A versatile competition- or defense-ready 9mm released earlier this year, the new FN 509 LS Edge is slick and stands ready for hard work.
Introduced earlier this year during what would have been SHOT Show, it was billed as the "ultimate tactical pistol" at rollout. With the LS designating the pistol as a long slide, it has a 5-inch, hammer-forged barrel. The target-crowned barrel is the longest currently featured in the extended FN 509 family. It is 8.2 inches overall and weighs 31 ounces unloaded and with no accessories.
Note the lightening cuts in the slide (that double as front slide serrations) to reduce weight and improve balance as well as the flat-faced trigger, oversized magazine release, and MRD/suppressor height sights. For those who shoot USPSA, the cuts also help satisfy the requirements to be able to see the barrel. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
The Edge, with its contrasting graphite PVD finish and black frame, along with varying patterns of grip textures and Hi-Power cut to the slide nose, give it a great aesthetic for a modern pistol, and you can bet the gun will soon be making cameos on screens both large and small, as it just flat out looks good.
Internally, the Edge has a barrel with a polished chamber and ramp for reliable feeding and extraction across all ammunition types. It also uses the same heavy spring as found in the 509 Tactical series to move all that slide around.
It ships with three 17-round (10 rounders in limited states) steel magazines with orange followers and anodized aluminum floor plates that are graphite weighted and match up perfectly to the Edge's replaceable flared aluminum magwell. They dropped free every time in testing, but the grip has scallops on the sides to strip them away if it doesn't happen.
The irons are nice, with a 6.7-inch sight radius bookended with a .040-inch fiber optic sight post that is fast to acquire and a blackout rear notch protected by the same characteristic side fins as seen on the FN 509 Tactical. The plate, held in place by long Torx screws, kinda looks like a developmentally delayed robot when viewed from the top.
However, no matter how nice the sights are, the Edge is really meant to run a micro red dot, and the optic cut is hiding out under the plate that brackets the rear sight. For that, it includes an extensive accessory pack.
The patented FN Low-Profile Optics Mounting System sent with the Edge includes multiple plates for a variety of micro red dots, including Leupold's Delta Point Pro, the Trijicon RMR, Doctor Optic, Vortex Venom/Viper/Razor, C-More STS2, and Burris sights.
We opted for a Leupold Delta Point Pro 6MOA (stay tuned for a stand-alone review on this sight) and it was installed with no issues.
When fitted with the Delta Point Pro and the gun stoked with 18 rounds of Federal American Eagle 147-grain FMJ FPs, the weight on the Edge was 36.5-ounces all-up. For home defense, add a light and/or upgrade to the FN 509 24-round mag marketed with the Tacticalseries, and you have a brawler.
FN's mounting system uses some serious hardware, with self-locking threads on Torx screws, and, in the case of the DPP, required the installation of an included spacing block on the rear of the optic itself.
We found the mounting almost bombproof and, after racking the slide against a barricade numerous times and running 700 full-power rounds with it, the Leupold remained rock solid and on zero.
The trigger on the Edge is legit for a production gun. It is flat-faced and designed to break at 90 degrees and have a short reset. The trigger broke on our test gun at a hair over 4-pounds, despite FN's literature that put it in the 4.5-to-6.7 pounds. After we ran 1,000 rounds through it, the trigger got even lighter.
Check out the break and reset:
With its long slide and barrel – the pistol has roughly the same sight radius as a full-sized GI M1911 – and excellent sights, our test gun did not disappoint. Accuracy was superb with the Edge holding inch-ish groups from the bench at 15 yards in slow fire with even ho-hum ammo. When firing offhand out to 25 yards at a more tactical cadence, it could still eat the center out of a silhouette. Plates at 50 were on the table if you concentrated.
Either with the stock irons or a red dot, the Edge was on at 25 yards.
The Edge loves to run fast – lightening cuts and slide mass tend to have that effect – and it comes back on target quickly with low felt recoil or muzzle flip, to which the ergonomics of the grip frame no doubt gets a nod as well. When using an MRD, you get the dot back in your field of vision quickly and with predictability. To illustrate that, we ran an old poker double-tap drill at 7 yards with the Leupold installed and had success.
Such practical accuracy would position the gun well for either competition or personal protection.
While the Edge would provide big medicine on a carry gun, the 8.2-inch overall length, MRD, and general race gun layout complete with a flared magwell is kind of a big lift for discreet concealed carry (particularly in appendix carry) unless you are comfortable with a full-sized gun. Beware of all those snag points, though.
Don't get me wrong, if you use the right holster and a complimentary carry format to your frame, anything is possible, but if you want to carry an FN 509, you may find a better fit with the Compact model rather than the Edge LS. Plus, the Compact has fully ambi controls.
The best thing about the FN 509 Edge LS platform, IMHO, is that the top half can be swapped over to other frames in the same family, giving you the possibility of running a crossover with a standard 509 or 509 Compact. FN really needs to get on to selling those loaded slides.
Across four range sessions, we ran just over 1,000 rounds through the FN 509 with zero issues. This ranged from 115- to 147-grain loads and in FMJ, TMJ, and JHP profiles. We would have liked to have run twice that amount, but the ammo stack was low and FN wanted their gun back. It ate both brass and steel with equal results.
In the end, the Edge delivers performance while looking great doing it and can check several boxes, being more than capable of lots of different jobs that you would want a reliable and rugged handgun to clock in for. If you like FNs and are looking for a hard-use gun with lots of features right out of the box, it is for you. MSRP is $1,499, and it is currently trending higher than that due to supply/demand.
About that.
Direct competitors in style and features to the Edge include the Canik TP9SFx, CZ PZ-10F Optics-Ready, Heckler & Koch VP9L(OR), the Glock 34 MOS, and the Walther PDP 5-inch Optics Ready. The bad news for FN is that all those pistols are cheaper, often drastically so, and a couple on that list have better stock triggers than the Edge. As a bit of counterfire, FN's optics mounting system is in many cases superior to the ones used on those pistols, plus, the 509 line is American-made in Columbia, South Carolina for those patriots out there.
