During the last decade, the folks at Canik have dedicated themselves to offering a fully developed line of pistols and have been steadily releasing a variety of new models that have just been getting better and better with each release. With enhanced feature sets, the latest models from Canik are on par with the very best models from other manufacturers and often weigh in at a more competitive price. The latest introduction from Canik is the new METE MC9 Prime and it could well be the peak-pistol experience for the serious concealed carrier.
Introducing the MC9 Prime
The new MC9 Prime comes hot on the heels of Canik’s first micro-compact, the MC9 and, more recently, the MC9LS which is essentially the same pistol but with a taller frame and longer slide and barrel. Canik is doubling down on its micro-compact form factor by integrating even more serious tactical and competitive features into the mix for a serious carry piece that deserves the attention of serious shooters.
Starting from the beginning, the MC9 Prime is a 9mm striker-fired, polymer-framed pistol that falls into the micro-compact category for its very slender profile. Of course, the lines are blurred a bit since the frame is tall enough to accommodate a 17-round magazine, but we’ll stick with that category for now. Taking down the MC9 is quite similar to a Glock-style pistol where you have to depress the tabs on the slide to remove the frame. However, you don’t slide the slide completely off as you would a Glock. You just shift it forward a bit after pulling the trigger (after making sure it’s unloaded) and then simply lift the slide off the frame.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
Check out the Rotten Gun Reviews here.
Everything But The Kitchen Sink
Before even getting it out to the range, there’s a lot to like about the new MC9 Prime just from a feature standpoint—and the list is long for a pistol of this size. Up top, the Prime includes substantial front and rear cocking serrations on the slide for an extra-sure grasp for easy manipulation. Also residing on the slide is a set of top-shelf Night Fision sights with a high-visibility orange front sight with a tritium insert as well as two tritium inserts in the serrated rear sight. The slide itself is beveled nicely on the top edges to facilitate easier re-holstering, and it’s flared slightly at the rear for a better grip for shooters that like to cycle from the rear.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
Moving down to the polymer frame, southpaws can breathe easy with generously sized, ambidextrous slide-stop levers as well as a reversible magazine release that’s textured with vertical serrations for positive activation. The frame also features an enlarged trigger guard that includes texturing on the front and a re-designed double undercut for a higher and more comfortable grip on the MC9. Borrowing from the Rival series, the MC9 Prime also showcases the flat-faced, aluminum diamond-cut trigger with a 90-degree break for a cleaner and richer trigger experience, but more on that later.
MC9 Prime Frame & Grip
The polymer frame itself includes a new texturing pattern on the grip that strikes an almost perfect balance between being aggressive enough for control but still comfortable in the hand and against the body during carry. Additionally, the texturing covers a higher percentage of the grip than previous pistols for almost complete wrap-around coverage. Included for use with the frame are three interchangeable backstraps to adjust the fit for the end user.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
The grip also includes a slightly flared integral magazine well to speed up reloads, and the MC9 package comes with an external aluminum magazine well that can be attached for an even better reloading experience. Rounding out the frame is a full-length dust cover that includes a Picatinny rail for mounting your preferred light or other accessory such as a laser.
Barrel, Slide & Optic Cut
But perhaps the pièce de résistance of the MC9 Prime’s configuration is revealed when you take a closer look at both the barrel and slide. The barrel is ported in three spots to vent gases and help mitigate muzzle flip, and the slide is “comped” in the same areas to allow those gases to escape. On top of that, the slide features additional detailing with lightening cuts on the sides and on top to both reduce reciprocating mass and for a bit of extra style and visual appeal. For even more appeal, the barrel sports four-sided fluting and extra serrations at the chamber area.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
If all of that isn’t enough, the MC9 Prime offers an optic cut on the slide for directly mounting any red dot with a RMSc footprint without the need for an adapter plate. Other functional touches include a cocked-striker indicator and a loaded-chamber indicator. All in all, the new MC9 Prime is a feature-packed pistol for its MSRP of $650. Having shot several Canik pistols in the last few years, I had high expectations for the Prime and I was chomping at the bit to get it out to the range.
