A full written review of the made-in-Montenegro TARA Aerospace TM-9X pistol will follow, complete with all the photos and details you’ve come to expect. But, as I’m already late to get out the door for a hunting trip, please enjoy the video portion of the review for the time being:

Here’s the short version:

I was really impressed with this pistol. It’s a fantastic shooter and the fit and finish and overall impression of quality is strong. It ran reliably and confidently and it generally shoots and feels very well-sorted.

It has been a while since Montenegro put out a new firearm and I think the TM-9X is kicking things off with a bang. TARA Pistols’ U.S. website is coming soon, and I’ll have more information from them in time for the full TTAG review due in the next week(ish). MSRP, I believe, will be $529.

 

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65 COMMENTS

    • One of the Baltic states, on the Adriatic sea.

      Bosnia / Herzegovina is on its northwest border, and Serbia is on the northeast border. Kosovo is on the east border, and Albania on the southern border.

      Putin has been making noises about ‘reuniting’ Montenegro with Russia, so things are a bit tense over there at the present time…

      • Mr. Geoff, please kindly note that you have messed everything. Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia, North Macedonia and Slovenia, were all parts of Yugoslavia, located mostly in Southeastern Europe, indeed bordering Albania, and quite close to my homeland, Greece.
        Baltic states on the other hand (Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania) are located in Northeastern Europe, bordering Finland and Russia. They were formerly part of USSR, and they’re some thousand kilometers far from Montenegro, like East Coast from West Coast in the US.
        Taking under account the ethnic and cultural differences between ex-Yugoslavian states (like Montenegro) and the Baltic states, is like confusing Mexico with Canada… lol
        No offence meant, BR from Greece

      • Fat chance, neither Montenegro nor Yugoslavia were ever part of Russia. Montenegro has been a full NATO member since June 2017. Maybe Serbia would like to have Montenegro back, as the tiny country was once part of Serbia proper for a short time after the dissolution of Yugoslavia?

  2. As usual, as soon as I saw there was a new gun review, I guessed it was from Montenegro. It feels good to finally be right.

      • The G3 is only DA until a round is chambered. Once a round is in the chamber it is SAO. The TARA is DA/SA all the time. The trigger system is patented.

        • The Taurus G-Series pistols have a manual safety which makes them safe to carry in Condition One, unlike other designs that lack a safety or a decocker- which requires Condition Zero carry.

    • “Try to get an extra mag over ten rounds…”

      Oh, that’s just great. Proprietary magazines would be a deal-killer for me.

      I hope that they, at the least, used another major manufacturer’s magazine design, like CZ, for example. If it used Glock magazines, that would be a huge plus for me…

    • You mean like the DA/SA trigger? Or the low bore axis? Or the extra deep slide serrations? Or the 3 included metal body mags? Or the fact that it’s designed by an aerospace company in a country we don’t hear from too often?

      • “Or the fact that it’s designed by an aerospace company in a country we don’t hear from too often?”

        No offense, but the people over there kinda hope they don’t make the international news.

        They are seriously concerned Russia is going to pull a sneak reunification on them like Russia did with Crimea.

        Concerned enough that they are heavily ramping up their defense industry, and this gun is likely a result of that effort. They are also expending effort in getting their civilian population trained to preform a function similar to the US National Guard.

        The design interests me for its version of DA/SA operation. The one thing I wish Glock would have done is to make it have a DA trigger pull on the first round. I’m just not comfortable with having the Glock striker pre-cocked when carried IWB and the muzzle pointed at my femoral artery.

        Does anyone know if this gun can have a round chambered, but with the long, heavy (read, somewhat safer) trigger pull of a DA for the first round?

