CANiK'S New MC9L and MC9 PRIME Pistols

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CANiK USA is a partner with both Century Arms and CANiK Arms in Turkey. CANiK Arms is a division of Samsun Yurt Savunma Sanayi (SYS), one of Turkey’s biggest defense contractors. Their original TP-9 is what got them traction in America, and was the reason for their success here—it has decent ergonomics, a good trigger, was very reliable, and surprisingly inexpensive. It was the base gun for the CANiK TTI Combat, which set sales records when it was introduced at the 2024 SHOT Show.

However, the TP-9 is a full-size gun, and even if you cut down the slide and frame it is still thick, and “carry guns” are what currently drive the American market. So, in 2023 CANiK introduced their Mete MC9, a micro-compact 9mm which uses the same TP9 magazines but has a much slimmer frame and slide. It has seen perhaps even more success than their larger guns, and they now offer multiple variants.

The original Mete MC9 paired a 3.18-inch barrel with flush magazines that held 12 rounds. The MC9L increased the length of the grip so that flush magazines held 17 rounds. The MC9LS paired the L frame with a longer 3.64-inch barrel. And now the newest iteration of the MC9 is the Mete MC9 Prime, which is a 1. A very tricked out and fancy version of the MC9LS that is also 2. The first and only Mete MC9 made in the U.S.—at CANiK USA’s facility in West Palm Beach, Florida.

For this article, I wanted to compare the basic Mete MC9L with the brand-new MC9 Prime which, like the CANiK TTI Combat the year before, was perhaps the most talked-about pistol at SHOT Show.

Mete MC9L

This is a polymer-framed striker-fired 9mm. It sports the original 3.18-inch barrel of the MC9, but the height has increased from 4.52 inches to 5.43 inches as flush magazine capacity was increased from 12 to 17.

This micro-compact to not-so-micro evolutionary arc is the same one we’ve seen a dozen times in the past decade, and it happens for a reason. Micro-compact pistols (CANiK MC9, SIG P365, Taurus GX4, etc.) are easy to carry and conceal, but if you actually take them to the range, you’ll find they’re not that pleasant to shoot. The biggest issue is the short grip. Lengthening the grip so that you can get your entire hand on it so drastically improves the shooting experience that Most people don’t mind that the longer grip is a bit harder to conceal, and thus, we get the MC9L.

While “mete” (pronounced meet) is an English word which means to dole out or give out by measure, this Turkish-built pistol is the Mete. Mete is a Turkish name, pronounced meh-tay, which means brave, hero, or valiant.

The Mete MC9L is available in black, FDE, or two-tone with a black slide over an FDE frame. It is 6.27-inches long, 5.43-inches tall, 1.18-inches wide, and 22.2 ounces with an empty magazine in place. Let me point out that every Mete MC9 pistol is sold as a package, and when you buy the MC9L you get the pistol, two 17-round magazines, a magazine loader, three backstraps, an IWB holster, a cleaning rod, and a disassembly tool, all in foam cutouts inside a lockable hard case.

At the rear of the chamber, you’ll see a pivoting loaded chamber indicator. The slide of the MC9L isn’t that wide, so the slide serrations aren’t very deep, but they are plentiful and wide-bottomed, which tends to give them a little more grip, and you won’t have problems working the slide against the dual recoil spring setup.

Sights on the MC9L are steel and dovetailed into place. The front sight has a sizable white dot, and the rear is plain black and serrated. The slide is optics ready, and cut for mounting of optics which use the Shield RMSc footprint. CANiK USA does sell the MC9L with a factory-mounted optic as a package, their MECANIK M01 red dot. The slide cover is steel if you choose to run the iron sights.

When the striker is cocked, the back end of the stainless-steel striker, with a red dot, is visible at the rear of the slide. Trigger pull on this pistol is excellent, which is one of the reasons why CANiK pistols have been so popular. After a long take-up, trigger pull on our sample was a relatively crisp 4.5-lbs—very shootable. The short reset was a very nice added bonus. The trigger itself is polymer with a curved stepped face and a red pivoting safety lever in the front.

The slide release is bilateral, long extended steel levers, and both levers work to release the slide. The magazine release is a steel rectangular button, horizontally serrated. It is reversible, but it takes a bit of work and probably a pair of needle-nose pliers to pop the spring in and out. At the front of the frame is a three-slot MIL STD M1913 “Picatinny” rail for mounting a light if you wish.

The textured sections on the grip are more aggressive than they look. While there’s nothing wrong with them, I do wish the texturing was more aggressive, and there wasn’t so much smooth non-textured area on the grip. The magazine well opening in the frame is nicely beveled. The magazines are steel with numbered index holes on the back and polymer base pads. Overall, the MC9L provides solid looks and features—nothing fancy, just everything you need and nothing you don’t in a pistol sized right for concealed carry.

