SAR USA's New Compact 9mm Pistol: A Surprising Performer

To the best of my knowledge, Shooting Times has not reported on the pistols made by Sarsilmaz and distributed in the United States by SAR USA, so for the uninitiated, the SAR9 9mm semiautomatic pistols are good, rugged guns that function reliably, are comfortable to shoot and carry, and turn in darn good accuracy. In fact, SAR USA says the SAR9 family of pistols is “Born from NATO Standards” and is “Built to Survive.” (I borrowed that phrase for this report’s headline.) The new and updated SAR9 Compact Gen3 pistol offers the kind of reliability you want in a personal-protection pistol at the very affordable MSRP of $509.99.

Sarsilmaz is a Turkish firm, and it has been making guns since 1880. The company began by making sporting shotguns in a small workshop and has grown tremendously. It now builds pistols and shotguns for more than 80 countries in state-of-the-art facilities equipped with CNC machines, robotic cells, and the most modern manufacturing equipment. It is the only privately owned company in Turkey producing guns for law enforcement, military, and civilians.

The New-Generation SAR9C

The first thing I noticed about the new SAR9C Gen3 are the ports in the sides of the slide. There are two on each side. Upon closer inspection, I saw the port on the top of the slide. As most Shooting Times readers know, the purpose of ports such as these is to lighten the weight of the slide, so there is an actual function for them. And many shooters, including myself, think they add some visual appeal, as well.

Also on top of the slide are stylish grooves that extend over the top edges of the sides. On this model, there are five of them, and the two front-most grooves mate with the two side ports and the front slide-grasping grooves that are located under the side ports. I’ve noticed top grasping grooves on just a few other recently introduced pistols, so I have to believe they are becoming a new trend. They, too, have a function, in addition to their visual appeal. They are intended to enhance slide manipulation under stress by giving the user as many areas on the slide to grasp as possible. Of course, the slide also has traditionally located rear grasping grooves. In this case there are six on each side, and they are slanted and nice and wide. Plus, the left-hand side of the slide has six arrow-shaped grooves in the middle.

As long as we’re discussing the SAR9C Gen3’s slide, let’s look at the sights. The front sight has a tritium dot that’s surrounded by a high-visibility ring. I’ve come to really appreciate such easy-to-see front sights as my vision has changed (and not for the better) over the recent years. This type of front sight is big and fast to acquire in a lot of lighting conditions. The rear sight is dovetailed into the top of the slide, and it has a tritium dot on each side of the square notch. The sight’s notch mates nicely with the front sight, with just the right amount of space on each side. Both the front sight and the rear sight are marked MH3, and the sight radius is 5.6 inches.

In addition, the rear of the slide, just ahead of the rear sight, is milled for mounting a red-dot optic. I used a Riton red-dot sight with a 3-MOA dot for my shooting evaluation, and it is shown in the photographs. The SAR9C Gen3’s slide accommodates the mounting of RMSc-footprint optics. By the way, the Riton red-dot optic co-witnessed perfectly with the pistol’s iron sights. The SAR9C Gen3’s barrel is 4.0 inches long, and the muzzle is crowned and recessed. The caliber (9x19) is plainly marked on the right-hand side of the chamber. This striker-fired 9mm pistol utilizes a captive recoil spring and guide rod assembly, and it also has an external extractor.

The pistol’s frame is polymer, and it has comfortable texturing on the front, the back, and the sides. It has shallow finger grooves on the frontstrap, and it has interchangeable backstraps as well as interchangeable side panels. Three sizes of backstraps (small, medium, and large) and three pairs of side panels in three sizes (again, small, medium, and large) come with the pistol. The side panels are marked right or left in addition to the size.

Swapping the side panels and backstraps is easy, and it allows shooters to mix and match sizes in order to get the most personal fit possible. I have medium-size hands, and I used the medium side panels with the small backstrap. Set up that way, the grip circumference measured 5.38 inches. To switch backstraps and side panels, use the included proper-fitting punch to push out the backstrap retaining pin located at the bottom of the grip. Grab the backstrap and pull it back and then down. Slide the grip panels, one at a time, back and off the grip frame. The new side panels and backstrap install easily by reversing the procedure.

To finish out my description of the frame, it has an integral accessory rail with one cross-slot. It also has two textured pads on each side above the trigger guard where the shooter can rest his or her trigger finger when not in action. (The slide takedown is located in between these textured pads.) This pistol does not have a manual thumb safety. It does have a trigger safety, which I’ll get to in a moment, and an internal firing pin block. The slide stop is located in the usual place on the left side of the pistol. The magazine release also is located conventionally, and it can be reversed.

