Canik TP9 Elite Combat Review — Watch That Trigger!

I bought this gun about a year ago, and when I first got it I was enthralled — I thought it was maybe the best gun I'd ever fired. A year later I still think it's an absolutely phenomenal gun and underrated on today's market. It's a polymer striker-fired pistol from Canik's TP9 line, done as a partnership with Salient Arms — the barrel is even marked from the collab. You get a threaded barrel and fiber optic sights, which I loved shooting before I ever put glass on it.

The trigger is the reason I bought it and the reason you should pay attention. Flat-faced with a trigger safety, a break that sits right at 90 degrees, and then — this is the wild part — there is literally almost no reset at all. Anybody who's fired one will tell you it's one of the fastest shooters out there, fastest on the take-up and fastest on the reset. The flip side: when I first started shooting it I had accidental double-taps, and even now, thousands of rounds later, I still doubled up twice on camera. If you keep a little back pressure as that reset comes forward, boom boom — it fires twice. It's on the border of almost too damn light. Practice your trigger discipline with this gun. Seriously.

Ergonomics are loaded with smart touches: an enhanced mag release that's thick enough to hit fast during reloads — I wasn't sure about it at first, man I love it now — a functional mag well, removable backstraps in multiple sizes, a loaded chamber indicator, ambidextrous slide release, and my favorite detail, the deep finger indents on both sides of the frame. Takedown is basically Glock-style: pull the levers, slide comes forward. Mine came with three magazines, including a +3 baseplate that takes the 15-rounder to 18.

For optics, the plate system sits way down in the slide — better than the Glock MOS setup — so your optic sits partially inset below slide level. I'm running a Holosun 507C X2 on the RMR plate, and after having a Swampfox Liberty on there before, I definitely prefer the 507C's circle dot. The slide serrations are great from the back or underneath, though the top-side front serrations kind of slide away on you, and I'd personally take slightly more aggressive side stippling.

Reliability talk: these are made in Turkey, Canik triggers are famous in the US for a reason, and they're run as duty guns around the world — and now Century Arms has opened a location down in South Florida near me, which should only grow their footprint here. I own five or six Caniks and I have yet to have a single weapon-caused malfunction across any of them, including two or three thousand rounds through this gun.

The value is stupid. I paid about $400 for mine used at Arsenal Arms down in Homestead; they retail around $799. It's got roughly a Glock 19 footprint, so you could conceal it without it being too bulky, run it as a range toy, or keep it as a duty-style gun. Whatever the job, it's fantastic — just respect that trigger.