MC9 Prime

The CANiK Mete MC9 Prime is basically the MC9LS maximized to its fullest potential in looks and performance. This pistol is a product of CANiK USA, and it is the first and only MC9 manufactured in America. It sports a ported barrel, aluminum magazine well, improved trigger/trigger pull, improved grip texturing, improved slide serrations, and upgraded sights, among other things. It was designed after several years of consumer feedback and recommendations. There are two versions, the standard version as seen here, and one which comes from the factory with CANiK’s new MECANIK M04 enclosed red dot optic, which isn’t yet available as I write this.

The height/grip length/capacity on the Prime is the same as with the MC9L, but the barrel has been stretched from 3.18 to 3.64 inches. Overall, the pistol is 6.73-inches long, 5.43-inches tall, 1.18-inches wide, and 23.5-ounces with an empty magazine in place.

The barrel has four flats machined into it. They reduce weight, but also add looks and character. Those flats do not extend all the way to the muzzle, though. The last 0.8 of-an-inch or so of barrel is left round, and three small oval ports are cut into it, at 10:30, 12, and 1:30. The front sight is moved back a little over half an inch on the slide to make room for the vent holes for those ports. Atop the slide, behind the front sight, is a rectangular cutout which reveals the top flat of the barrel, on which is etched PRIME, the word visible when the slide is forward. There are also cutouts on the front of the slide which reveal a bit of the barrel, and give the pistol even more character.

Compared to the MC9LS the Prime has more slide serrations and they are more aggressive, cut deeper into the slide. The side of the barrel’s chamber sports some decorative cuts designed to mimic the slide serrations.

The sights on the Prime are a distinct improvement as well. The Prime is equipped with steel-bodied Night Fision day/night sights. The dovetailed front sight has a tritium insert around which you’ll see a bright orange circle—between the two the sight is visible in any light. The rear sight is serrated and has tritium inserts to either side of a standard notch. The slide is again cut for direct mounting of optics which use the Shield RMSc footprint.

Just like the MC9L, the Prime ships out as a package—you get the pistol, two 17-round magazines and a magazine loader, three backstraps, the removable aluminum magazine well, a polymer G-Code IWB/OWB holster (with belt clip and paddle), adjustment tool, trigger lock, and cleaning rod, all of which fit into foam cutouts inside a very nice Pelican-style lockable case.

While the trigger pull on the MC9L is good, it’s better on the Prime. Not only is it a hair lighter, and crisper, the trigger itself is superior. The trigger has a black aluminum body, is wide, and has a flat face. The pivoting safety lever is nearly the width of the trigger and has aggressive diamond texturing to keep your fingertip in place. The lever is gold anodized, and the trigger breaks right at 90-degrees. Reset on this trigger is exceptional—it’s advertised as only being 1.3mm, and that’s no lie.

The interesting thing is even though the barrel on the Prime is half an inch longer than that of the MC9L, the frame rail is exactly the same length. That’s because the trigger guard on the Prime is longer—rectangular, as opposed to the nearly-square model on the MC9L. This improved trigger guard was first seen in CANiK’s Mete SF. Also seen in that gun, and brought over to the Prime, is the integral flared magazine well. The polymer frame is nicely flared and beveled to speed/smooth reloading even before you add in the removable aluminum magazine well.

The Prime’s frame is very aggressively textured everywhere you might be touching it. The texturing on the sides of the frame goes up all the way to the top, with no gaps. The texturing on the backstrap and the front of the gun is more aggressive than on the sides to help lock your hand in place. There are small textured pads on either side of the frame above the front of the trigger guard, for the thumb of your support hand, and the front of the trigger guard is textured as well.

The backstrap installed on the pistol, as shipped, is a bit more arched, and there is a threaded hole at the base of it—the aluminum mag well slides onto the frame, and then a screw goes up through the mag well into the backstrap, securing it in place. A second backstrap is the same length and works the same way with the mag well, but it is not as arched. The third backstrap is meant to be used if you decide you don’t want the frame equipped with the aluminum magazine well.

At the Range

CANiK pistols, both the MC9s and the larger pistols, have all had better-than-average trigger pulls, which is a big reason for their popularity. A good trigger pull—short, crisp, and light—is a far better choice if you want to increase your speed and accuracy than screwing a red dot atop your pistol, but I digress.

I’m not so old that I’ve stopped learning, and while I knew from my competition days that reduced reciprocating weight equates to reduced felt recoil/muzzle rise, my brain didn’t transfer that from competition over to carry guns. But the huge popularity of the Glock 19X, and then the 43X set off a lightbulb in my brain. These pistols paired shorter slides with full-length grips (like you see with the MC9L). Not only does this allow you to get your whole hand on the gun, but the lighter slide seems to generate less of a recoil impulse. Which is a long way of saying that the MC9L was a lot of fun to shoot, and as a carry gun is very capable.

