Is Canik’s new METE SFT 9mm able to get you through the worst-of-the-worst scenarios (zombies and pod people invasions notwithstanding)? This handgun test considers all the possible conditions.
by Paul G. Markel
Instagram models and YouTubers are fond of “torture testing” guns and gear for the viewing pleasure of their audience. Sadly, most of these torture tests are completely impractical and unrealistic. You wouldn’t throw your favorite chainsaw off a roof and then be mad when it broke, but people do it with guns and gear. Would you run your motorcycle without oil until the engine seized just to make a point? Not likely, but fools on the internet will run a semi-auto gun “dry” until it fails and then mock the manufacturer.
During a previous article about the SAR9 handguns, I pontificated about certain trendy features that have no place on fighting pistols. It occurred to me that I should ponder the most extreme circumstances under which a handgun might be used and consider if it could be expected to hold up. We are talking about civil disorder, societal breakdown, all the way up to a foreign invasion and a nuclear attack. TEOWAWKI, in other words.
The Subject: Canik USA, METE SFT Pistol
Canik USA is the sister company of Century Arms. They have been bringing in the METE pistols for a few years now. The METE SFT that I had on hand to test has an FDE-colored polymer frame and steel slide that is finished with a black Cerakote. Atop the slide, steel sights are dovetailed in place. The rear sight has a slightly angled front edge to allow the user to pull the slide one-handed in an emergency. This was a very intelligent design on their part and the opposite of the “snag-free” slanted rear sights that look cool but are worthless on a fighting gun.
Directly in front of the rear sight is a removable plate to allow the installation of a mini red dot sight. Unlike previous Canik models, where the rear sight was on the plate, for the METE SFT, the rear sight remains. This change allows the shooter to have a co-witness for both the iron sights and the red dot. The co-witness capability is one of the improvements put into this new pistol.
The trigger functions like every standard striker-fired gun you have tried, and this version is smooth and crisp. Canik pistols are famous for superior factory triggers and this new pistol is no exception. I would put the SFT factory trigger up against any other factory striker-fired trigger. The pistol kit comes with three different backstrap sizes — small, medium, and large. A tool is provided to allow you to change them by removing a single pin.
The METE SFT uses traditional full-sized Canik magazines in 18-round capacity. The basic kit comes with one standard 18-round mag and one “+2” version with extended base pads for a total of 20 rounds in that magazine. The slide has the typical front and rear grip serrations. The frame is textured in all the right places and has the M1913 Picatinny accessory rail we have all come to expect.
Canik improved the beavertail grip area, upgraded the trigger guard, and put an internally beveled magwell in the frame in addition to the external match mag funnel that the user can install if they so choose, but I don’t recommend it. Also, there are holster “grip points” on the left and right of the frame to give a bit of extra purchase and ensure solid seating in whichever holster you decide to go with.
The only change that I made to the pistols was to swap out the steel front sight that had a white paint dot and replace it with a Tritium version from Night Fision. This new front sight has a translucent safety green/yellow polymer ring surrounding the green Tritium vial.
TEOTWAWKI Test Protocol
EMP: Electromagnetic Pulse
The threat of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) comes from both manmade and natural events. An example of a natural occurrence is a solar flare or solar storm — a geomagnetic disturbance. The last recorded major solar storm was the “Carrington Event” on September 1-2, 1859. Modern electricity was in its infancy then and the only victims of the storm were telegraph systems in North America and Europe. During the Carrington Event, the average person did not even notice.
Lightning strikes are isolated natural mini-EMPs. People who live in Florida and much of the south are extremely familiar with this situation. The power overload from a lightning strike fries electronic circuits. Several years ago, lightning struck a tree that was about ten yards from my pickup truck. The EMP from the lightning bolt overloaded the electronics in the 2003 Dodge truck. The damage was so extensive that the insurance company “totaled” the vehicle. No, the rubber tires did not protect the truck because the pulse was too powerful.
Manmade EMPs can come from the detonation of an atomic device. A nuclear detonation results in the blast wave itself, incredible heat, radiation (alpha, beta, and gamma), and an EMP. The closer the blast to the surface, the smaller the damage range from the EMP. Therefore, aerial bursts from nuclear weapons pose the greatest risk from EMPs. In a nutshell, the wave of the EMP overloads the fragile circuits in electronic devices.
There are also E-bombs — weapons that are non-nuclear but are designed purposely to generate an EMP. These are tactical or strategic weapons that do not produce as large an EMP as, say, an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile; however, E-bombs do not give off radiation and therefore could be harder to detect if they were concealed in something like a shipping container. Russia and China have both been confirmed to possess E-bombs and Iran and North Korea have been developing them.
Due to the threat of the EMP, both natural and manmade, our Apocalypse Pistol (AP) will not have an electronic sighting system. Ditto a weapon light. Unless your pistol is stored in a stout faraday cage, a red dot will get fried by an EMP. For our AP, we will rely upon the traditional sights and, in this case, the tritium front sight and steel rear. Which brings us to the question: will nuclear fallout recharge Tritium sights?
Nuclear Winter
Rather than give my take on nuclear winter, let’s see how the Encyclopedia Britannica defines it. Nuclear Winter — “the environmental devastation that certain scientists contend would probably result from the hundreds of nuclear explosions in a nuclear war. The damaging effects of the light, heat, blast, and radiation caused by nuclear explosions had long been known to scientists, but such explosions’ indirect effects on the environment remained largely ignored for decades.”
So, the AP must work in extreme cold temperatures. The METE SFT had to go through military trials prior to being adopted by, currently, 59 separate countries. One of the tests was a cold weather protocol. In addition to the actual machine, the lubricant must not freeze in extreme cold weather. In the US military, there are two types of firearms lubricants: standard CLP (cleaner/lubricant/protectant) and LAW (lubricant, arctic weather).
