The Hi-Point carbine is a series of carbine

Carbine

A carbine , from French carabine, is a longarm similar to but shorter than a rifle or musket. Many carbines are shortened versions of full rifles, firing the same ammunition at a lower velocity due to a shorter barrel length....

s chambered for 9x19mm Parabellum, .40 S&W

.40 S&W

The .40 S&W is a rimless pistol cartridge developed jointly by major American firearms manufacturers Winchester and Smith & Wesson. The .40 S&W was developed from the ground up as a law enforcement cartridge designed to duplicate performance of the FBI's reduced velocity 10mm cartridge which could...

, and .45 ACP

.45 ACP

The .45 ACP , also known as the .45 Auto by C.I.P., is a cartridge designed by John Browning in 1904, for use in his prototype Colt semi-automatic .45 pistol and eventually the M1911 pistol adopted by the United States Army in 1911.-Design and history:The U.S...

. They are very inexpensive, constructed using polymer

Polymer

A polymer is a large molecule composed of repeating structural units. These subunits are typically connected by covalent chemical bonds...

s and alloy

Alloy

An alloy is a mixture or metallic solid solution composed of two or more elements. Complete solid solution alloys give single solid phase microstructure, while partial solutions give two or more phases that may or may not be homogeneous in distribution, depending on thermal history...

ed metals as much as possible, resulting in a reduction of production costs and sale price. The Hi-Point carbine

Carbine

A carbine , from French carabine, is a longarm similar to but shorter than a rifle or musket. Many carbines are shortened versions of full rifles, firing the same ammunition at a lower velocity due to a shorter barrel length....

 is sometimes incorrectly referred to as an assault rifle

Assault rifle

An assault rifle is a selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles are the standard infantry weapons in most modern armies...

; in fact, it is just a semiautomatic pistol-caliber carbine. It functions via a simple direct blowback action

Blowback (arms)

Blowback is a system of operation for self-loading firearms that obtains energy from the motion of the cartridge case as it is pushed to the rear by expanding gases created by the ignition of the propellant charge....

.
Developed during the now-defunct 1994 Federal assault weapons ban

Federal assault weapons ban

The Federal Assault Weapons Ban was a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a federal law in the United States that included a prohibition on the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms, so called "assault weapons"...

, the Hi-Point carbine comes with a ten-round magazine

Magazine (firearm)

A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device within or attached to a repeating firearm. Magazines may be integral to the firearm or removable . The magazine functions by moving the cartridges stored in the magazine into a position where they may be loaded into the chamber by the action...

 that fits into the pistol grip.