HK CC9 vs. Glock 43X

Smaller in every dimension, and higher in capacity.

HK lists the CC9 at 153 mm overall against the G43X’s 165 mm, 25 mm wide against 28 mm, and an 84 mm barrel against 87 mm. Twelve millimetres shorter, three millimetres narrower, three millimetres less barrel — and a 12-round standard magazine against ten.

A smaller pistol holding more rounds is the sort of claim that usually turns out to rest on a mismatched figure somewhere, so it is worth saying where it does not. HK designates the 12 itself rather than leaving it to be read off the SKU: the product description says the frame “still has room for a 12+1 magazine with pinky extension,” and offers flush 10-round magazines for capacity-restricted states. The catalogue number recorded here, 81000550, ships one of each. Glock lists 10 rounds for the G43X and publishes no optional capacities at all.

The width figure is the one worth pausing on, because 25 mm is narrow even among micro-compacts — three millimetres inside a pistol that Glock markets as a Slimline. That is HK’s published overall width, not a frame width or a grip width, which is a distinction that has quietly broken width comparisons elsewhere in this directory.

Eight grams, and the reason it can be stated at all.

The CC9 is listed at 522 g and the G43X at 530 g, both with an empty magazine fitted, both stated as such by their makers. The gap is 8 g, or 0.3 oz.

Eight grams is a trivial difference and a significant disclosure. Most cross-brand weight rows in this section end in a refusal — SIG publishes a figure with no basis, Smith & Wesson publishes one and lists magazine weights separately, Springfield fits a magazine without saying it is empty. Here two makers independently used the same convention, and HK heads its row “Weight (with empty magazine)” in its own words. Nothing had to be assumed.

It is also worth noting which magazine each figure carries. The CC9’s 522 g is with its standard 12-round magazine; the G43X’s 530 g is with its 10-round one. So the lighter pistol is also the higher-capacity one on the same basis, rather than winning the row by carrying less.

Two heights for one pistol, and both are kept.

HK publishes the CC9’s height twice: 125 mm with the 12-round magazine, 117 mm with the 10-round. The record carries the 12-round figure, because that is the standard magazine, and names the other in the basis rather than discarding it.

Glock publishes one figure, 128 mm, and states that it includes the magazine without naming which — the G43X record lists only one. Both bases are therefore “includes a magazine,” which is what makes the row comparable, and the answer depends on which CC9 magazine is fitted: 3 mm shorter with the standard 12-round, 11 mm shorter with the flush 10-round. That is a real choice a reader can make, and it is left visible rather than collapsed into a single number.

The overlay above draws length only for the same reason. Length has one figure per pistol; height has three across the two records, and picking one to draw would quietly settle a question the table deliberately keeps open.

Optics and sights, and what each record actually covers.

HK publishes an RMSc / 407k optics footprint on every CC9, along with a factory-included night sight and mirrored ambidextrous controls. The Glock record here is the base G43X, whose product page publishes no optic cut; the G43X MOS is a separate listing under this directory’s base-model rule.

Read that row as a statement about SKUs rather than about product lines. It is true that HK publishes an optics footprint on the pistol recorded here and Glock does not publish one on the pistol recorded here. It is not a claim that the G43X is unavailable optic-cut — Glock catalogues the MOS separately, which is precisely why the two are separate records.

Two smaller asymmetries follow the same pattern. HK states the ignition — its launch release introduces “an all-new micro-compact, striker-fired, pistol chambered in 9mm” — while Glock classifies no ignition at all and publishes “Safe Action” as a name. And the trigger pulls are converted in opposite directions: HK publishes 5 lb in prose, so the newton figure is this directory’s arithmetic; Glock publishes 24 N, so the pound figure is. Both carry the ≈ mark on their own side of the table.

Every CC9 figure here comes from an archived capture.

hk-usa.com serves a Cloudflare challenge to every request, including its robots.txt. This project does not attempt to defeat bot protection, so the CC9 record is built from Web Archive captures of HK’s own pages — the product page as captured on January 3, 2025, and the launch release datelined October 16, 2024. Each capture was checked for real content before use, because an archived URL can preserve a challenge page and still return HTTP 200.

What that means for this comparison is worth stating plainly rather than burying in a source note. The CC9 is a live product, so its figures are as-published in January 2025 and could have drifted since without anything on this page changing. The G43X figures come from a live Glock page accessed in August 2026. Any delta above spans that gap, and the delta most exposed to it is the 8 g weight difference, which is small enough that a single revision to either page could reverse it.

One thing that could have closed the gap was deliberately not used. HK’s international site, heckler-koch.com, is served without a challenge — but it sells this class of pistol under different model names, and recording data from a differently-named product would be an identity claim made by this directory rather than by HK.

What the data supports—and what it cannot.

The two listings settle length, width, barrel length, both height conditions, weight on a shared basis, standard and optional capacity, ignition on one side, optic footprint, sights, controls, launch year and warranty structure. They do not settle concealment, handling, reliability, or suitability for any lawful use, and they do not settle whether the CC9’s 2025 figures still describe the pistol HK sells today.

The warranty row is the one most often flattened elsewhere. Glock’s listed term is one year from original purchase. HK’s is a Lifetime Limited Warranty scoped by class to firearms purchased after January 1, 1998 — to the original retail purchaser only, extendable to a donee named at the time of purchase, valid only on firearms imported and distributed by HK Inc. through an authorized dealer, and replaced by a one-year term for duty-issue purchases by government and law-enforcement organizations. “Lifetime warranty” is accurate and incomplete; the conditions are recorded on the record.

Open the current CC9 recordOpen the current G43X recordOpen the generated side-by-side