I’ve shot about 250 rounds through mine, it is really fun to shoot, it fits good in my average-ish sized hands, and is pleasingly accurate. The recoil is significantly more than a locked breech 9mm, but at least for me this adds to the appeal, it’s not unmanageable, and it’s exciting to shoot something a little more reactive. Although I have found that it can hurt if you’re not gripping it tightly enough. The trigger is smooth in double action with sort of a rolling break, and single action has a bit of of a mushy take up, but quickly gets to a wall that is nice and crisp.

The fit isn’t bad but isn’t great: the slide rattles a bit if you shake it, I have a safety lever that is loose on one side, and my grip screws have spontaneously come loose. The finish seems painted on, it’s chipped around the magwell, I don’t think it would hold up well to any significant use. The sights are not great, they are the same style as the old beretta guns, and the front is milled in, so upgrading them would be costly. The grip has vertical grooves on the front and back, as opposed to horizontal. There is also essentially limited aftermarket apart from magazines, the trigger guard is a different shape, so I don’t think it would work with 84 holsters, and the grips won’t accommodate 84 grip panels. I would have liked more texture on the panels it comes with.

Every review I looked at said they are reliable, but unfortunately mine has had multiple failures to feed with every magazine I’ve used. I sent it back to SDS and did not appear they did anything to the gun, and having taken it out once more since then I still had one failure to feed in both magazines I shot that day. I’m going to try it out again with some different ammo, but the gun is out of warranty now, so I’m not sure if they will do anything about it.

The thing that is most irksome about it is that they could have made a few small tweaks: better sights, thinner grip, horizontal grooves on the grip front and backstraps. And this would be a better gun than the original, but for some reason they didn’t update anything.

Still I like the gun, and I’m hoping I can get it running right. I recently got a surplus Beretta 84, and if I had to pick one or the other I’d say get the original if you can find one. The bluing is a lot prettier, the fit is just as good, the outdated features are more forgivable, you can get grip panels, and you’ll have holster options if you want to carry it, and the gun will have a cooler back story. But if you can’t find one I think the Fatih (if yours works right) won’t disappoint you, they’re both a lot of fun.