Gun Tests Grade: D

$549

The majority of the Tisas 9mm Commander handguns we viewed on line were illustrated with checkered wooden grips. When ours arrived, it had G10 grips, which may be something of a bonus. The pistol is stainless steel and seemed nicely put together. When you compare the price to the features, there is a lot in the plus column. The finish is well done. The pistol isn’t a true 4.25-inch-barrel Commander, but is instead the modern 4-inch-barrel version. The barrel is belled and fits the slide tightly. Because the barrel bushing is eliminated, the barrel is able to tilt sufficiently in the shorter slide. The pistol features a full-length guide rod, an impressive recoil spring, and recoil-arresting device. The slide is topped with Novak-type sights, which offer an excellent sight picture. The trigger action is smooth enough and breaks at 5.2 pounds. The slide-lock safety is an ambidextrous unit. The fitting isn’t the crisp snap we like, but was instead mushy. It works well enough, but the fit isn’t ideal. The beavertail grip safety is a good design that properly releases its hold halfway into its compression. The barrel is a ramped design. The frame features a rail for mounting combat lights. The pistol is supplied with two magazines.

After the initial inspection and evaluation, we felt that the Tisas had promise and seemed to be a real bargain. The mushy safety fitting was something of a trade off for the economy price. Then, at the range, we had trouble with the first magazine of FMJ ammo in the Tisas. The pistol fed, chambered, and fired normally, but the extractor failed to extract the fired case. Fearing an incompatibility with the SIG Sauer case rim, we tried the other loads. The same results followed. The Tisas failed to extract the spent case, causing a jam when the next round attempted to feed, at a rate of about 10%, or generally one round per magazine. In some cases, the empty brass wasn’t partially extracted — it wasn’t pulled out at all. This created a difficult jam to clear. We had to remove the magazine and rack the slide two to four times to convince the extractor to remove the spent case. 

In spite of this defect, we soldiered through the test program. The Tisas is very easy to use well, as a steel-frame 9mm should be. During the combat stage, one rater fired all his shots one handed and turned in very good results.  Moving to accuracy testing at 25 yards, the Tisas was quite accurate, turning in groups in the 2.0-inch range with the best results.

Our Team Said: This is the only pistol tested with a light rail, and the Tisas was well finished for its modest price. We feel that it had potential, but there were two problems that really affected its grade. First, the slide-lock safety wasn’t properly fitted. While it works and seemed to lock the pistol, which may be all we could ask, we would have preferred less slop. This type of fitting may result in eccentric wear. A stronger plunger-tube spring may fix this, but it may be internal. The failure to extract was more serious. We feel that either tuning or replacing the extractor would cure this problem, but, bottom line, the gun didn’t work as it should.

9mm Luger Range Data

Value Guide: 9mm Luger Handgun Rankings