Stoeger STR-9

Meet The Family

The best way to imagine the STR-9 family would be to figuratively melt all the leading 9mm poly pistols in one big kettle, then cast a new gun from the resulting stew. Whether you’re talking the S&W Shield-like slide scallops, finger grooves seemingly taken from the H&K VP9 and a host of other niceties, the STR-9 copies what works well and smartly ignores what doesn’t. Perhaps not having a longtime in-house engineering team dedicated strictly to pistols is a good thing — dogma is thankfully missing from the STR-9.

Starting with the basic STR-9 family in 2019, the folks at Stoeger have recently expanded the clan into what I wanted to compare to Goldilocks and the Three Bears — you know, mama, papa and baby. However, a focus group consisting of my wife and a couple of buddies thought it was a dumb concept so I won’t use it, even though it makes more sense than the numbering system of those Perfection pistols.

Regardless, the analogy is apropos. Starting with the STR-9MC (Micro Compact, Baby Bear) you have a top-flight 13+1 micro-nine ready for everyday carry with minimal hassle. Moving up to the STR-9C (Compact, Mama Bear), you have a medium-sized pistol very comparable to the same-sized GLOCK models in every regard.

Reaching the top of the line, you have the STR-9S, the “Combat Semi-Auto Pistol,” the Papa Bear of the lineup. These three guns — ignoring the original still-manufactured medium-size STR-9 for the moment — provided a wonderful three-part slant, at least until Stoeger got busy and threw a curve ball into my story hook. It seems they’ve added the slightly-larger 10+1 SC (Sub Compact) model along with an F (Full size) pistol in an effort to duplicate the Model obfuscation of our friends from Germany. Regardless, if you have a specific gun size in mind, there is an STR-9 to fit your requirements. They’ve also added .40 S&W to the mix in case you can’t get enough recoil in your life.