Daniel Defense H9 “Upgrade” Program For Keyholding Barrels

With much fanfare, Daniel Defense released the new Daniel H9 at SHOT 2024. While not entirely a DD design, the H9 did get a lot of changes and improvements over the original Hudson H9. 

After Hudson went out of business a couple of years ago, Daniel Defense bought the rights and blueprints for the H9 gun and redesigned it from the ground up.

The Hudson saga is fraught with drama that you might have assumed was done with now that the original company is gone and the gun redesigned. But what might seem straight out of a telenovela, Daniel Defense’s H9 has one more trick to perform: Keyholing bullets. 

Reports of the H9 keyholing 9mm arrived almost as soon as the gun shipped, and yesterday Daniel Defense made an announcement acknowledging the issue and a method of correction.

Daniel Defense reports that less than 2% of H9 owners are reporting the issue, but after extensive testing by Daniel Defense, they have identified the issue and will be correcting it with an “improved barrel” going forward on newly manufactured guns.

For those who jumped on the H9 train early, Daniel Defense will replace your barrel for free regardless of whether you have a keyholing problem or not. They’ll even cover shipping. For everyone.

While no one likes a keyholing barrel, it is great to see Daniel Defense addressing the issue in such an open and complete way. How a company handles a problem speaks volumes and in my book, this seems like the best way this could be handled.

If you have a Daniel H9 and would like to take advantage of this upgrade replacement, take a look at the Daniel Defense website for details. At the time of writing the upgrade program is not live, but Daniel Defense reports that details will be available within 30 days.