        • Well you can have a Glock that’s 90% cocked but never goes off unless you touch the trigger OR you can have this which isn’t drop safe because the safety plunger doesn’t work because of sloppy tolerances.
          It would be kind of funny to this “gun” go full auto during the TTAG review.
          A gunsmith wouldn’t even fire it out of the box. You might shoot off your junk before hitting a femoral artery. BTW: I am not a Glock fan so I’m not biased about it. This “gun” is unsafe based on this video.
          Go to the 6:00 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGjuCo4dEmM

        • For a minute lets ASSUME THIS GUN IS SAFE for grins.

          Here’s a review of the gun from someone else:

          “Not to sugarcoat it, it’s the worst polymer framed, striker fired gun I’ve ever shot. The trigger weight and pull is absolutely horrific, the sear sometimes keeps the slide from going home so you get lots of fail to feed (specifically to go into battery), the slide lock spring was so weak on mine that it won’t drop the slide from lock if you just pull the slide back: you have to push the slide release down, the parts and materials feel cheap and overall the gun is just not very good. But it is cheap, so you gotta take that into consideration.

          The trigger pull on mine was 8.5-10 lbs. Much worse than my M57 Tokarev and that’s saying a lot.”

          So it MIGHT also be dangerous but it looks like Hi-Points outshine this POS.
          Lets see if TTAG polishes up this turd in their review.

          This is why I try and stick with name brand guns, especially ones made in the USA. I have been waiting for over two years for ATI to send a small parts kit for a GSG that I bought and the front sight flew off. It is held in place by two very small metric allen pins that lock against each other. The pins weren’t tight from the factory. That gun is made in Germany and is the one gun I regret buying. ATIs CS sucks. I have the front sight pretty much super glued on. Turkey, Montenegro? Hell No. I have a German piece of Scheiße that I cant get parts for.

        • Interesting you say that about the glock. TARA has a drop in trigger for the glock that turns a glock into a DARE System pistol. DARE, double action rapid engagement, a DA/SA trigger system. Write [email protected]

        • Interesting you say that about the Glock.
          I want a drop in trigger that’s not drop safe for my Glock.
          Hey Vinny are you high? You are defiantly sitting on bunch of these.
          [email protected]

      • If they are concerned about the Russian bear the first thing they need to do is give an AK to every adult in the country. Ammo, mags and cleaning kits. And keep no records of who got what.

        They’ll never be able to match Russia tank for tank but they can turn their homeland into another Afghanistan. Make it hurt too much for the Russians to move in.

        • “If they are concerned about the Russian bear the first thing they need to do is give an AK to every adult in the country.”

          As I understand it, that’s pretty much what they are doing. They can’t stop them, but they can make it an unpleasant experience for them to hold on to it if they try…

        • I suspect they’re rather try for being like Switzerland, not Afghanistan, but yes.

    • So a patent is not indicative of originality? The trigger system is patented and one of a kind. The G3 fromTaurus is double action until it is loaded. Then it is single action only. Once there is a round in the chamber the DA goes away. The TARA has the option of both: always.

      • Stop spouting garbage about the Taurus G3 trigger. The G3 trigger doesn’t know if a round has been chambered or not. Working the slide cocks the striker to a partially cocked configuration that requires the 5-6lbs trigger squeeze to finish cocking it and drop the striker ala glock. What it does have is a “re-strike” capability in the event that the first trigger pull doesn’t ignite the primer. One need only pull the trigger again (heavier and longer this time to fully retract and drop the striker) to give the primer another whack. While this might give some people warm fuzzies, it’s really a solution in search of a problem with modern high quality ammo. If the round doesn’t ignite on the first hit, it likely won’t on subsequent hits. That’s why modern pistol training to clear the round with an immediate action drill and try a fresh round, rather than snap the trigger on a potential dud again.
        This might be a feature for Taurus G3 fan boys who will tell you about how they got it for a steal at the HotGunz.ru penny auction. They probably aren’t feeding it Ranger SXT.

  5. It looks a lot like the Turkish made pistol reviewed a few days ago. These days, 9mm pistols are like subcompact cars; they all look alike.

