The Tara TM9 is a polymer framed, striker fired pistol made in Montenegro. Who cares, right? Everyone and their dog makes a Glock knockoff (Glock alternatives in Canada article). Well, at around $300, and sometimes less, it’s the cheapest of this style of handgun available in Canada. It also has a DA/SA action, which is fairly unique for these types of pistols. This pistol was on sale for $280 CAD at Rangeview Sports, so I thought “why not?”. They had it in the mail super quick and included a fun meme.
Changed Names?
Much of the early marketing of this pistol was done under a different brand+model: the Schmeisser SLP-9. That is the exact same gun as this one, but it was going to come into country at a much higher price point. If they did come in to country, it must have been in small quantities, because I haven’t seen any at all.
The company changed names at some point from Tara Perfection DAA to Tara Aerospace.
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.
Tara TM-9 Features
The Tara TM-9 comes with a few features that are table stakes, and some that are not:
- 4.5″ (113mm) barrel
- 9mm
- Double Action/Single Action
- You can take the slide off without pulling the trigger
- Polymer frame
- Wear resistant finish
- No manual safeties
- Ambi mag release
- Steel 3 dot sights
- Extractor acts as a loaded chamber indicator (sticks out if loaded)
- Picatinny rail dust cover
- Stainless steel slide
- Proprietary mags
- Recoil spring & guide rod appear to be compatible with Gen 3 Glock (I tried, seemed to work)
- Firing pin spring appears to be Glock compatible (I tried, seemed to work)
Shooting the Tara TM9
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.
BUT, I installed a Glock firing pin spring and it brought the trigger pull weight to just under 8 lbs. Still need to test it a bit more to see if I get light strikes with it, but this might be an easy way to reduce the absolutely terrible trigger weight.
Let’s start with that DA/SA trigger cause that’s kinda weird. With the true double action, it lets the user re-strike on a bad primer, or to get a strike on a round that didn’t quite go into battery. You also get a shorter reset IF you just let the trigger out to the reset, but the trigger pull weight is the same heavy pull. So. . .it’s more like a 2 stage DA trigger than it is a true DA/SA trigger. On top of all that, you don’t need to dry fire the gun to disassemble it, you just use the disassembly lever. If you like dry firing for practice, the DA/SA trigger on the TM9 is very useful, although the trigger pull is pretty bad. On the bright side, it’ll really lay bare any bad trigger control: you need excellent trigger discipline to make this gun shoot because the trigger is that bad.
Size wise, the TM9 has similar dimensions as a Glock 17. The grip texture is kinda smooth, and there’s finger grooves. If I was going to use this for competition, I’d run grip tape on it.
Mags are true ambi style, with a single catch in the front that can be actuated by either the left or right mag release.
I find it odd that they didn’t also use an ambi slide lock when they went through the pain in the ass steps to use a true, full-time ambi mag release. Doing an ambi slide lock doesn’t come with the compromises that a full time ambi mag release does.
Magazine Issues
A guy on YouTube accused me of testing the gun with shit Canadian mags. Yes, they’re crimped inconsistently, but that’s not the primary issue with the mags.
Issue 1: Follower designed for too much tilt
The follower on the Tara allows too much nose high tilt. That’s kinda ok, until you get to the last round and the follower trips the slide lock while you still have a round in the mag. The follower on the TM-9 angles in at the bottom, allowing for more extreme tilt angles than should be allowed.
Issue 2: The safety plunger contacts the magazine feed lips
This one’s more egregious: the (sharply cut, not smooth at all) safety plunger rips back straight into the magazine feed lips at high speed on every shot. After some rounds, the magazine lip deforms, causing a burr on the inside of the feedlip, which makes issue #1 from above worse because it wants to hold the round there. If you ever design a gun, don’t design cycling parts to constantly damage the most critical part of your magazine
If you have a Tara, let it pound away at your feedlips for a few hundred rounds on each magazine, then lightly sand the burr off from the inside of the feedlips. Alternatively, you could carefully smooth the magazine plunger transition so it’s not whacking the feedlips with such a sharp edge. Obviously, don’t do this if you’re not confident in your mechanical skills, and you’ll want to check to make sure the plunger works afterwards.
Tara TM9 Issues/Cons
Users have reported many different types of issues with the TM9’s and they’re compiled pretty well on this Reddit thread.
- 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?
Some users have reported that the guns needed a break-in period of a few hundred round before they ran properly. When you pay for a nicer gun, you expect that break-in is not required but since these are cheap as shit, I guess that’s OK. Keep in mind that you might fight with it for a few hundred rounds before it runs properly (if at all).
I frequently had stovepipes and slide lock backs while there was still 1 round in the mag, even after 200 rounds. I also had a couple fail to feeds, fail to go into battery, fail to eject, and 1 or 2 trigger reset failures. Pretty bad reliability for a modern gun design.
Conclusion
The extra features that the Tara has over other inexpensive pistols are not super compelling, and there’s not really any after market support beyond the few parts that are Glock compatible. Although it’s kind of the same size of a Glock 17, it’s a far, FAR cry from the quality, reliability, design, and aftermarket support of the Glock. For the price point, it doesn’t compare well with the Girsan MC28, which comes with a nicer trigger and better reliability, or to the cheaper Norinco Sig or 1911 clones either for that matter. For more budget, the CZ P10F at ~$500 used is a great pistol, and the Canik TP9’s are around $500 as well. Maybe the Tara TM-9X will be better but for now, the TP-9 is very cheap and you get what you pay for.
