TISAS' New PX-9 2.0 Duty Comp Pistol Review

First impressions are persuasive, and the Tisas pistol featured here gives a very good one. Unlike a Glock, which must be handled and worked and tested hard before it feels like home in one’s fist, the Tisas PX-9 2.0 Duty Comp (distributed by SDS Arms) inspires love at first grasp for most shooters. Including me. I palmed it, pointed it, and against my will, liked it.

The world is awash with plastic pistols, and I confess to being a bit jaded with the type. On the plus side, the competitive pistol scene has caused manufacturers to push boundaries and innovate. The most recent polymer-frame, high-capacity pistols coming off the various assembly lines offer some compelling features.

Do those features make them better than the proverbial Glock that began it all? My impulse is to scoff, “Heavens, no!” But let’s explore the possibility, using the new PX-9 Duty Comp by Tisas USA, which is one of the more cutting-edge of the type.

The Nitty Gritty

Tisas pistols are made in Turkey. Like Belgium a century ago, the country of Turkey currently produces a vast share of the reasonably priced, relatively nice firearms being sold in America. Many—even most—are shotguns (Turkey is one of the few countries left with plentiful high-grade walnut suitable for gunstocks). As this PX-9 Duty Comp proves, Turkey builds a nice pistol, too.

Fundamentally the PX-9 Duty Comp is a pretty typical high-capacity, polymer-frame 9mm pistol. It has a rail on the dustcover beneath the barrel for a light, a removeable plate over an RMR red dot-compatible cut in the slide, and a flat-faced trigger that’s anodized a sporty blue. As the model’s name suggests, it has a compensated muzzle with an accompanying port in the top of the slide. This reduces muzzle jump and recoil, making it easier for shooters to get back on target quickly and make fast follow-up shots.

For the tactical-minded among us, it’s worth noting that at night a compensated muzzle directs a massively bright flash of burning propellant directly up and across the shooter’s vision, which temporarily diminishes one’s ability to see boogeymen in dark corners. Just something to keep in mind if you enjoy investigating bumps in the night in your colonial mansion. But I digress.

PX-9 Breakdown

Fundamentally, the PX-9 Duty Comp is boring. That is, if you don’t dig a little deeper. Look past those oh-so-common characteristics listed above, and you’ll learn that Tisas gifted this combat-geared sidearm a match-grade barrel. Now, this doesn’t mean that the PX-9 Duty Comp will shoot bug-size groups at 50 yards, but it’s a good indication that the pistol will shoot at least reasonably well.

That match-grade barrel is paired with an aluminum flat-faced trigger. Tisas gave this go-switch a crisp, industrial look; a decent reset; and minimal overtravel. The feel is a bit spongy, but pull weight on my sample is nice and low. The trigger is spec’d at 4 pounds by the manufacturer, and it actually measured a tad less at 3 pounds, 9 ounces on my trigger gauge.

While PX-9 Duty Comp pistols may be ordered with an optional thumb safety, the only safety present on the test pistol is a pivoting center lever housed in the trigger shoe. It’s of the popular style that’s become the benchmark for striker-fired pistols, but it features an evolution in shape and styling. The inner lever is broad and finely checkered rather than narrow and sharp-edged. It looks intentional and refined. I quite like it.

Mechanically, the PX-9 Duty Comp is a tilting-breech autoloader. It’s a proven, reliable system that’s employed in most of its ilk. The extractor is external; the ejector is fixed. When a cartridge is in the chamber, an indicator protrudes from the top of the slide right behind the barrel hood. It’s visible and tactile, so you can tell with a quick touch whether or not your pistol is loaded. Additionally, the rear of the red-coated striker protrudes from the back of the slide when the pistol is cocked, providing an easy visual to confirm that it’s loaded.

As with most modern pistols that feature reliability-enhancing design elements, the PX-9 Duty Comp has a big, wide ejection port that’s machined nice and low on the right side. This should greatly reduce the potential for a fired case getting hung up inside the pistol during ejection.

Other nice features of the steel slide are deep, broad grooves, which make it easy to grasp and rack; a dehorning-type treatment to all the edges that renders them easy on your hands and the silk lining of your favorite sport coat, and the aforementioned cut for a red-dot optic. Tisas chose to machine the cut for Trijicon’s popular and proven RMR optic base, which is now widely used by many red-dot manufacturers.

The pistol’s sights are made of steel and are simple but capable. The front features a big white dot, making it instantly and obviously visible. That’s important. As the old saying goes, “In a fight, front sight,” and it’s still not wrong. The rear sight features antiglare grooves and a square-bottom notch. It has a minimal but usable “cock on curb” ledge integrated for those times when you need to rack the slide one-handed by hooking the sight on your belt, a steering wheel, or yes, the curb.

TISAS Ergonomics

Now we come to the PX-9 Duty Comp pistol’s frame, which is the element that provides that love at first grasp characteristic. As mentioned, it has a rail up front. It also has stippled texturing just about everywhere that the Turks could squeeze it on—the front of the trigger guard, in front of the slide lock, and 360 degrees around the grip itself. I confess I’m a fan. Combined with the single finger groove where the middle finger wraps around below the deeply undercut trigger guard, that stippling makes for a very secure grip. This is one pistol you’ll hang on to even with wet hands.