  6. At least it’s not another SAR. Who the hell wants a Turkish gun (except for that miserable crone and traitor Debbie W. 🤣🤡)…

    • I’m sure Deborah is just as pleased as I am, living rent-free in your likely Microcephaly shrunken brain.

      Stop blaming your mom for getting the Zika virus while she was pregnant with you while on vacation.

      Consider it an excellent opportunity for you to work on your (obviously lacking) coping skills, little boy… 😉

      • I think that you should consider charging ME rent, you red flag, pencil necked jizz stain 🤣.

        Also, do you notice she never responds to you? She’s just not that into you, like all women…

        • Little boy, JWM is right, you know.

          You really are a mentally-ill Incel.. 😉

        • Geoff. He seems to be under the belief this is a dating site, not a gun site.

          Should we tell him?

        • “Geoff. He seems to be under the belief this is a dating site, not a gun site.”

          He can’t seem to get it into his autistic-muddled defective brain that I have *zero* interest in a deviant like that…

          *shudder* 🙁

  7. Do Caucasian Orthodox Christian Slavs make better firearms than Caucasian Sunni Islamic Turks? Just wondering…

    • They don’t have to be better, they just have to be good enough. Turkey is moving towards Islamic Republic status, and who needs another one of those?

      I’m not sure this particular weapon is for me, but there are plenty of others to choose from before subsidizing the Turkish defense industry.

    • “A gunsmith wouldn’t even fire it out of the box… This “gun” is unsafe based on this video. Go to the 6:00 mark:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGjuCo4dEmM”

      So, is this a vote for Caucasian Sunni Islamic Turks make better firearms than Caucasian Orthodox Christian Slavs? Just curious…

      • This guy had no idea what he is talking about. There is nothing in life that could replicate that retards test.

        • Here’s another review of this gun from someone else that was censored by TTAG:

          https://www.huntinggearguy.com/competition/tara-tm-9-a-da-sa-striker-fired-pistol/

          “Not to sugarcoat it, it’s the worst polymer framed, striker fired gun I’ve ever shot. The trigger weight and pull is absolutely horrific, the sear sometimes keeps the slide from going home so you get lots of fail to feed (specifically to go into battery), the slide lock spring was so weak on mine that it won’t drop the slide from lock if you just pull the slide back: you have to push the slide release down, the parts and materials feel cheap and overall the gun is just not very good. But it is cheap, so you gotta take that into consideration.

          The trigger pull on mine was 8.5-10 lbs. Much worse than my M57 Tokarev and that’s saying a lot.”

          The first guys test seemed pretty straight forward to me, The firing pin completely bypassed the safety plunger, which makes it NOT drop safe.
          In no way was that retarded, it was pretty revealing.

          I have NO interest in this gun but you seem to have a heavy financial interest “Vinny”.
          “Hey, your gun went off when dropped and shot my neighbor.”
          Write [email protected]

          I look forward to TTAGs review.

        • Dude nobody’s being censored and I have zero motive to say anything other than the truth about this gun. I’ve given plenty of extremely negative reviews and there’s no financial or other interest for me to falsify anything here. The only reason people read this site and my reviews is because we do unbiased, honest, no-punches-pulled reviews. If that stops this site stops. There’s WAY more money riding on keeping that integrity and trust than whatever weird alternative you might have in your head. To be clear, I don’t know anyone at this company and have zero connections to anything TARA-related. I’m borrowing this gun to review it and there’s zero incentive for me to do anything but what I always do: test and review to the best of my ability and provide honest feedback.

          My impressions so far of this gun are highly positive. It’s exactly what I said it is. Keep in mind I have precisely one TARA TM-9X. If others have problems I have no reason to doubt the people who experienced that. They also have a sample size of one.

          Note that the guy you linked to who says it sucks says right there on his review: “Note: there’s a newer TM-9X model that has serrations on the front of the slide, grip panels, a different grip pattern, a hinged safe trigger like a Glock, and is supposed to be better than this model. I have not seen it up for sale anywhere in Canada.”

