the effect of also pushing the trigger forward into what looks like double action position, yet it’s very easy to stage during presentation such that the actual press from its wall is short and requires just six to eight pounds of pressure.
It was a treat to be among the first members of the media to shoot the Vulcan 9. By design, pushing the hammer forward is not an activity that’s done under any sort of stress, so the learning curve is best taken methodically, as with, say, a Beretta 92F that has both a thumb safety and decocker. Especially once I got my support hand thumb properly seated on the integral ledge, the little gun ran easily and was very controllable. It didn’t strike me as heavy; in fact it’s just four ounces heavier than the universal comparison compact gun, a Glock 19.
With good cause, this is the gun most reviewers left the conference talking about reviewing in depth later. It’s built with exacting tolerances entirely in the USA and is truly new in its manner of operation. Holster fits are already on the way also, including some that’ll accommodate a light on its rail. Blackpoint Tactical and Black Arch Holsters will offer products making this gun ready to carry as soon as it’s available for delivery in November 2023 at a base price of $1,299. Color schemes include black/black, black/gray, and gold/black, with left- and right-hand options. The Lionheart Vulcan 9 is available for pre-order now at the Lionheart Industries website.
