On to my range experience, and a comparison with some guns you guys might be more familiar with...
If you disagree with any part of my assessment, don’t take it to heart – I am not a professional gunfighter or gun reviewer. What follows is only my opinion of these guns after spending a beautiful Texas afternoon at the range, turning money into smoke and noise.
I had completely forgotten to clean/lube the Caracal before heading out to the range, but fortunately, it was pretty much spotless straight out of the box. I hosed down everything with a can of Remoil, and applied a drop of Militec-1 to the frame rails, slide rails, locking lugs and top of the barrel, and then put it all back together and wiped off the excess lube. Ready to go.
For this range trip, we brought along a Steyr M9A1, Springfield Armory XD9, Glock 17 (Gen4), S&W M&P9, and the Caracal F. Excluding the new Caracal, I've have had trigger time on all of these guns except the Smith - prior to Saturday, I had only tried the M&P and M&Pc in .40S&W. I shot all of these guns back-to-back with the Caracal to get a better idea of how the Emirati gun stacked up...
Ergonomics
Ergonomics of the Caracal are extraordinarily similar to the Steyr and M&P9 - the three guns have an almost identical recoil impulse. All three guns are a joy to shoot, with minimal muzzle flip and very fast follow-up shots. If the shooter does his part and really gets behind the gun, they hardly seem to move off target between shots.
With regard to grip size and angle, the XD9 seemed to be the clunkiest of the batch with its bulbous slide and more acute angle. Perceived recoil and muzzle flip seemed to be the highest with this pistol, and it was probably the least interesting shooter on the bench. The Glock wasn’t bad, and overall size and shape of the grip seemed better than the XD, but it still ranked 4th out of the 5 in my opinion. It was just slightly slower for me to get back on target, and I think that was due to slightly more pronounced beaver tail of Steyr, Smith, and Caracal – these three just do not flip very much at all, and the shooter can get a really high grip on the frame. The Glock is still very similar, but to me, it did feel like there was a marked difference.
The Steyr has a very small and thin grip and tends to work better with shooters with regular-to-small sized hands. I really, really like the Steyr, but I do believe the Caracal and Smith have better grips. Out of the box, I think the Caracal is the most comfortable to me, but the interchangeable backstraps on the Smith are an excellent feature. I liked the medium back strap on the Smith, and when equipped, it’s hard to pick a clear winner between the two guns. I suppose the win would have to go to the Smith, if only because it is adjustable to a wider range of shooters.
Controls are similarly located on all guns. I hate to admit it, but I think the under-dog Steyr has the worst controls-layout of the "big three", owing only to its undersized controls. The slide stop can be especially hard to manipulate at times, as it’s a bit undersized compared to the rest of the group. The XD and Glock slide stops are fairly unremarkable and quite similar to the Steyr – not a lot to say here. The M&P wasn’t much better with regard to size and shape of the slide stop, but it is fully ambidextrous, and as such I would say it’s a clear winner. We all had a pretty hard time working the S&W slide stop - especially left-handed - but I believe that had a lot to do with the fact that it was a brand new gun. The Steyr we tested was definitely more “broken in”, and I believe the Smith will get easier to manipulate with time. The Caracal slide stop is a bit bigger than the Steyr and S&W, and definitely easier to activate; the Emirati shooter could have been a clear winner if the designers would have made this control ambidextrous.
The magazine release is ambidextrous on the Caracal, which I believe to be a big plus. The other pistols were setup for right-handed use, and while one or two were reversible, the ambi design of Caracal is very convenient and nicely executed. Actual location and size of the mag releases seemed to be similar for all guns and all were quite functional and unremarkable, so there isn’t much more to say here…
On the whole, I would say the M&P9 wins in the category of ergonomics, because of its ambidextrous slide stop and replaceable backstraps. The Caracal is my second favorite of the batch, but the designers really should have taken a look at the market and realized that replaceable backstraps have become the standard and this feature is really needed to compete. The Steyr ranks third on my scale, followed by the Glock. The XD comes in dead last on my scale.
