The VP9L is supposed to be the competition gun version of the VP9. So what that means is they stretched the slide and cut on it and didn't change anything else about it - which is a shame considering there is a bit of room for growth. As far as a home defense gun or range gun - this thing is awesome. It has a killer trigger if you're shooting somewhat slow. Once you hit the gas and start trying to split the gun in anger the weak and long reset of the VP9 takes some getting used to - likely resulting in some trigger freeze as the reset is a bit longer than anything else in it's class. The ergonomics of the pistol are hands down easily best in class. The sculpt of the grip is like it was melted into the shape of your hand and the fact that the side panels and the back strap are swappable is a really nice feature. As far as competition features go - they didn't do anything. The sights are the same night sights - who needs night sights on a competition gun - and they don't cowitness with an Optic. They didn't flare the magwell to make reloading any easier. They didn't update the grip texture to be more aggressive - as would be appropriate for a range/ competition gun. The gun is super easy to shoot accurately due to grip shape and trigger quality. Zeroing my optics 1 hole groups off hand were in the cards. The magazine base plates on the provided 20 round magazines do not fit the magazine gauge for USPSA carry optics and won't work for IDPA or USPSA production. So that's dumb. The slide cuts at the front DO offer amazing purchase for forward of the ejection port manipulations. The optics plates are available for purchase from H&K and are not included with the price of the gun (lame) I wish they had put more effort into making a true competition pistol out of the VP9L. It's more refined than a 34 but has a lot of the shortcomings of the 34 (sights, grip texture, magazines)