The Rise of the Polymer Striker Nine

In October of 2020 I taught a MAG-40 class at Tallgrass Shooting Sports facility near Manhattan, Kansas. The 16 students, as usual, came from all walks of life but there was one thing they had totally in common in addition to having taken responsibility for the safety of themselves and their loved ones.

They were all carrying one or another polymer-framed, striker-fired 9mm pistol.

Every. Single. One.

My carry and teaching gun for that particular tour was a Wilson Combat Beretta 92 Compact Carry. It worked fine, as usual, and gave me a perfect 300/300 on the pace-setter demonstration of the qualification, also typical for the pistol. It was the only gun in action in the whole place with a hammer, the only one with all-metal construction. I was ready to turn myself in to the archaeologists who probably would have said, “Look! A fossil!”

Now, I’ve taught classes before where everyone had the same pistol — all Berettas when I taught a class for the Army. All SIGs or whatever when I taught for police departments. This was because all the attending personnel were carrying the same issue sidearm but in this class, the closest I saw to diversity was brand. We had GLOCKs and Springfield Armory guns, S&W M&Ps and Walther PPQs, SIG P320s and Heckler & Koch VP9s. Why all 9mm, with the bullets blasting out of striker-fired Tupperware?

There are reasons.

Pistol Design Attributes

Durable polymer frames are cheap to manufacture, passing lower initial prices along to the customer for a good quality gun, construction for construction and dollar for dollar.

The slides of striker fired pistols are easy to rack. They don’t have to work against the resistance of a mainspring holding the hammer against the rear of the slide.

Being of modern design, most pistols in this category are relatively ergonomic. If you like a thumb safety, the ones optional on the Smith & Wesson M&P series or standard on the Sarsilmaz SAR9 are natural to operate like what you find on a 1911. By contrast, the upward-flipping safety on a Beretta 92F, a Walther PP series or some older model Ruger and S&W 9mms are more difficult to master.

If you prefer to press the trigger with the pad of your index finger and have average size adult male hands, the GLOCK was literally made for you. If you prefer to use the distal joint of your trigger finger — the spot old-time double action revolver shooters called “the power crease” — the Springfield XD series and the S&W M&P are made for you. Speaking of double-action revolvers, if this is the sort of trigger pull you prefer, the Kahr pistols and the front-loaded trigger stroke of the S&W SD9 are both things you should try.

Light weight is another biggie. In its time, the six-shot S&W Model 10 was all but the universal six-shot .38 Special police service revolver. It weighed 34 oz. unloaded. The GLOCK 17, which holds 18 rounds of 9mm, weighs 22 oz. loaded — less than an empty Model 10 when it has three times as many torpedoes on board. In so-called “pocket size guns,” the GLOCK 26 is about the same size footprint, and loaded with 11 rounds of 9mm, about the same weight as a six-shot .38 Colt Detective Special. It holds the payload of the DS and a Smith & Wesson five-shot Chief Special, combined.

The shootability of the striker-fired polymer 9mm auto is a huge factor in its popularity. Recoil is mild. Recovery time is quick. Look at the major action shooting wins amassed by folks like Max Michel and Lena Miculek with the SIG P320, by Julie Golob and Jerry Miculek with the M&P9 or Dave Sevigny with the GLOCK. Plus, the trigger pull is consistent shot to shot.

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