          I’m not reviewing the old model. I’m reviewing this model. His TM-9 very well could be the worst polymer frame striker fired gun he has ever shot. My borrowed TM-9X is most definitely far from that. I’ve shot plenty of shit guns (somebody mentioned the Turkish SAR on here, and that’s definitely way high on my list of worsts) and this is not one of them.

          I’ll watch that dude’s video and see if any of it is relevant to my sample.

        • Why do people rag on SAR. I have a B6P with 2000 rounds through it without a single malfunction. It has been fed HST 124gr,American gunner 124gr. Multiple fmj brands including aluminum and steel case. Except for some trigger slap it’s a joy to shoot

        • It’s a political thing and has nothing to do with SAR.
          If people are going to buy a Turkish gun it’s usually a Canik.
          The discussion here is about the TARA Aerospace TM-9X.
          There’s a guy on here named Vinny shilling for it and on YouTube a guy who goes by the named Fernando Chaves.
          Specifically whether it’s drop safe.
          Things aren’t looking good about it but I want to see Jeremy’s response.
          I have a response to my inquiry from a large online gun shop but
          they are going to do more testing tomorrow.

      • I look forward to your unbiased review but could you watch the video and see if this gun is indeed “drop safe? There isn’t any kind of notions ” in my head”, I’m going by THREE different videos of the TARA Aerospace TM-9X, one of which shows slide off and safety plunger pretty much useless. That’s a sample size of three.

        I’ll be honest with you and day that in some of your reviews I highly disagree but if this gun is unsafe then that should be noted. Granted there were so much oil on the gunsmiths gun that the striker channel could have been full of it but the person named “Vinny” in shilling heavily for this gun.

        I personally don’t care who makes the gun, what country they are from or their religion. I would like to know how a gun made in Montenegro gets warranty service if and when needed. My biggest concern is the latest and greatest DARE trigger and especially the striker moving right past the safety plunger. That is a huge concern.

        Frankly I don’t care if it smells like flowers and is dead on accurate if it is unsafe, Dude.

        The moderation BS on here has to stop, there was no profanity in my comment and it sat for more then 12 hours while “Vinny” was shilling for this gun. I am not sitting on 10,000 guns that I bought from a far away place that might not exist in a couple of years. I don’t really even care for Glocks but they are dead reliable so they have that going for them. Except for the one that blew up in your hand about 5 years ago.
        That proves I read and watch your reviews and I didn’t question your motives.

        I see you already gave the TM-9X a glowing review on 7/30 on YouTube but you never checked to see if it was drop safe. That’s very disturbing dude.

        • That’s right. We cannot properly drop safe test every gun and it isn’t part of standard review protocol for any publication. This gun has a completely at-rest striker with zero spring pressure on it when the trigger is forward. At least per my understanding. Meaning it isn’t fully or partially cocked; as I understand it it’s 0% cocked. Even without a striker block plunger at all this sort of configuration is fairly drop safe. Not perfect, but the vast majority of 1911s operate like this and so do all AR15s and tons of other guns (free floating striker or firing pin, no safety block). If the striker is of low enough mass you couldn’t get it to slam fire even without the striker block plunger in the gun at all. Again, just like an AR15. If I’m correct about the design then I think the plunger is overkill in the first place. I only scanned that 30 minute video very briefly but it appeared that what he showed was that the striker sometimes passes the plunger when he smacked the rear of the slide, which wasn’t even installed on the frame, really hard with a mallet. This doesn’t mean the gun would have ever fired and it doesn’t even mean the striker would have passed the plunger if the slide was installed on the frame. With support on the bottom of the plunger it may never have failed. The slide isn’t designed to operate on its own without the trigger mechanism touching the bottom of the plunger etc etc.

