Two SHOT Show Range Days in a row have brought me to the SDS Imports table. Last year it was to see the Retro Riot Gun, but this year it was for the Tisas Fatih. I keep calling it the Fatty, which seemed to be a common joke among the SDS Imports staff. The Fatih is a clone of the Beretta 84, a gun I consider to be the pinnacle of grip ergonomics. I’m not sure why that gun fits my hand oh so well, but it does and it always has. It’s as if some Beretta engineer in Italy molded it to my hand.
Anyway, the Beretta 84 has been out of print for decades. Beretta recently introduced the 80X, but to be honest, I like the classic look and feel of the 84.
The Fatih mimics the 84 perfectly, and the latest generation made a few changes. They redid the slide, melted some edges, took some precautions to prevent slide bite, and reworked the sights. Specifically, they went from fixed sights to removable sights.
It was really windy at Range Day this year and was tough to hear clearly, but I’m 99% sure they told me the Fatih can use 92X sights, which opens up a nice market for night sights, match sights, etc. It’s a nice touch, but the three-dot sights across the top of the gun look very good as-is.
Throwing .380s with the Fatih
I firmly believe .380s shouldn’t be pocket pistols, but compacts like the Fatih are a great carry option, too. It’s a very soft-recoiling cartridge in a relatively big platform. This gun holds 13 classic 9mm Kurz rounds and it barely moves when you pull that trigger and hear the bang. It’s controllable like a 4-wheel drive on a highway. I put round after round into small steel targets at 15 and 25 yards.
I was surprised by how nice the trigger is, and lord knows I love a DA/SA action. The Fatih has been produced with both a decocker and a safety that allows for cocked and locked carry.
The Fatih handles like a dream because, again, I swear it was built for my hands. With good ammo, the .380 ACP will poke holes, but with the Fatih, you can poke those holes quite accurately.
I spent only a brief time with the Fatih on the range, but it had me coming back to shoot it one more time. At an MSRP of $400 or so, it’s a must-have as far as I’m concerned.
Can we get a .32 ACP version next?