Froglube Extreme lubricant is a non-petroleum product rated to -40º Fahrenheit. I don’t know about you, but if the temperature is -40º, I’m not going outside. Froglube was applied to the slide rails and various moving metal parts of the AP per manufacturer’s guidelines.
While I did not have the ability to take the AP down to -40º, I did put the AP into a chest freezer that was set for 0º F for 24 hours. Then I transported it to the range in a cooler containing dry ice.
Swamp Crawl
Other harsh environments would include water. While we do not plan to shoot the gun underwater, you can see the “Mythbusters” for those results. We need to assume that the gun might get submerged for a short time when the user must traverse in and out of water.
This testing was not that complicated. All we needed was a 5-gallon bucket and enough water to submerge the pistol completely.
Post-Apocalyptic Dust Storms
Dust, dirt, and debris are ever present in all outdoor environments, except where the earth is covered with snow and ice, but we already addressed that. The METE SFT had to pass a “sand/dust” test to meet military protocols; therefore, the striker-fired gun was redesigned to remove one of the holes most commonly found on striker-fired guns.
With the traditional striker-fired pistol design, there is a hole at the rear of the slide to allow the slide to be slid off the frame and to clear the ejector. To eliminate that hole, Canik designed the METE to be slid only a short way forward during disassembly and lifted off the frame. There are no extra or unnecessary holes in the METE SFT that would let sand/dust, dirt, or debris to enter the gun.
That previous situation was one of the big issues with the Beretta M9. The open slide design of that pistol allowed fine sand, dust, et cetera to get into the action of the pistol. When I carried the M9 in the desert, myself and the others who did so had to disassemble and clean our pistols daily.
Ammunition Shortage
In addition to extreme environmental challenges, during a TEOTWAWKI situation, you are not going to be able to casually walk into your local gun store and purchase your favorite or preferred load. The AP must be reliable enough to cycle every type of ammunition available in that caliber. Our METE SFT is chambered in 9x19mm NATO.
For our testing, we would run the gamut from expensive, premium ammunition, such as that from Black Hills Ammunition, all the way down to the inexpensive steel and aluminum cased practice ammo. Also, we would use +P supersonic loads as well as the subsonic ammunition, such as the 147-grain Federal.
If you are like me, you might have one of those Russian “ham cans” of ammo sitting on a shelf for a “just in case” situation. One of the big differences between military ammunition and commercial ammunition is the primers. Military ammo has “hard” primers because it needs to be stored for decades and still work. Typical commercial ammunition has “lighter” primers. Super-light, match triggers tend to give “light” primer strikes. For our AP, we cannot risk a situation where the gun becomes a picky eater and only runs with match-type ammo.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
One of the big positives from the Global War on Terror was the fact that troops were being trained to employ their weapons with gloved hands. Prior to GWoT, using gloves on the military firing line was prohibited because it was viewed as “unsafe.” When the PPE (personal protective equipment) for overseas deployment was altered to include gloves, that situation changed.
In addition to being able to employ our AP with gloved hands, we also need to be able to use it while wearing a “field protective mask,” also known in common parlance as a “gas mask.” And so, along with our gloves, we would be conducting drills and training while wearing one of the most modern masks, the CM-8M “full face respirator” from Mira Safety. The CM-8M uses the now-standard 40mm screw-in filters — a tremendous leap forward from the old M17 masks.
As an old “cold warrior,” not only did I do a lot of training in what we called “NBC” (nuclear, biological, chemical) protective gear, I wore it in combat. When my US Marine Corps battalion entered Kuwait during Desert Storm, we were in MOPP 2 (Mission Oriented Protective Posture). On the first day of the battle, we went to MOPP 4; that is full suit, boots, gloves, and gas masks. Fighting with a gas mask on is not fun, but it is better than having your lungs full of chemical agents. The world is a dangerous place and there is evil in it. Failing to train with a mask because it is “uncomfortable” does not change the aforementioned reality. Ditto helmets and body armor.
Testing Results
The METE SFT pistol performed 100-percent, without flaw or failure during all the previous challenges. In total, during numerous range sessions, my son Jarrad and I fired somewhere between 750 and 800 rounds of various 9x19mm loads through the pistol. It never choked, not even on the steel-cased rounds.
When I froze it, I did so with the Black Hills Honey Badger ammunition loaded into the magazine. The trip from the freezer to the range took about 15 minutes and I transported it there on ice in a cooler. The pistol fired a full magazine without a hiccup.
The dust test was simple. Load the gun. Cover it with sandy dirt, then uncover it and fire. No problems. Following the dust test, it only made sense to drop it into the bucket of water. I dropped it in the water, counted to five, pulled it out and fired a full magazine, loaded again, and fired another magazine. Naturally, after the first shot or two, the violent motion of the pistol shakes off 99-percent of all the water.
Drills were run while wearing gloves, as well as body armor and a helmet, both from Full Forge Gear. As mentioned earlier, I wore the Mira Safety field protective mask for several drills as well. It was warm and sunny, and I was sweating pretty good. The anti-fogging feature in the CM-8 mask worked as advertised. The wide viewing window never fogged up.
And so, the METE SFT pistol from Canik USA performed, even under challenging circumstances. I was able to manipulate the pistol with gloves on, which is a big deal for fighting guns. The Night Fision Tritium front sight stood out just like it was supposed to.
What is left? I challenge you to take guns and gear and go participate in formal training. Test your skill and gear in a realistic training environment and see how you perform. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good the gun is, you are the operating system.