          Anyway…

          I’ll do this just for you — plus now I’m curious — and before I write the review I’ll use primed but otherwise empty cases and do drop and mallet testing like we did for the P320 and I’ll disassemble the slide and look at how it’s designed.

          …and it’s my understanding that the importer has warranty service established in the US. I’ll verify those details also. But this is far from the first foreign pistol to be sold in the US without direct manufacturer presence here, and typically the warranty stuff is handled by the importer either doing exchanges and repairs themselves or farming out repair to another domestic company. This is nothing new or unique. Canik is a decent example that comes to mind of a quality foreign made gun that’s supported by the importer because the manufacturer has no presence in the US. Even a lot of what you think are manufacturers’ US operations are just an importer with a good working relationship with the manufacturer so they spool up a “manufacturer USA” business name and act as the manufacturer’s agent in the US but they’re a 100% separate company. Anyway, I’ll provide these details in the review after I connect with the importer later this week.

        • I know how the slapping your name thing works when it comes to importers. It’s like ATI importing GSGs from Germany when they used to be Sigs. The problem with that is Sig had some kind of CS while ATI says they will do something and after many phone calls they don’t. They don’t care, they have the consumers money. It’s German gun with a lifetime warranty. You could say that it’s like a used cars out of sight warranty, Once it’s out of their sight, it’s out of warranty.

          So to jump right to Sig I have handguns that are striker fired and the striker is 100% uncocked. If the safety plunger does not work cocked or not, then the gun is not drop safe. In that guys video he pushed the striker forward and when it was caught by the plunger the pin still protruded. In the one instance where he just pushed the striker forward and it went completely forward, well lets just say that guns going to go off with no finger on the trigger. That’s a completely unsafe gun and leads to the exact same problem that Taurus had with their PT series.
          This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fn6GFSwTEw

          People had these guns for years and loved them. The problem is people got killed. For years people were claiming that people were getting executed by Brazilian police but the cops said no the gun just went off. Being Brazil, nobody believed this, they figured it was kill crazy Brazilian cops.

          What it took to get international attention was the death of an 11 year old boy while loading a Taurus PT 609 and then a Taurus 24/7 PRO DS fell out of a holster and hit the ground. The gun went off and shot the owner who was cop in Kentucky in the leg. He owned the gun for almost 6 years and liked it.
          Regardless of the lawsuits costing millions, these PTs were in circulation for years before these incidents happened.

          Since I wanted an unbiased view of this I contacted someone who has a gun shop. They will sell me one new in the box for $350. I showed then the video and he found it disturbing so they are going to test a TM-9X themselves.
          I know this person very well and pointed out that the TM-9X appeared to be very over-oiled. They don’t care, they face serious liability issues if they sell a gun that is unsafe and there is an AD.

          The reason for this? The guy named Vinny who was obviously shilling on here. It seemed very strange and the “Write [email protected]” was a dead give away. Vinny isn’t just someone who is just a very happy gun owner, he appears to stand to make a lot of money on the TM-9X. A lot of these have been dumped on the US market recently.

          If that means that someone could get accidentally shot, that’s not cool. Anyway the safety plunger is never overkill, the striker should always be stopped by it unless it is depressed. As for 1911s that’s apples and oranges, MANY things have to happen for a Series 80 to go off if dropped.

          Later today I am going to talk with a pretty large distributor who actually doesn’t carry Tara products. I’m going to ask him why he doesn’t and point to that video. At the very least I might be able to get him to get American Tactical Inc to send me a small parts kit.

          You do your test and my buddy is going to do his, this part of being a responsible gun seller or reviewer. At least I didn’t have spend $350 on a gun that I already do not particularly like.

  8. It needs to come in around the same price as PSA’s DAGR for me to consider it. If it has proprietary mags that’s another huge negative. What mags does it use?

