PICS ADDED Daewoo DP51.....Opinions?

policerevolvercollector · Aug 14, 2018

Any one have one?? What do you think of them??

A local pawn emporium has one that I could get for $250 or a little less. One magazine. Pondering...

31FordA · Aug 14, 2018

My only in person experience with the Daewoo was observing two different shooters, each with a new Daewoo, at the range. One guy could not get the pistol to fire a single round. Several people looked at it, nobody could get it to work. The other guy couldn't shoot more than two or three rounds without a double feed. Can't say I was too impressed by them.

scoobysnacker · Aug 14, 2018

I picked one up for about the same price (more, really, considering I had to pay shipping and transfer).

I had trouble with the trigger bar, found a guy selling tons of parts for this gun on Ebay, pretty easy to replace (and I'm not a gunsmith).

Excellent gun for the money, and a strong gun for any price. Good balance, I find it easier to shoot well than (for example) my S&W 915, which I do happen to like. Comes back on target well, handles just about anything I put through it.

Has a "Sig"-ish feel to it. Good materials, nice 3 dot sight. Mine shoots to aim, and is easy to shoot well. Smaller than an average fullsize (compared to CZ, Beretta, Sig P226), but bigger than a compact. True ambidextrous safety. I like the 'Double Action +" option, which is unusual. Can cock the hammer, then flip it back up to a DA position, which leaves you with a long, staged, light trigger pull. A slight pressure flips the hammer back to SA, if you control the pull. If you firmly it just feels like a DA length with a SA pull weight.

The safety is inverted, meaning it pivots from the front of the gun (not from the rear like everything else does). Kinda feels funny, but is easy to take out of safe (can be a little stiffer to put it to safe). Safe totally disables the trigger.

Numrich has (had?) factory 13 rd mags for sale, $15.
Ebay seller: bamagunparts has a storefront, has everything except the frame, slide and maybe grips. Looks like he has a good bit of stock. I went ahead and replaced the recoil spring and mainspring from him, as well as the trigger bar and a small safety detente pin that was lost. He's easy to deal with and the prices were cheap.

For practical purposes, this is the same gun as the Lionheart LH9, without cerakote and fancy milling on the slide.
Given the parts availability I found, I would say go buy that gun now. It's a great 9mm at any price, a real bargain at that price.

Mine:

edit to add, S&W 59xx mags fit in it, hang a tad out the base. Since I have them (with the 915), I tried them, fed perfectly, slide locked back on empty.

Ross3914 · Aug 15, 2018

I've owned a couple of them. Never had any failures of any kind with either. It's the standard ROK sidearm as the K5. 31FordA's post is the first time I've ever heard of one malfunctioning, but many of the used ones for sale recently have been used pretty hard.

Anyway, my experience has been completely positive. If I found one for $250-300 I would buy it. I don't think I'd pay $350.

Accuracy is good, about like any other service pistol. I wouldn't say match grade accuracy, but plenty good for a military sidearm.

I find that the gun fits me quite well. The trigger, grip, everything just fits me perfectly. Obviously that would vary for individuals.

There is the DP51, and the DP51C, which is a compact. I owned the compact first, but sold it long ago. I ran across the standard one in a pawn shop and bought it, and still have it. The compact is about the size of a 6906. It takes 6906 mags. The Daewoo mag is identical to the S&W, floor plate and all. The standard size gun was originally designed to take the old S&W 59 mag. 5906 mags work, they just stick out like 1/8th of an inch. They don't look goofy or anything.

The Tri-action is interesting. There's no way to lower the hammer into traditional DA without pulling the trigger, so you have to take care if you'r going to carry it in TDA. The safety does allow "cocked and locked". The third mode is you simply push the hammer forward with your thumb while it's in SA. You can then basically reset the hammer to SA by pulling the trigger. It takes very little effort on the trigger to reset it. You can just pull it back with your thumb as well.

I never really warmed up to the Tri-action mode. It just seemed more like a novelty, and because none of my other guns has the feature, I never considered using that mode for carry. It's easy enough to just ignore it if you wish.

Overall, I like them. At $250, I'd say buy it.

scoobysnacker · Aug 15, 2018

Here's a good resource on the gun:
Detail Strip Guide: Lionheart LH9/Daewoo DP-51 & Variants << Apex Gunsmithing

Here's the storefront for the parts guy:
GPC-Montg | eBay Stores

I used that website to repair mine, and got every part I needed from the ebay guy.
The pin I replaced is shown in step 6, it's maybe the toughest part of total disassembly (because it can get lost so easily). I did this all without any special tools.

The parts I received appear to be new old stock. If you glance over the storefront, you'll see that the seller has just about everything. He combines shipping.

Here's the link to new magazines
Magazine, 9mm, 13 Round, Original, Black Finish | Gun Parts Corp.
They are factory, not aftermarket; and there's a noticeable difference between the one old mag that came with it, and these new ones.

As Ross3914 said, these are the standard issue for the South Koreans, and I don't think the commercial ones were made any less solid.
I know they faded into obscurity for a long while, but with Lionheart marketing new ones as the LH9, they become sorta relevant again... at least while Lionheart's still selling them. Guy at my range has an LH9, and he likes it. He was a bit miffed when he compared his to my DP51 (he's the FFL I got mine through), because the guns are basically identical and his cost a few hundred more.

scoobysnacker · Aug 15, 2018

31FordA said:
My only in person experience with the Daewoo was observing two different shooters, each with a new Daewoo, at the range. One guy could not get the pistol to fire a single round. Several people looked at it, nobody could get it to work.

I mentioned that I replaced my trigger bar.

The gun has a firing pin safety block. The bar is set up so that the firing pin block is pressed on (and disabled) when the trigger is pulled, so that the block is released when the hammer falls.

Mine would not fire DA, but would fire SA. I checked a few things (firing pin, block, etc), and was able to determine that my trigger bar was damaged, so that it would not release the block when in DA.
I did a bunch of dryfiring with a pencil, in troubleshooting the issue. If the pencil did not fly out of the barrel, the firing pin wasn't free... anyway I figured it out by process of elimination.

Good news was that everything was easy to work on, and the replacement bar was a drop-in fit.

If the gun would not fire at all, I would say
A: firing pin possibly broke.
B: Firing pin block is stuck, broke etc.
C: Trigger bar is messed up and the timing is out of spec (my issue).

This is something that can happen to any gun.

I have a thread somewhere in the gunsmith section on this site where I documented my adventure, including the final fix.

I'll say- I was able to do it, with one punch (needed to push out a pin) and a screwdriver to remove the grips; actually just a Gerber multitool. I'm not a gunsmith, nor am I very mechanically inclined. But a google search led me to that takedown page, and interactions on this forum helped guide me along the way. If I can do it, pretty sure most anyone could.

policerevolvercollector · Aug 16, 2018

$250 OTD

Here it is. I ordered two mags from Numrich also. It sure is different!! I think I’m going to like it....

scoobysnacker · Aug 16, 2018

That's in great shape for the price! I'd say you got a solid deal on a solid shooter!

PICS ADDED Daewoo DP51.....Opinions?

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