The pistol comes with two 15-round magazines, and the backs have numbered witness holes. The bodies are metal, the removable baseplates are synthetic, and the followers are synthetic. Shooting Times was fortunate in that SAR USA sent two extra magazines with this sample, making a total of four, and I put them to good use during my shooting session. (I’ll get to that later.)

As I mentioned earlier, the SAR9C Gen3 has a trigger safety. It’s the typical type that just about every other striker-fired polymer-frame pistol seems to have these days, except the lever is wide, grooved, and colored a very distinctive red. And when it comes to disassembling the SAR9C Gen3, the trigger does need to be squeezed, so you must be certain the gun is not loaded when it’s time to disassemble it for routine cleaning and periodic maintenance. The procedure is easy to accomplish and goes like this.

Once you have unloaded your pistol (and double-checked to make sure there is not a round in the chamber), remove the magazine. Point the pistol in a safe direction and squeeze the trigger. Push down on the slide takedown, located above the center of the trigger guard. Remove the slide from the frame. Turn the slide over and remove the recoil spring and guide rod assembly. Remove the barrel from the slide. Give your pistol a routine cleaning and assemble it in reverse order.

In addition to the magazines, the SAR9C Gen3 comes with an owner’s manual, a lockable plastic carry case, and a nifty little cleaning kit. And lest I forget, the pistol weighs 26.3 ounces, measures 7.2 inches long, is 1.4 inches wide, and stands 5.1 inches tall. It is finished in matte black.

Shooting Impressions

At the beginning of this report, I said the SAR9 pistols are accurate. In fact, the six 9mm factory loads that I test-fired in the new SAR9C Gen3 pistol averaged 3.17 inches for three, five-shot groups with each load at 25 yards. Notably, two loads averaged 2.50 inches or less, and two loads averaged exactly 3.0 inches. The other two loads averaged 4.0 and 4.25 inches, respectively, and that’s absolutely respectable and falls within the time-honored self-defense standard of 4.25 inches at 25 yards. All those results are listed in the accompanying chart. And I must point out that in every five-shot string, at least two or three rounds were inside 1.5 inches.

Not shown in the chart is what happened in terms of accuracy during my velocity-gathering session. I placed a target stand at a reasonable self-defense distance of 21 feet as an aiming point for shooting over the chronograph, and I fired five rounds of each load to gather the average velocity, the extreme spread, and the standard deviation. All 30 of those rounds landed in essentially the same spot on the target, and the entire 30-shot group measured less than five inches, outside to outside. Granted, most of the loads had 115-grain bullets (four out of the six, to be exact), but still, to have all factory loads tested hit that close to the same point of impact is very satisfying.

For those interested in such details, the SAR9C Gen3’s trigger pull averaged 4.95 pounds, and it ranged from 4.5 to 5.5 pounds, according to my trigger pull gauge. The slide required 21 pounds of pull to rack it, using a jury-rigged gauge. All fired cases ejected up and to the right from about one foot to two feet away from my shooting position. And at 25 yards, all loads hit from one inch high to three or four inches high.

I finished shooting the new SAR9C Gen3 by running several action-shooting drills and am pleased to report that the pistol chugged through a lot of ammunition in a short period time without a single malfunction. I used a UM Tactical holster for that portion of the shootout. It was much fun, and I didn’t want the shooting to end, but as they say all good things must come to an end. The only disappointing thing from that outing is now my supply of 9mm ammo is running desperately thin!

SAR9 COMPACT GEN3 SPECS

• MANUFACTURER: Sarsilmaz, sarusa.com
• TYPE: Striker-fired autoloader
• CALIBER: 9mm Luger
• MAGAZINE CAPACITY: 15 rounds
• BARREL: 4.0 in.
• OVERALL LENGTH: 7.2 in.
• WIDTH: 1.4 in.
• HEIGHT: 5.1 in.
• WEIGHT, EMPTY: 26.3 oz.
• GRIPS: Integral to polymer frame
• FINISH: Matte black
• SIGHTS: Three-dot night sights, front sight has high-­visibility outer ring, RMSc slide optic cut
• TRIGGER: 4.95-lb. pull (as tested)
• SAFETY: Trigger lever safety, firing pin block
• MSRP: $509.99