CANIK TP9SFX: The Ultimate Budget Competitive Shooting Pistol

The CANIK TP9 SFX is billed as being a premium, competition ready pistol at duty pistol prices. And competition ready it is, the TP9SFX does not disappoint. It's a straight shooter, reliable, and is incredibly smooth shooting.

Full review : https://crackshot.tv/?p=1449

Competitive shooting sports, specifically dynamic pistol shooting sports, like United States Practical Shooter's Association (USPSA) or the International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) primarily focus on fast, accurate shooting at multiple targets. A certain level of accuracy is required, but the goal is not bullseye marksmanship, rather, it is "accurate enough" shots placed at high speed.

For those who are unfamiliar, because scoring is based on a combination of acceptable accuracy (an A-zone hit on the edge of the A-zone box is the equivalent of a dead centered shot in the A-zone, where the A-Zone box is a 6"x11" rectangle) and speed, the pistols look a whole lot more like traditional duty handguns than pistols that are built specifically for extreme accuracy.

As such, heavy, low recoiling guns with high magazine capacities and super light triggers dominate the sport (namely, race guns, most often custom built 2011s).

However, for most of us who are new to the sport, we likely won't be at a place starting out where we're able to really outshoot what the gun is capable of. If you're on a budget, you're going to want a pistol that can grow with you.

If your goal is to have a high quality pistol that will grow with you until you're into the sport enough that investing in top of the line gear makes sense, you could do a lot worse than the CANIK TP9SFX.

I'm shocked by the premium features that this pistol has out of box. The slide has some nice premium features. Let's start with the stock sights. The TP9SFX ships with a Warren tactical fiber optic front sight and a blacked out U-Notch rear sight, ideal for competitive shooting.

There's no need to change the sights on this pistol out of box, so its ready to go for production competition. The back serrations are grippy and the front serrations are nice for those of us who like to do press checks.

The 5.2 inch barrel is nice and the pistol shoots accurately.

The gun has other premium features that save time during competition, such as automatically engaging the slide after the weapon is reloaded from empty, instantly racking a round. This can shave a split second off of your times during competition, most important for production, which can be the difference between winning or losing a tight match.

That said, the slide stop lever is extended, as is the magazine release, making the controls extremely easy on this pistol. It's impossible to miss either control. They're simple and crisp.

The slide features a loaded chamber indicator similar to those of Walther or Springfield which is a really nice feature as its very obvious when the the striker is engaged.

Overall this is an awesome pistol and I have very few complaints about it. The ones that I have are fairly minor. It's one of my favorites bar none. If you want to be competitive at your local club but don't want to shell out over a thousand dollars on a high end competition pistol, the CANIK TP9SFX will get you pretty close.

It really punches above its weight class given its affordable price. You won't be disappointed.