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.

 

Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
The Fatih is made in Ankara, Turkey by Tisas Trabzon, with its name meaning roughly "conqueror" or "victor." (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
The gun has been coming to America since late 2019, with SDS Imports of Knoxville, Tennessee being the current importer.
Tisas Fatih 380 pistol compared to Beretta 84
It compares very well to the Beretta Cheetah, especially in layout and design. We found it to use the same grips and magazines. 

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. 

 

Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
A basic layout instantly familiar to anyone who has field stripped a Model 92 (or a Walther P38 for that matter), shows the semi-fixed barrel. The gun ships with two Mec-Gar 13-round magazines that are, ironically, made in Italy.
Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
The Fatih uses simple but effective white dot front and rear sights. 

 

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.

 

Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
One forgotten benefit of a SA/DA is the fact that you get an easy second-strike capability, a useful feature these days when ammo sourcing can be funny. On the downside, without an onboard decocker, you are left with manual decocking via carefully controlled hammer dropping or, more safely, totally unloading the pistol, then dropping the hammer on a verified empty chamber.
Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
The magazine release is on the left and is a push-button type. It appears that you can swap it to the right for left-handed shooters. 

 

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: 

 

 

Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
While no competition gun, the Tisas Fatih showed it is more than capable of practical accuracy in our testing. 

 

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.

 

Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
Our FMJ shot included Federal American Eagle IRT 70-grain lead-free flat-nosed full metal jacket in the green box, with no issues to report other than the slide failing to lock back once on an empty magazine. 
Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
Our JHPs included Federal 99-grain Hydra-Shok Deep, which importantly is billed by Federal as the first expanding .380 load to consistently penetrate in ballistic gel beyond the FBI-recommended threshold of 12-inches and through heavy clothing. The little Tisas was 100 percent dependable when running the Hydra-Shok Deep and locked back on empty each time. The load has a spec of 1,000 fps.

 

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. 

 

Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
The Tisas Fatih is comparable in length to the Glock 42/43, while offering a much better magazine capacity and increased controllability due to the longer grip. Even with the extra height, the Fatih still comes in under 5 inches tall. 
Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
We found it to carry in a Bianchi Model 6 Size 15 IWB concealment holster, the same size used by the Glock 43/48, Ruger LC9, S&W Shield, Sig Sauer P365, and Springfield XDS.

 

We'll continue running the Tisas Fatih some more as we get more and will follow up with a full review in a bit. 

 

Tisas Fatih 380 pistol
The Tisas Fatih B380 has an MSRP of $409.95, and ships with two magazines, a cleaning brush, and owner's manual.

Customer Reviews of TISAS Fatih 380

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