Sarsılmaz is a Turkish manufacturer of military and law-enforcement firearms with a history which stretches back to the Ottoman Empire. Today, this company is the exclusive provider of pistols for the Turkish armed forces and national police while providing various arms to international buyers. But the story of pistol discussed here, and its sales to American shooting sports enthusiasts, begins in 2018. This is when the SAR USA division was established to import Sarsılmaz products directly to the U.S. market.
The establishment of SAR USA coincided with the launch of this company’s entry into the polymer-frame 9 mm pistol marketplace. Dubbed the SAR9, the full-size, two-tone version I had the opportunity to evaluate originally (see the review here) proved to be a reliable, shootable, market-ready pistol with a useful set of features. In the years since its release, the series has expanded to include subcompact, compact and sporting models, along with the SOCOM configurations. This evaluation takes a closer look at the compact version of the SAR9 SOCOM.
When looking over the compact SOCOM, it’s clear that this striker-fired semi-automatic sticks close to the original SAR9 design, which is a good thing. In the process of modifying the pistol to incorporate up-to-date features, the designers made sure to keep the features that make this series useful and enjoyable to work with. This version is available in an all-black finish or the OD Green and tan option shown here.
The steel slide’s profile continues to be relatively square with a beveled nose, front and rear cocking serrations and a black polymer slide plate. For this model, it has been treated with a durable OD green Cerakote finish. The ejection port is beveled for improved function and fitted with an oversized extractor claw. Three notable changes have been made to the SOCOM series slides. First, the proprietary metallic three-dot sight system has been upgraded to a set of Meprolight optic-height night sights. The front sight’s lamp is enhanced with a bright yellow ring, which aligns quickly and easily with the rear sights U-shaped notch. It’s an iron sight configuration I’ve found to be quick to acquire with defensive pistols.
Next, the slide arrives optics-ready with a cutout situated just in front of the rear sight. The cut is sized for micro red dots with an RMSc footprint, which is also suitable for Holosun K options. Mounting hardware is provided as part of the accessory set. For this evaluation, the pistol was topped off with a Holosun SCS Carry optic. It features an enclosed 7075-T6 aluminum housing, a green 2-MOA dot ringed by a 32-MOA circle and a singular control button for adjusting the brightness and reticle settings. A top-mounted solar panel recharges the built-in 20,000-hour battery for a suggested retail price of $470. This optic proved to be an ideal fit with this gun’s factory iron sights, since it did not obscure the front sight once it was installed.
Last, but not least, the front slide serrations now incorporate a set of six vents. Some folks like these vents because they are also a popular feature for race guns, while others think they help the barrel to cool more quickly. But they are most likely lightening cuts that serve to reduce the mass of the slide in order to balance out the added weight of a red dot optic. Because they are positioned inside of the forward slide serrations, they contribute to improved purchase.
The 4.7-inch long barrel has an appropriately tactical matte black finish and features traditional land-and-groove rifling. The barrel protrudes 0.7 inch past the nose of the slide so as to be threaded at 1/2×28 TPI in order to support muzzle devices including compensators and sound suppressors. A six-sided thread protector, along with a polymer wrench, is provided. The barrel is supported by a steel two-piece recoil assembly fitted with a pair of round wire springs.
The OD green polymer frame supports the serial numbered one-piece, removable chassis. The number is visible through a port cut into the right side of the frame.
The dustcover features a molded-in, 1.5-inch, one-slot accessory rail for lights and lasers. The generously sized trigger guard has a textured finger rest along the front edge and is undercut and beveled where it meets the grip frame for added comfort. Although some SAR9 models have an ambidextrous thumb safety lever, it has been omitted from this model.
A noteworthy upgrade to the SOCOM is the trigger assembly. The curved polymer trigger has been traded out for a serrated, flat-faced aluminum trigger with a wide red integral safety lever. The trigger pull is an agreeable 3 lbs., 9 ozs., according to a Lyman’s digital trigger. It swings back smoothly with a notable stop when the flat trigger is vertical (90 degrees) before breaking cleanly. It’s a solid step up and enjoyable to use for longer practice sessions at the shooting range.
One of the signature features of the SAR9 series is the three-piece interchangeable grip system. The pistol ships with a total of three interchangeable backstraps in different sizes, which is par for the course these days with most polymer pistols. However, the grip’s side panels are also interchangeable with three sets of right and left side polymer inserts provided. With this 12-piece insert set, the grip can be adjusted for contour and thickness. The straps and panels all feature an effective, molded-in texturing that is also applied to the finger grooves of the grip’s frontstrap and the frame’s trigger finger touch points.
The grip frame’s base is capped off with a removable aluminum magazine well extension. Just like red dot optics and flat-faced triggers, these extensions have migrated from the competition circuit to defensive configurations. The unit provided with the SOCOM has a relatively low profile and proved to be a good fit for my hands. But for the purists who don’t like race gun features, or those with large hands, the twist of a single screw is all that’s needed to take it off.
The compact SAR9 pistols accept 15-round blued steel magazines with base plates that fit flush to the grip frame. In this case, the provided 15-rounder has an aluminum base plate with an OD Green anodized finish that matches the magazine well extension. The second magazine provided with this pistol has a 17-round tube. It’s been fitted with a competition-style black aluminum block extension that increases the capacity to 20 rounds. The other accessories tucked into the foam-lined hard case include a cleaning kit and a cable lock.
At the shooting range, the SOCOM compact duplicated the positive shooting experience of the original including the smooth operations of the controls and the comfortable grip. This model proved to be wholly reliable with the two magazines provided. When testing the original, there were a couple of failures to feed early on. However, with the SOCOM, there were no malfunctions throughout the entire course of testing.
Formal bench-rested accuracy testing consisted of firing five, five-shot groups with three loads of ammunition into paper targets posted at a distance of 25 yards. The ammunition used for this portion of the evaluation included two defense-grade +P hollow point loads from DoubleTap Ammunition and Hornady. Somewhere along the way, I managed to pick up a few boxes of SAR USA’s in-house, standard pressure full-metal jacket 9 mm ammunition. It only seemed right to use it as the third test load for this pistol. Here are the results:
It’s good to see SAR USA and the SAR9 pistols keeping up with the times. I was already sold on the quality and features of the platform before the SOCOM compact arrived. But I have no qualms with saying that the optics ready slide and flat-faced trigger are welcome upgrades that made a good shooting experience even better. And for those who do want to suppress this pistol, it’s ready to go right out of the box. For more information, visit sarusa.com.
SAR9 SOCOM Compact Specifications
Manufacturer: Sarsilmaz Firearms Corp., Istanbul Turkey
Importer: SAR USA
Model: SAR9 SOCOM
Action: Striker-fired semi-automatic
Caliber: 9 mm
Slide: Forged Steel, OD Green Cerakote Finish
Frame: Proprietary Black Polymer
Grip: Interchangeable Backstraps and Side Panels
Trigger: Double-Action
Trigger Pull: 3 lbs. 9 oz. (As tested)
Sights: Meprolight Optic-Height Night Sights
Barrel Length: 4.7 inches with 1/2×28 TPI threaded muzzle
Overall Length: 8 inches
Height: 5.2 inches
Slide Width: 1.0 inch
Weight: 28.1 oz. with empty 15-round magazine
Capacity: 15+1 or 20+1 rounds
Twist: 1:10-inch RH
Rifling Grooves: 6
Accessories: Foam-lined hard case, two magazines, three backstraps, three sets of grip panels, grip tool, thread protector and wrench, cleaning tools, optics hardware, lock, owner’s manual
MSRP: $530
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