The big white dot on the front sight is easy to see in various lighting, and because of the full-length grip you can shoot it nearly as well as a full-size gun. Hammering steel and running speed drills on silhouettes was nothing but fun. The MC9L gives you everything you need in a concealable carry gun, including a holster. But…the MC9 Prime truly outclasses it in every way. The Prime looks better, feels better in your hand, and shoots better. Better sights, better trigger pull, the extra grippiness in the grip I just love, the magazine well…plus the look of it. It costs more, but you definitely are getting something for that extra cash. I did a few drills with both pistols, and between the slightly better trigger pull and the reduced muzzle rise from the ports I was 5+% faster with the Prime and about 5% more accurate at that speed.

The ports in the barrel are small and don’t do a lot, but shooting it side-by-side with the MC9L I was able to see a reduction in muzzle rise—although how much depended on the load. Ports/compensators work off pressure. Light bullets travelling fast generate more pressure than heavier slower bullets, and often with ports/comps you’ll find that hot +P ammunition generates no more muzzle rise than standard pressure ammo, because it better activates the comp. At the range, the ports had very little effect when shooting 147-grain subsonic ammo. You could see and feel the ports working, however, when you moved over into lighter/faster bullets, and muzzle rise by reduced by a quarter or a third—50% when shooting the hypervelocity SIM-X DefenseCore. The muzzle will be back down out of recoil before you’re even off the trigger and ready to fire a second shot, but the advantage of a comp/ports is reduced disturbance to your sight picture.

The MC9 Prime is $150 more than the MC9L, and the question is whether or not the improvements to the looks and performance of the MC9L are worth that much to you. $150 is basically the cost of a good set of tritium night sights, so it’s like CANiK is throwing in the rest of the Prime upgrades for free, and, at $699, the Made-in-the-U.S. Prime is basically the price of a box-stock Glock. I think the Prime is worth it, and all of the upgrades and improvements to it make sense and work. I also think that if you buy the very capable MC9L you should take that $200 in savings and spend it on ammo and range fees, as you should be spending far more money on ammo than you do on your gun, if you want to get and stay good. Unfortunately, the people who go for “price point” guns usually don’t do that, but I will continue to preach religion to the heathen masses.

One final note—both pistols pretty much give you everything you need in a carry gun, including a holster. Both pistols were 100% reliable in my testing, which is by far the most important criterion in a carry gun. However, there is one aftermarket accessory you might want to consider if you’re picky enough to want the Prime, or are looking to upgrade your MC9L. That is the brass backstrap for the MC9 L, LS, or Prime from Taylor Freelance (TaylorFreelanceStore.com). Available either in natural brass or black, it is nicely checkered, works with the aluminum magwell on the Prime, and more importantly adds 3.1 ounces of weight to the back end of the gun. That weight really seems to change the handling of the gun and in a very good way, completely eliminating the muzzle heavy feel you get with so many polymer-framed guns.

There are so many capable carry guns on the market that the choices can be overwhelming. The market was already crowded when CANiK jumped in with the 
MC9—so you should understand that its success is a sure sign it’s a stand-out. And the Prime is more than worth the larger price tag.

CANiK METE MC9L PISTOL SPECS

• Type: Striker-fired semi-auto
• Caliber: 9mm
• Capacity: 17+1
• Barrel: 3.18 in.
• Length: 6.27 in.
• Height: 5.43 in. (with magazine inserted)
• Width: 1.18 in.
• Weight: 22.2 oz. (w/Unloaded Magazine)
• Slide: Steel
• Finish: Nitride
• Grip: Polymer
• Sights: Steel, white dot front, serrated notch rear
• Trigger Pull: 4.5-pounds (as tested)
• Safety: Trigger lever, striker drop safety
• Price: $499
• Accessories: Two 17-round magazines, three backstraps, magazine loader, trigger lock, holster, cleaning rod, lockable hard case
• Contact: CanikUSA.com

CANiK METE MC9 PRIME PISTOL SPECS

• Type: Striker-fired semi-auto
• Caliber: 9mm
• Capacity: 17+1
• Barrel: 3.64 in.
• Length: 6.73 in.
• Height: 5.43 in. (with magazine inserted)
• Width: 1.18 in.
• Weight: 23.5 oz. (w/Unloaded Magazine)
• Slide: Steel
• Finish: Nitride
• Grip: Polymer
• Sights: Night Fision day/night sights, orange front w/tritium, plain black w/tritium
• Trigger pull: 4.5-pounds (as tested)
• Safety: Trigger lever, striker drop safety
• Price: $649
• Accessories: Two 17-round magazines, three backstraps, magazine loader, trigger lock, holster, cleaning rod, removable aluminum mag well, lockable hard case

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