A Prime Experience
I have to say, just right out of the gate, that I’ve had a great time with the MC9 Prime so far. It’s been a while since I’ve had as much fun with a review and the last few trips to the range with the MC9 Prime have been a blast on all fronts. The pistol is feature rich but it also delivers in design execution and just about every aspect of its performance. That’s not to say the Prime is perfect. No pistol is ever perfect. There’s a couple of very nitpicky things that could potentially be changed, but I can absolutely work with it as it comes out of the box right now.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
The first thing that really impressed me was the pistol’s accuracy when I sat down to test it from the bench at 7 yards. We generally test at that distance for pistols with barrels less than fourinches. While I’m not a huge fan of red dots on micro-compacts because of their intended role, a red dot certainly does make it easier to consistently get a more precise point of aim for shooting groups. I threw on a basic RMSc red dot, got it zeroed and then got to work. Let me tell you, the accuracy was fantastic and I got some of the best results that I’ve gotten in a very long time.
Favorite Loads
I tried some of my favorite carry loads and I also experimented with a couple of new loads that I’ve been wanting to try out. To say the MC9 Prime did a good job in this area would be quite theunderstatement. It consistently shot sub-one-inch groups with the three main loads I initially tested. The average group size for all five-shot groups was just .779 inches. Hornady’s 115-grain Critical Defense load had the best three-group average of .58 inches and it also had the single best group of just .49 inches–at 7 yards.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
Going The Distance
After seeing how well the pistol performed, I felt like I might have been selling it short with the 7-yard testing, so I went ahead and moved it out to 15 yards to try out some ammo from Wilson Combat. It was the Company’s 115-grain Bill Wilson Signature Match HAP (Hornady Action Pistol) jacketed hollow-point load that was designed for exceptional accuracy—guaranteed for less than .5 inches at 25 yards with a fixed-barrel testing device.
Well, I didn’t have one of those, but even so, I got a single best group of .44 inches—better than the prize group at 7 yards with the other ammo. Near as I can tell, four shots went into one hole.The average for three, five-shot groups was only .63 inches. That’s great for a 15-yard test!While I was at the range during the accuracy testing, I met a guy named Larry who I let try out the MC9 Prime. When I shot that best group of .44 inches with the Wilson load, I told him I might have to get him to fill out an affidavit as having witnessed me shoot that group. Suffice to say, the ammo delivered on its promise as did the MC9 Prime.
Praise The Trigger
At least part of what made the MC9 so easy to shoot accurately is the excellent trigger. On my digital gauge, the break measured right at an average of 4.38 pounds. But honestly, it felt lighter than that because of the wider face of the textured trigger that offered a little more surface area to distribute the pressure. Combined with the trigger geometry of the 90-degree break, the MC9 offers up a very pleasant pull and a sweet break for a striker-fired pistol. The only thing I didn’t like about the trigger pull was what I considered to be just a bit too much pre-travel. It’s a little bit of a longer throw, but still, the pre-travel was very clean and smooth.
Even more impressive was the trigger reset. It’s extremely short and provides an almost-immediate tactical and audible response with just the slightest forward movement of the trigger. While it’s not going to be a thing you pay attention to during stress shooting, a fast reset is something you definitely want on your side. It’s working behind the scenes without you really noticing to get your next follow-up shot delivered on an expedited basis. That’s especially important for a pistol with minimal muzzle flip that’s capable of yielding better splits than normal. The MC9 has a very synergistic blend of attributes that makes it a very flat- and fast-shooting pistol.
Overall
As for the overall shooting experience, there’s no tool or gauge to accurately measure muzzle flip or compare one comped pistol against another of similar size. It’s a subjective experience. The MC9 Prime falls into the same realm as the P365 Macro Comp and Hellcat Pro Comp with regard to the amount of muzzle flip and felt recoil. I had an O.G. MC9 with me during one range session for a direct comparison and it seemed like the ported barrel and comped slide on the MC9 Prime did help mitigate muzzle flip a bit. However, it came at the cost of a good bit more noise and a slight velocity loss.
