tahunua001
New member
Hello all,
As an avid firearms enthusiast, I am often asked the question “what is the best gun to get” this question is almost universal depending on what’s being discussed whether it’s revolvers, 22LRs, or WWII era battle rifles. The world of semi automatic handguns is no different, with prospective gun owners asking “what is the best” without the understanding that there is no definitive model which holds the title of best gun in the world. Regardless of the category being discussed, I always give the same answer: the best gun in the world is the most reliable gun that shoots the most accurately, and fits your hand the best, without being too large or too small depending on the purpose which you intend to use it, without breaking your predetermined budget.
As I am returning to school in an effort to be more marketable to the current job force, I am often asked this question by college students who are generally quite poor and in debt due to the costs of seeking higher education. As a result the second most asked question is “what is the most economical model you would recommend”. This is hard for many of us to answer because we often shy away from the more affordable brands due to the perceived inferiority that comes with economy brands. Brands like Hi-point and kel-tec are often maligned as being bottom of the barrel in terms of quality, ergonomics, and yes, appearance. This led me to wonder if I was unfairly excluding certain firearms from my recommendations, purely because they fell within a certain price range.
This is why I decided that I was going to go ahead and try a pair of cheap affordable 9mm handguns. For the purposes of this review, I decided that I would go with a pair of handguns that are relatively unknown to the general public: the Arcus 98DA and the Canik 55 TP9.
After nearly a month of waiting the Canik finally arrived.
Initial impressions: I loved this gun before I even got it completely apart and cleaned. The little gear and gizmos are a bit of mixed feelings. I never use lulas, chamber locks, or trigger locks so that stuff is all utterly useless to me and the cleaning rod is cheap plastic, but the holster is very well designed for being a cheap freebee. the mecgar mags are very stout and fall free with no hang-ups, and blind reloads are very smooth. The adjustable sights are quite nice. The grip fits my hand nicely and comes with a replaceable back strap for those with larger hands. The gun is pretty large in all dimensions so concealability is out of the question for all but the craftiest of CWL holders.
Dry fire: The trigger, albeit a little heavy, is not bad at all, reset is extremely short, the shortest of any pistol I’ve ever owned. It is an odd arrangement, the gun is striker fired, but it has a decocker and DA/SA trigger action. The DA trigger pull is quite long but not overly stiff. The single action, although heavier than any of my other striker guns, is very crisp and as I cannot stress enough… SHORT RESET! The trigger felt pretty gritty straight from the box but only a few short dry firings later it’s already smoothed out a great deal.
Live fire session 1: this was a bummer from the abyss of depressed unicorns. I had serious failure rates with the gun failing to return to battery about 75% of the time. After about 50 rounds and the problem didn’t show any signs of letting up I was forced to quit the Canik and move to other toys. the gun ended up spending a month going back to century for service.
Live fire session 2: much better than the first. 100% reliable through 75 rounds of Sellier and Bellot. I was able to get a real feel for the gun this time. It is a real pussycat to shoot, very light recoiling despite the high bore axis. I fired a number of short batteries with it, most starting in DA and I I must say the DA trigger is one of the nicest DA triggers I’ve tried, still a little gritty but it does not feel very hard and just like the dry fire, short SA reset. Sights are a little off, I hit left a lot and very low so I have drifted the rear sight a little bit to the right and if I ever find the itty bitty 1.25mm allen wrench I will replace the front sight post with the short one that came with the pistol.
I will try to get pics of it up this weekend. My next intention is to test some junk reman ammo and some no-name hollow point reloads.
As an avid firearms enthusiast, I am often asked the question “what is the best gun to get” this question is almost universal depending on what’s being discussed whether it’s revolvers, 22LRs, or WWII era battle rifles. The world of semi automatic handguns is no different, with prospective gun owners asking “what is the best” without the understanding that there is no definitive model which holds the title of best gun in the world. Regardless of the category being discussed, I always give the same answer: the best gun in the world is the most reliable gun that shoots the most accurately, and fits your hand the best, without being too large or too small depending on the purpose which you intend to use it, without breaking your predetermined budget.
As I am returning to school in an effort to be more marketable to the current job force, I am often asked this question by college students who are generally quite poor and in debt due to the costs of seeking higher education. As a result the second most asked question is “what is the most economical model you would recommend”. This is hard for many of us to answer because we often shy away from the more affordable brands due to the perceived inferiority that comes with economy brands. Brands like Hi-point and kel-tec are often maligned as being bottom of the barrel in terms of quality, ergonomics, and yes, appearance. This led me to wonder if I was unfairly excluding certain firearms from my recommendations, purely because they fell within a certain price range.
This is why I decided that I was going to go ahead and try a pair of cheap affordable 9mm handguns. For the purposes of this review, I decided that I would go with a pair of handguns that are relatively unknown to the general public: the Arcus 98DA and the Canik 55 TP9.
After nearly a month of waiting the Canik finally arrived.
Initial impressions: I loved this gun before I even got it completely apart and cleaned. The little gear and gizmos are a bit of mixed feelings. I never use lulas, chamber locks, or trigger locks so that stuff is all utterly useless to me and the cleaning rod is cheap plastic, but the holster is very well designed for being a cheap freebee. the mecgar mags are very stout and fall free with no hang-ups, and blind reloads are very smooth. The adjustable sights are quite nice. The grip fits my hand nicely and comes with a replaceable back strap for those with larger hands. The gun is pretty large in all dimensions so concealability is out of the question for all but the craftiest of CWL holders.
Dry fire: The trigger, albeit a little heavy, is not bad at all, reset is extremely short, the shortest of any pistol I’ve ever owned. It is an odd arrangement, the gun is striker fired, but it has a decocker and DA/SA trigger action. The DA trigger pull is quite long but not overly stiff. The single action, although heavier than any of my other striker guns, is very crisp and as I cannot stress enough… SHORT RESET! The trigger felt pretty gritty straight from the box but only a few short dry firings later it’s already smoothed out a great deal.
Live fire session 1: this was a bummer from the abyss of depressed unicorns. I had serious failure rates with the gun failing to return to battery about 75% of the time. After about 50 rounds and the problem didn’t show any signs of letting up I was forced to quit the Canik and move to other toys. the gun ended up spending a month going back to century for service.
Live fire session 2: much better than the first. 100% reliable through 75 rounds of Sellier and Bellot. I was able to get a real feel for the gun this time. It is a real pussycat to shoot, very light recoiling despite the high bore axis. I fired a number of short batteries with it, most starting in DA and I I must say the DA trigger is one of the nicest DA triggers I’ve tried, still a little gritty but it does not feel very hard and just like the dry fire, short SA reset. Sights are a little off, I hit left a lot and very low so I have drifted the rear sight a little bit to the right and if I ever find the itty bitty 1.25mm allen wrench I will replace the front sight post with the short one that came with the pistol.
I will try to get pics of it up this weekend. My next intention is to test some junk reman ammo and some no-name hollow point reloads.
.