Tony Grist
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TISAS has an entire line of Night Stalker pistols. The Night Stalkers have gray finishes with black accents and different/improved sights/features over standard models. I’ve reviewed a Night Stalker 1911 previously, but this is a completely different animal—TISAS’s PX-9 is a modern, polymer-framed striker-fired optics-ready 9mm semi-auto. The PX-9 Duty Night Stalker is set up as a defensive/duty gun but seems like it would be a great choice for a home defense piece, and a fun gun to run at a USPSA or IDPA match. Technically, this is the third generation of PX-9 pistols, and TISAS offers seven different versions of it. The PX-9 is not a new design, and TISAS has been building it for various law enforcement and military agencies around the world for a few years. The PX-9 Duty Night Stalker is a full-size 9mm pistol sporting a 4.11-inch barrel. Overall, it is 7.4-inches long and 5.8-inches tall with a magazine inserted. With an empty flush magazine in place, it weighs 27.8 ounces.
It is fed by SIG P226-pattern magazines, and one flush 18-rounder and one extended 20-rounder come with the pistol. If you’ve never cared for the aggressive grip angle of the Glock, this pistol is for you—the PX-9 has the same grip angle as the SIG P226, which is very close to that of the 1911. I think this magazine choice was a smart move—the P226 magazines are a reliable, combat-proven design that have been around for decades. The standard SIG P226 flush magazine holds 15-rounds, and those will work in this pistol (and are available everywhere), but companies have been making flush 18-rounders for years. I use Mec-Gar 18-rounders in my P226, and the magazines provided with the PX-9 come from Check-Mate, another proven aftermarket magazine company. Before I move away from the magazines, let me point out that while the mag well in the frame is nicely beveled, the PX-9 Night Stalker comes with an optional oversize magazine well. It is polymer, slides into place, and is secured with one screw. It is designed to be a “carry” mag well, not protruding any further than the bottom of the 18-round magazine, only adding about half an inch of width while seriously enlarging the magazine well opening.
Gray finish aside, in looks this pistol seems to be the love child of an illicit breeding experiment between a Springfield Amory XD-M, Smith & Wesson M&P, and a Glock 17. It appears very familiar, while not looking exactly like any pistol you know. The slide has a flat top and clean lines, with aggressive flat-bottomed serrations forward and back. Various PX-9 models have different sights—the Night Stalker has excellent all-steel tactical day/night sights. The front sight is a HiViz unit with a very visible orange ring around a tritium insert for use in all lighting conditions. The rear sight is plain black and aggressively serrated. The rear sight also has a ledge at the front, so you can rack the pistol one-handed if necessary. Forward of the rear sight you’ll see an aluminum plate given the same “Night Stalker gray” Cerakote as the rest of the gun. Remove the plate and you’ll see the slide is cut to accept optics using the Trijicon RMR footprint. I used a Trijicon SRO in testing, which has the same footprint as the RMR, but with a bigger window, and the slide cutout was perfect—the SRO fit in there tightly with no gap front or back. You will be able to use your sights through the RMR’s window, but just barely, as only the top third of your front sight is visible.
Inside the slide you’ll see the standard tilting barrel with an integral ramp. The PX-9, like so many 9mms these days, is equipped with a dual spring recoil system. This seems to be all the rage these days, sticking overly beefy recoil systems into 9mms like they’re chambered in 10mm, but those dual springs should last forever. The pivoting extractor is meant to work as a loaded chamber indicator. Also inside the slide is a striker block drop safety. When the striker is cocked, you can see the tip of it at the rear of the slide. It has a red dot painted on it. When the striker is forward, neither it nor the dot are visible. Per TISAS, this is a single-action striker-fired gun—the striker is fully cocked with the slide at rest. This results in a very nice trigger pull, about as short, light, and crisp as striker-fired guns get. I headed to the range and put rounds downrange before I had a chance to measure the trigger pull, which just seemed to get better with use. When I finally measured it, the pull came in at a crisp, smooth 3¾ pounds. Total trigger travel is about the length of just the take-up on the average Glock trigger. The trigger itself is steel, with a wide flat face and the standard pivoting safety lever in the center, colored red. The trigger breaks close to ninety degrees, helping you stay on target.
Against the gray Night Stalker finish you’ve got black accents. The trigger, takedown lever, slide stop, magazine release, magazine well, and all the pins are black, for a nice color contrast. The trigger, slide stop, takedown lever, and magazine release are all steel. The magazine release is reversible for left-handers. The rail on the pistol is a standard MIL SPEC 1913 “Picatinny” rail with four slots, big enough to fit just about any weapon light. The serial number is etched into a steel plate set into the center of the rail. Unlike most competing pistols, the PX-9 doesn’t just have interchangeable backstraps but also interchangeable side panels. TISAS provides three different size backstraps and side panels, and you can mix and match (a small left panel with a large right panel and a medium backstrap, for example) for a total 27 different grip variations. Removing one pin allows you to slide the backstrap off (down), and once that’s out the grip panels slide to the rear. The large size panels and backstrap do add meat under your hand.