Brass Ejection
We paid special attention to brass ejection during this test. A Frenchman named Edmond has posted reports on every corner of the internet, reporting wild and nearly-dangerous brass ejection from his batch of Caracal pistols – eye protection was a very serious consideration after reading his posts. I’m happy to say that my Caracal never went for any of our eyes during shooting. Ejection is definitely to the right and rearward, but nowhere near the shooter’s face. I would say the Caracal is far more consistent with its ejection pattern than any out-of-the-box Steyr I have seen – the M-A1 pistols seem to be all over the place at times, and I’ve had many-a-spent-cartridge bounce off the top of my head during range sessions in the past. The Steyrs seem to eventually settle down and flatten out, resulting in a less-erratic right-and-to-the-rear ejection pattern. I watched a few shooters fire the Caracal and Smith & Wesson side-by-side, and as far as I could tell, the ejection pattern was identical.
Triggers
All of the guns had quite serviceable triggers, and it would be really hard to complain if one were stuck with any of the 5. However, the unanimous consensus among the 8 of us in the group was that the Caracal was the clear winner. The trigger is where the Caracal really shines.
I tested the triggers of the two guns I own – the Steyr and Caracal – the day before hitting the range. My Steyr trigger has the benefit of a BigTaco polish job and delron striker cup upgrade, as well as several thousand rounds downrange and Lord-only-knows how many dry-fire pulls; the result was a consistent 5.5 lbs. break. Out of the box, the Caracal tipped the scale at an impressive 3.75 lbs. – I’m in love. This weight really does feel just about perfect to me.
The Steyr has a very short take-up distance with little spring resistance, and then a crisp, short break. Reset is a bit longer than some might like, and not at all what I might call “positive” – it’s up to the shooter to gently release the trigger in order to find that audible “click” of reset, indicating that the gun is ready to fire again.
The Caracal is much more similar to a Glock in that the trigger pull is much more “springy”. The primary difference between the Glock and Caracal is that the Glock “breaking point” is much more definitive – the Caracal is much more of a smooth pull, with little warning that it is about to break before dropping the striker. I suspect a lot of loyal Glockers will not like this characteristic of the Caracal, but my personal experience is that this smooth, “less telling” break was more conducive to better shooting. You gently squeeze the Caracal trigger while focusing on the front sight and your focus is not “disturbed” by that marked breaking point that is characteristic of the other striker-fired pistols. Trigger reset is not as positive as the Glock, but neither is it as limp as the Steyr. Reset distance is comparable to the Steyr, and there is an audible and felt click when the trigger is ready. On the whole, I would say the Caracal trigger is an almost perfect blend of the Glock and Steyr, and I am very impressed.
The M&P had a good trigger, but it was a little gritty. There are enough glowing reviews of the Apex trigger kits to make me really interested in trying one out… In stock form, I believe the XD and M&P are a bit unremarkable compared to the other 3 guns, although still perfectly good and serviceable.
Sights
I was not a fan of the rear sight on the Caracal at first, but I’m pleased to say that performance on the firing line was better than I expected. The Caracal sights are pretty easy/fast to pick up and seemed to be more than adequate for shooting at 20 yards. There really aren’t a lot of surprises in this category… I found the Steyr trapezoids to be the fastest to pick up out of the 5 guns. The three-dot setup of the XD and the M&P provided a traditional and familiar feel. The trapezoid rear sight of the Caracal combined with the “straight 8” dot pattern worked really well – fast to pick up and more than adequate at the ranges tested. The Glock “cup and ball” is what it is – simple and effective.
I find the three-dot setup to be the most comfortable personally, so if I had to pick a favorite of the 5, I would probably pick the XD/M&P. While I really like the innovative design of the Steyr trapezoids, the reality is that most of my shooting is done on a square range at bullseye targets – the faster pickup just doesn’t do a lot for me. The Caracal and Glock sights are perfectly serviceable, and as I said before, more than adequate at the ranges tested.