The rear of the grip is undercut high beneath the rear of the slide, enabling a high, recoil-controlling grasp. A modest but effective beavertail is molded into the top rear of the grip to protect the web of the shooter’s hand from slide bite.

Tisas makes a big thing of the fact that the PX-9 Duty Comp comes with interchangeable grip panels and backstrap inserts. The combination enables an eye-bulging 27 different configurations, apparently. This does enable the end user to shape the pistol exactly the way they want. I, however, like the grip exactly as it came from the factory. Love at first grasp, remember?

Company literature suggests the PX-9 Duty Comp is intended for personal protection, duty, and competition shooting. I think it’s actually very nicely suited for crossover work between the three disciplines. To aid on the competitive side, each pistol comes with a removable extended aluminum magwell that serves to funnel magazines in during fast, eyes-free reloads. It’s well-profiled and effective but a bit too bulky for everyday carry. I opted to leave it off for my shooting sessions.

An included option that I likely will employ—at least on occasion—during daily carry is the 20-round magazine. It protrudes about a half-inch more than the included 18-round magazine but is sleek and unobtrusive.

The fire controls are located in the typical places, and the slide stop is ambidextrous.

The Down and Dirty

Now we come to the time when I have to say some mean things about this otherwise lovely pistol. The mag release button has a catastrophic flaw. It sticks out so far that anytime you lay the pistol on its left side, you risk ejecting the magazine. Imagine being a gambler in an Old West saloon. Things get tense, and you thump your PX-9 Duty Comp down on the table in front of you to emphasize your willingness to stand for justice, but the magazine ejects and spills out the bottom of the grip, knocking your carefully placed card deck all over the table. Not good for personal morale, my friends.

Okay, okay. There’s a bit more to it than that. The too-tall mag release was conceived to aid in fast magazine changes and give the shooter a competitive edge. Upon closer examination of the contents of the factory box, I found a little plastic bag containing a tiny screw and two mag release button caps. One was thinner than that which came installed on the pistol; the other was thicker. So I replaced the medium-thickness one with the thinnest, and rechecked the pistol’s table-top ejection habit. It was less laughable but still occurred every time I plunked the pistol down on its left side. The only way the PX-9 Duty Comp didn’t eject the magazine when set on its left side was without any mag button cap. I assumed that the top of the cap-less button would have a finished appearance so as to be used without any extension if desired, but I was wrong. It looks like a part without an end cap.

Before moving on to reliability and accuracy results, it is worth noting that internal parts are NATO Spec (whatever that is) nickel-coated against corrosion. Outside, the barrel and slide feature a durable, corrosion- and wear-resistant QPQ finish. QPQ stands for quench-polish-quench, which is a surface treatment involving a nitrocarburizing process followed by polishing and an oxidation treatment. The result is smooth, hard, and naturally lubricious with excellent antiwear properties.

Shooting Impressions

Dredging up a stack of 9mm factory ammo with a range of bullet weights and types, I headed for the local range. After posting targets at 25 yards, I rested the PX-9 Duty Comp on my sandbag and got to firing groups. Each type of ammo was tested with three consecutive five-shot groups, which were measured and then averaged. My first reaction was—again—how comfortable the pistol is to palm and aim. My second impression came after a few warmup rounds downrange: The trigger is too spongy for fine shooting.

Doing my best with the trigger and squinting away with middle-aged eyes, I pressed on, firing through five different ammo types. When the dust settled, top accuracy honors went to Browning’s 147-grain Performance Target ammo, which averaged a whisker under 2.0 inches at 25 yards. Not the itty-bitty clusters that I’m used to when firing a Model 1911 fitted with a match-grade trigger, but then, the PX-9 Duty Comp does not have the 1911’s crisp, clean trigger. The other four ammo types all averaged between 2.0- and 3.0-inch groups at 25 yards. That’s certainly minute-of-deadly-threat.

Midway through my testing one fired case hung up while ejecting. It jammed between the top of the barrel hood and the loaded-chamber indicator in the breechface. Aside from that, the Tisas pistol ran very well. Of all the various facets of performance, the one that kept blowing my socks off was the excellent ergonomics of the PX-9 Duty Comp. Accuracy, reliability, and durability are all crucial, but when those characteristics are paired with a love-at-first-grasp feel, balance, and pointability, the result is just awesome.

Will I trade in my trusty old Glock for a new PX-9 Duty Comp? No. It has served too long and proved itself too many times to be relegated to “obsolete” status. Nope, I’ll just own both! And so should you. 

PX-9 2.0 DUTY COMP SPECS

• MANUFACTURER: Tisas USA, www.sdsarms.com
• TYPE: Striker-fired autoloader
• CALIBER: 9mm Luger
• MAGAZINE CAPACITY: 18 and 20 rounds
• BARREL: 4.11 in.
• OVERALL LENGTH: 7.27 in.
• HEIGHT: 5.76 in.
• WEIGHT, UNLOADED: 28 oz.
• FINISH: Black QPQ
• SIGHTS: Windage-adjustable square-notch rear, white-dot front; slide is optic ready
• TRIGGER: 3.56-lb. pull (as tested)
• MSRP: $522.99