Range Report - FN P-9

#1 Son accompanied me to the range yesterday, and practiced his photography-fu. They had a pistol in their display case that I'd never shot before, the Fabrique Nationale P-9 semiautomatic in 9mm.


Shown next to quarter and penny for size perspective. The P-9 is a more or less basic semiautomatic, reminiscent of a SIG. Large Standard capacity magazine shown, because we were shooting in the United States of America (New Hampshire subdivision), rather than the People's Republic of Massachusetts.


It's a handy pistol with a solid, reliable feel to it. The sights are excellent - square black front post with white dot matched with square black rear posts with white dots made aligning on target quick and accurate.


My groupings were decent for me - 3" to 4" groups at 30 feet. Regular readers know that my marksmanship is modest, and this pistol is certainly more accurate than I am. I expect that if I shot it regularly, I'd be able to tighten things up considerably.


I'm right handed, but not everyone is; the safety can be worked from either side, which seems pretty handy for southpaws.


One feature that I found a little jarring was the de-cocking lever, which was combined with the safety. Up for safe, down for fire, down even more to de-cock the hammer. This seemed a bit counter-intuitive to me, but I guess that this would keep you from de-cocking when you made the gun safe. On the other hand, it seems like you might de-cock when you were ready to shoot, which seems worse. It's not like this was hard or anything, just that it seemed different than I expected. Your mileage may vary.


Since this is New England, no ride home from the range is complete without Moxie. Not only caffeinated and refreshing, but Green, too: I'm given to understand that it's made with Coal Tar, so you're helping to clean up America. Well done, you!