  11. Interesting you say that about the glock. TARA has a drop in trigger for the glock that turns a glock into a DARE System pistol. DARE, double action rapid engagement, a DA/SA trigger system. Write [email protected]

    • It’s a POS. You can take poop and put powdered sugar on it and call it a Danish.
      In the end it’s still poop.
      Write junk@tarajunk

  12. Hey “Vinny” can you hype this “gun” up anymore?
    You are a shill and you don’t even try and hide it.
    It’s a cheap Glock knockoff that was a $200 gun in Canada.
    By cheap I mean cheap, like the warranty is the number of rounds you fire through it?
    Who does that and who covers shipping back to Montenegro when this gun has an AD?
    Shipping it back is probably more then the Tara costs.
    Look another company selling Glock parts.
    Looks super cheap. Hard Pass.

  13. You know nothing of which you speak. Those guns in Cansda bear no resemblance to the model being sold today. In fact those guns in Canada were supposed to be turned into blue guns. And there was in fact no warranty on them. The pustols being sold today come with a lifetime warranty.

  14. “The barrel and slide of the Tara TM-9 pistol are machined out of solid stainless steel bars and along with other metal parts feature a special surface treatment that allows the company to give a 50,000 rounds guarantee on all main parts of the pistol.” That’s the warranty on THIS pistol and the utter garbage ones that were sold in Canada before their Prime Minister got goofy.
    It looks, sounds and smells like an out clause so do tell if I was to accidentally shoot my neighbor I guess it would be pretty hard to sue a company in Montenegro from prison after being sued myself.
    How exactly does that “lifetime” warranty work? 🤣

    Those guns in Cansda were trash and now we have a Gen 2 after two years.
    They also couldn’t be exported out of CANADA, I wonder why?

    Heavy-ass trigger pull (~9 lbs)
    Fail to feed, fail to eject
    Slide lock spring too weak to pull down when you pull the slide back
    Slide lock cannot be pressed down to drop slide on its own, must also pull slide back
    Fail to lock back with some mags
    Slide locks back even though there’s ammo still in the mag
    Mag feed lips are rough, may need some sanding
    Some mags are pinned to 9 or 11 instead of 10
    Weak primer strikes
    Where do you get warranty on these things?🤣

    Face it, with the world events as they are now every company thinks they can make a gun.
    TARA Aerospace isn’t one of them. You compare it to a Taurus but it isn’t a Taurus.
    They take care of their mistakes and people were carrying the PT for years not realizing it could be very unsafe. They recalled ONE million pistols and took care of the problem. 100,000+ pistols were unsafe.
    The Tara TM-9 seems to have the same problem and yet they are pushing them into the US market.
    “It takes M&P magazines.” I smell another magazine lawsuit.
    TARA has a drop in trigger for the Glock that turns a Glock into a DARE System pistol.
    I DARE someone to put an unsafe drop in trigger in a 100% reliable Glock.
    The TARA Aerospace TM-9X reminds me of this after seeing the gunsmith tear one down:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fn6GFSwTEw

  15. If I wanted a DA/SA striker fired pistol I would just buy the excellent and proven German made Walther P99 AS, though they may have been discontinued supposedly for extremely low demand for a DA/SA striker fired pistols.

    • They still sell the Walther P99 AS but in today’s market they are $650 new.
      I have a S&W SW99 which is identical to the Walther P99 when they had a partnership.
      I bought it from a Customs agent when they used to shoot at the same range as me by a large airport.
      He had a hard time being accurate with it and this was before 9/11 so it was Customs and not ICE.
      I paid $300 for it, it had about 200 rounds through it. The Customs agent bought a Glock.
      I got it back in the late ’90s and it’s in my gun safe. It is a good gun but an acquired taste in 45ACP.
      It was made in Germany by Walther and is drop safe. I cannot say the same about the Tara TM-9.
      It also has a lifetime warranty from Smith and Wesson and they still have parts for it except magazines.
      https://www.scopelist.com/Walther-P99-AS-9mm-10-round.aspx?avad=211021_d232dc245

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