When I started IPSC shooting, years ago, a pistol was considered reliable if it only had one malfunction per thousand rounds fired. Today such a track record would be grounds for a return for repairs. But that isn’t all that has been improved, and the new Canik METE Prime is a case in point, because it doesn’t miss a trick.
First up, it is a compact 9 mm striker-fired pistol, with many refinements. The slide is extensively treated to cocking serrations, so regardless of how you latch onto a slide to actuate it, you will find a non-slip surface there. The Prime comes with tritium, three-dot sights and is also machined to accept a red-dot optic. The front dot is ringed with red to distinguish it from the pair in the rear sight. The barrel is ported near the muzzle, with one top and two side ports and the slide is machined to provide venting from the ports. The top of the slide is also slotted, and through it you can see the barrel.
The barrel has an integral feed ramp and locks into the generous ejection port, and the external extractor is more than large enough. On the centerline of the slide, behind the barrel hood, is a loaded chamber indicator. When there is a round in, the chamber indicator is leveraged up—you can feel it with a fingertip.
At the rear of the slide, the assembly plate that retains the slide parts of the firing mechanism has a clearance port. When the Prime is cocked, the rear tip of the striker protrudes just enough to be seen.
For a pistol with a 17-round magazine, the Prime is almost as slender as an old-style single-stack pistol. The frame is wrapped almost completely in a stippling pattern. The grip is also flared at the bottom to act as a speed-reload funnel. For those with hands the right size, the bottom edge locks the frame to your hand when you grasp it. The trigger guard has been shaped where it joins the frame, along with the tang at the rear, to add to this leverage. And, as expected these days, the Prime has an accessory rail on the frame, a place for a light or laser.
The newly shaped slide-stop lever is ambidextrous, existing on both sides of the frame. The magazine release is vertically serrated to also make it a non-slip surface for reloads. There are also stippled pads on either side to index your trigger finger when it is out of the trigger guard.
The 17-round Mec-Gar magazines are double-stack but single-feed (a common design). They are steel-tubed with a polymer basepad that is stippled on its side to permit forceful extraction of an otherwise wedged magazine. The magazines fall free of their own weight when released and they lock the slide back after the last round has been fired.
When I tried the Prime’s trigger, my impression was that a competition trigger had been installed in a carry pistol. I pulled out the gauge. (I usually don’t weigh triggers until after I’ve fired them, just to let the last few ounces of break-in clean it up.) The trigger gauge produced a consistent five pounds, three ounces on the screen. Now, had you made me slap money down on the table, betting on the trigger pull weight from what I had felt, I’d have called it a clean four pounds. The trigger shape has a lot to do with this. The trigger body is wide, and the trigger safety in the center of it is a serrated aluminum paddle, with the front face of it wider than the support on which it pivots. So, your fingertip is spread over a larger surface area when you are pressing the trigger. The serrations also keep your trigger finger from sliding on the trigger face as you press. Finally, the trigger breaks with the face of the trigger right at the 90-degree point, so the force goes directly back, not at some angle to the bore axis. The trigger press is easy: take up the slack and the Prime reaches the compression phase. There, you may or may not feel the slight roll-off of the mechanism at the striker tail. At the end, there is a clean release, as the trigger has a minimal amount of over-travel. A bullseye shooter would probably hate it, but for practical competition and defensive purposes, it has a very clean and repeatable trigger press, and it has an audible and tactile reset.
The compact size does have shortcomings. The barrel, at just over three and a half inches long, is not going to give you full feet-per-second value out of your 9 mm ammunition. The same short length means the sight radius is shorter, but if you opt for a red-dot optic, then sight radius is a meaningless concept.
In testing, the Prime had no malfunctions. Despite the light weight of the gun, the felt recoil was no big deal. The well-shaped, albeit slim, frame distributed recoil, and the shapes that lock your hand in place mean it doesn’t shift in recoil. At $650 for the “basic” pistol and $850 for the Prime with the Canik red-dot optic MeCanik M04 installed, the Prime is one heck of a bargain.
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