For me, the one feature that helped more with controlling recoil was the excellent, full-coverage grip texturing. I definitely like the texturing of the MC9 Prime more than just about any other micro-compact on the market I’ve tried—and I’ve tried just about all of them. It feels a little similar to the Hellcat’s Adaptive Grip Texturing but it’s just more pronounced. It’s very grippy without being overly abrasive and it provides excellent control against the pistol torquing in the hand.
MC9 Prime’s Reliability
And as satisfied as I was by the Prime’s accuracy with the various loads, that’s not my most critical consideration when it comes to a defensive pistol. A quarter-inch here or a half-inch there probably isn’t going to make that big of a difference. For me, the critical factor is reliability and the MC9 Prime didn’t let me down. Over four different range sessions so far, I and a couple of other folks have put right at 900 rounds through the pistol with just one malfunction.
Another shooter had one round of Remington 147-grain Golden Saber Bonded that failed to feed completely. The slide had to be retracted so the magazine could be extracted, allowing the round to drop free. The issue never repeated so I don’t know if it was just an out-of-spec round, if the shooter was limp-wristing the pistol, or if there was some other unknown cause. This happenedearly on with the third full magazine, so it could have just been a break-in issue, but I don’t think that was the case.
I kept track of every ammo type we put through it and it’s a pretty extensive list. So far, we’ve tried four different types of range rounds including TMJs and FMJs. My favorite of these is Federal’s 124-grain Training Match rounds that replicates the recoil and point of impact of the company’s HST load that I like so much. Aside from the range loads, we also shot 11 different types of hollow-points and copper, monolithic rounds like those from Lehigh Defense. Wide-mouth hollow-points, flex-tip hollow-points, heavy loads, light loads, it just didn’t matter. Other than the one Golden Saber round, everything else fed flawlessly.
Parting Shots
When it comes down to it, the new Canik MC9 Prime has a lot going for it with regard to both features and performance. It is action-packed with all the bells and whistles. In fact, it even offers a couple of things most other micro-compacts don’t such as a reversible magazine release and ambi slide stop levers. Besides that, it absolutely has just about the best trigger pull of any micro-compact on the market. That’s pretty impressive when you consider that the MSRP is $650 which is less than its closest competitors like the Sig P365 Macro Comp and the Hellcat Pro Comp OSP.
I still haven’t decided whether I’m keeping the external magazine well on it since it almost pushes my hand up too much on the frame. I’ll just have to try it a few times with and without to see what I like best. The optional mag well also adds a touch of extra width to the package that might not be ideal for carrying concealed. The only real issue I have with the MC9 Prime, other than the trigger pre-travel I mentioned, is the barrel length.
The X-Factor
I’m not a huge fan of these X-Factor type pistols with the taller frames and shorter barrels. If you’re going to make a pistol small, then make it small. The grip frame is generally the hardest part to conceal with the barrel being the easiest part. So, if I’m getting a taller frame, then just go ahead and give me a longer barrel for the extra velocity and longer sight radius. The only advantage of having a 3.64-inch barrel instead of 4 inches is really just a bit of weight savings.
With that said, the Canik MC9 Prime is still a fantastic pistol after my nitpicking is put to the side. It’s packed with every feature you could want. It’s easy to shoot, very reliable and the one I tried was superbly accurate. As a bonus, it comes in a very nice hard case that includes a holster from G-Code, a little tool kit, a punch and the extra backstraps. With all of that, it still comes in at a very competitive price. If you’re in the market for a micro-compact-ish pistol that absolutely checks every box, you’d be crazy not to give the Canik MC9 Prime a try!
SPECIFICATIONS: Canik METE MC9 Prime
- Caliber: 9mm
- Barrel: 3.64 inches
- OA Length: 6.73 inches
- Width: 1.16 inches
- Weight: 23.38 ounces
- Grips: Polymer
- Sights: Night Fision Tritium
- Action: Striker-Fired
- Finish: Nitride
- Magazine Capacity: 17+1
- MSRP: $649.99
WHY OUR ARTICLES/REVIEWS DO NOT HAVE AFFILIATE LINKS
Affiliate links create a financial incentive for writers to promote certain products, which can lead to biased recommendations. This blurs the line between genuine advice and marketing, reducing trust in the content.
