13+1 Old School 380 Joy: A Look at The Tisas Fatih
A faithful clone of a palm-sized Italian classic by way of Turkey, the Tisas Fatih has an easy Baker's Dozen of .380 rounds on hand at an affordable price.
Clearing elephants out of the room to begin with, the Fatih recalls Beretta's 80-series Cheetah design, specifically a mash-up of the Model 83/84 in .380 ACP. A simple blowback action, the pistol is light due to its abbreviated size, open-top slide, and aluminum frame. We found our test gun to run 29 ounces when fully loaded with 14 JHPs. It uses a 3.83-inch steel barrel and is 6.88-inches overall.
Going inside
The gun breaks down much like any modern alloy-framed Beretta pistol made in the past half-century by way of a rotating take-down lever on the right-hand side. No tools are needed.
A double-action/single-action format, the Fatih has an ambidextrous manual safety that allows the user to carry it either "cocked and locked" or with the hammer forward, both with a dead trigger.
On the range
The double action pull is stout, and we found it to break at a whopping 10 pounds. However, when it comes to single-action, it breaks at a much gentler 4 pounds. While the double action take-up is as creepy as a $2 fish taco from a food truck, when running in single-action it is enjoyable to shoot and has a short and easy reset.
The Tisas Fatih on the range firing in single-action, showing the short reset:
When it comes to recoil impulse, the gun is more controllable than super compact .380s such as the Ruger LCP and is easy to get back on target, but you do feel it in the web of your hand after a few boxes.
A quick double, showing controllability. The extra size when compared to pocket pistols makes the little 380 almost fun to shoot:
When it comes to dependability, we have tried the Fatih so far with 250 rounds of FMJ range ammo and 80 self-defense rounds, pushing just past the three-hundo mark overall. After this initial run, we can report zero jams or failures other than one instance of the slide failing to lock back on empty. We ran the Fatih right out of the box with no additional prep or lube than what was on it when it shipped.
In all, the gun proved both dependable and refreshing, allowing users a small .380 with a good capacity that is still able to go to the range and run a few boxes of ammo-- while hitting the target-- without your hand hurting the rest of the day. That's not something you can say about many .380s.
We'll continue running the Tisas Fatih some more as we get more and will follow up with a full review in a bit.