TISAS provides a punch to remove that pin, and this seems a good time to point out all the extras you get with this gun. With the pistol you get a trigger lock, magazine loader, bore brush, cleaning rod, push pin, one 18- and one 20-round magazine, magazine well, three sets of backstraps and grip panels, and owner’s manual, all in foam cutouts inside a lockable case. The cutout for the pistol is even relieved for an optic. However, the most interesting thing about the accessory package was the minimalistic IWB holster provided with the pistol. The polymer holster covered the trigger guard and most of the frame rail up to the bottom of the slide, but that’s it. It has a steel belt loop that is adjustable for cant, so this holster would work as a standard IWB rig or for appendix carry. The holster clamps onto the trigger guard with just the right amount of tightness. It is just this kind of added value in accessories that I wish more gun companies provided with their pistols.
The texturing on this pistol is less aggressive than some. There is texturing on the front of the trigger guard, on the frame above the front of the trigger guard (for the thumb of your support hand), on the front strap, the grip panels, and the backstrap. There is also a single finger groove on the frame just under the trigger guard. The pistol didn’t move in my hand while shooting. That said, I do have a slightly picky complaint—the X-pattern on the back of the gun puts a lot of smooth plastic under the heel of my hand, right where texturing would do the most good. Most people won’t shoot enough, or be good enough, to even know if this slick spot causes them problems, but that’s really my only nitpick with this pistol—other-wise it is quite impressive. More impressive than I was expecting before I opened the case, considering the $379.99 MSRP of this gun.
TISAS is an acronym and thus properly capitalized. TISAS stands for Trabzon Silah Sanayi AŞ, and was founded in 1993 in Trabzon, Turkey. Trabzon is on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, and this area is home to a lot of small and medium manufacturing. I’ve been there, visiting another firearms manufacturer (Sarsilmaz). These companies are all using top-of-the-line 3-, 4-, and 5-axis CNC machines, no different than firearms manufacturers anywhere else in the world—CNC machines don’t know what country they’re in. TISAS can afford to sell these pistols at lower prices because the cost of living in Turkey (and thus salaries) is less than half of what it is in the U.S. When I was in Turkey in 2012 the average employee at Sarsilmaz was making $12,000 US a year, which was good money.
We are living in an era where the government is actively trying to disarm citizens, and everyone in the mainstream media is against private firearms ownership, so you may think “Night Stalker” is a terrible name for a pistol. If you’re under 40, Night Stalker probably sounds like a serial killer. It makes me think of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, the short-lived TV show starring Darren McGavin which directly inspired The X-Files. The name definitely gets your attention, as does the gray/black color scheme, which I think is the point. My opinion of the name? Whether it’s the name, the magazine capacity, or something else, the people who hate guns, and hate the people who own guns, will always find a reason to rationalize their psychopathy—refuse to bend a knee to them. When it came time to hit the range Michigan was warmer than usual for January, which means instead of single digit temperatures and ankle-deep snow we were dealing with a lot of rain. When I first started shooting, there were only a handful of indoor ranges in the Detroit area. Now there are a dozen, and I decided to try out a local Range USA location. Range USA is a chain of indoor ranges/gun stores with at least fifty locations in thirteen states stretching from Michigan across the center of the country to Texas.
I’d heard of them, but never visited. The Range USA location I visited had twenty clean, modern 25-yard lanes. They don’t allow rapid fire, drawing from the holster, or targets with the images of people, so they are far from perfect, but more shooting opportunities for people in urban and suburban environs—the ones most likely to need their CCW guns—are always better. And the range was busy at 1 PM on a Thursday afternoon, which was great. The more people who own guns, the more gunowners out practicing, the better. The orange ring in the front sight was very visible even indoors, and the PX-9 swallowed every type of JHP I fed it. It was very fun and controllable to shoot, and the excellent trigger allowed me at least the opportunity of shooting up to the pistol’s inherent accuracy. With most loads it was hitting to point of aim out to 25 yards. I opened the box on the PX-9 Duty Night Stalker expecting to be underwhelmed by yet another soulless plastic hole-puncher and came away sincerely impressed by it.
Recommended
Tisas USA PX-9 Duty Night Stalker Specs
- Type: Single-action, striker-fired, semi-auto
- Caliber: 9m
- Capacity: 18+1 rds.
- Barrel Length: 4.11 in.
- Overall Length: 7.4 in.
- Height: 5.8 in.
- Width: 1.3 in.
- Weight: 27.8 oz. (unloaded, no magazine)
- Slide Material: Polymer, Night Stalker gray Cerakote
- Safeties: Striker block safety, trigger safety
- Sights: HiViz day/night sights
- Trigger: 3.75 lbs. (tested)
- MSRP: $379.99
- Contact: Tisas USA
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