Performance/Reliability
This category is going to be hard to measure. There were 8 of us that showed up for the range trip and experience varied greatly – from first-time to experienced shooters. Conditions of the pistols also varied - the M&P9 and Caracal were brand new, the G17 had less than 500 rounds through it, and the XD9 and Steyr M9A1 both had somewhere north of a thousand rounds downrange. I did my best to expose the Caracal to as wide of a variety of ammunition as possible – it was fed:
(48) Monarch 115gr. FMJ (steel case)
(10) Wolf 115gr. FMJ (steel case)
(6) Winchester Ranger 127gr. +P+ JHP
(20) Remington ShurShot 115gr. FMJ
(16) Winchester Ranger 147gr. JHP
(50) 115gr. Winchester “White Box” FMJ
(50) 124gr. Winchester NATO FMJ
(50) PMC 115gr. FMJ
(50) Remington UMC 115gr. FMJ
That’s 300 rounds total. We would have fed it more, but it gets awful expensive feeding 5 guns and we all had to shoot the other plastic-fantastics, too. The Caracal gobbled up all of the FMJ ammo with zero issues, but it did not like the Winchester rangers in either weight or pressure. In both instances, multiple shooters experienced slide-lock-back with additional rounds in the magazine – I’ve never seen this before, and it was truly bizarre. This happened 3 out of 6 times with the 127gr. +P+, and one time with the 147gr. JHP. I’m not sure if the gun doesn’t like Winchester Ranger, or if it doesn’t like hollow-points in general – this will be the subject of (expensive) future testing. I really wish I would have brought along another brand of hollow-points, but I did not anticipate this weird behavior from the Emirati shooter. I am pleased that we had no hiccups with the 278 rounds of FMJ ammo, and I hope the gun continues to gobble up everything I throw through it in the future.
The G17 Gen4 choked 4 times (FTE) on 115gr. Remington UMC “yellow box”. This could be due to a couple of things… The gun has the original guide rod and spring, and I have read that many users are experiencing malfunctions due to this part (and that Glock is replacing them). Also, the shooter’s grip sucked and he was probably limp-wristing the pistol. I gave him some tips on improving his grip, and his groups immediately tightened up and he did not experience any further malfunctions.
The XD9, Steyr, and M&P all performed flawlessly. The M&P9 was fed an identical diet of FMJ that we ran through the Caracal, and was exposed to the same mix of shooters with varied experience. I did not really track who was shooting the Steyr or XD, or what they were putting through them, so I can’t really say a lot regarding the performance these last two guns (other than that no malfunctions were reported).
Magazine Capacity
There really isn’t much to say here, but in case anyone isn’t already aware: the XD9 and Steyr come standard with 15 round magazines, the M&P9 and G17 come with 17 round magazines, and the Caracal F magazine holds 18 rounds. Steyr is now shipping their M9A1 guns with 17 round magazines, but they have only been available for about a year.
Size
This is the easy part of the review. Because the Caracal was the focus, I created overlays to demonstrate the size relative to the other 4 pistols:
We also had an H&K P2000 .40S&W laying around, so I made an overlay for that pistol, as well:
Final Thoughts
I really like the Caracal – probably even more than my Steyrs. The ergonomics, capacity, and amazing trigger provide an impressive first-showing from the Middle Eastern manufacturer. My only concern is that the Emirati shooter may not like JHP ammo, and this would be a dealbreaker as far as I’m concerned. However, because I didn’t bring along a sufficient mix of ammo along to truly test performance of defensive hollowpoints, I can’t definitively make a call one way or the other - it is entirely possible that my Caracal just doesn’t like Winchester Ranger.
I think it is really hard to compete with the Smith and Wesson M&P9. This gun really has everything going for it – ergonomics, price point, and an emerging reputation for a robust and reliable design. I believe that most shooters looking for an innovative “new” design will flock to S&W, and those that prefer a more traditional, “tried and true” alternative will purchase a Glock. That said, I think the Caracal does a fine job mirroring many of the qualities that make the S&W so attractive, and it isn’t without its own unique charms. The trigger alone is a strong selling point in my opinion, and I think the overall design will appeal to a lot of shooters. Future testing will reveal whether or not this gun will gain favor over my M9A1 – I’ll keep you guys posted on the progress as I get more rounds downrange with the Caracal.
In the meantime, I welcome any questions or comments…
