New Turkish 9mm – The Girsan MC28 – Great Review – SHOT Show 2016

Read more about the MC28 : https://zenithfirearms.com/product/girsan-mc-28-sa/

Buy a Girsan from GunsAmerica : https://www.gunsamerica.com/Search.aspx?T=girsan

Click here to pick up some ZQI ammunition for your gun : https://zqiammo.com/

The Girsan MC28 isn’t a household name, but this humble import is a great buy.

Girsan isn’t a company many people are familiar with. Fresh on the US market, they have a reputation to build if they intend on sticking around. Who is Girsan?

Girsan is a Turkish company whose guns are being imported by Zenith Firearms. They make handguns and shotguns and mostly focus on people entering into the firearms community. Saying they are a budget gun company isn’t exactly fair. The pistols and shotguns the produce are very well built and quite reliable. They are far superior to what some of us in the industry dismiss as standard price point guns.

For this review we focused on their most practical personal defense weapon, the MC28 SA. How did it stack up? Keep reading to find out (or you can cheat and just watch our video).

This 9mm combines a lot of familiar features in an affordable package.

Features

• Caliber – 9×19 mm
• OA Length – 7.6 inches
• Barrel Length – 4.25 inches
• Weight (Empty) – 1.6 pounds
• Height – 5.7 inches
• Operation – striker fire, semi-automatic
• Sights – dove tailed
• Capacity – 15 +1
• Barrel – cold forged
• Includes – cleaning rods, hard case, (3) 15-round magazines
• MSRP – $399

Design

Looking at the MC28 we see a few similar styling queues from some of the better known guns on the market–driftable 3 dot sights, removable back straps, forward and rear cocking serrations, and a reversible magazine release. Like some of the competition, the MC28 is well suited for most shooters, no matter their dominant hand or size.

The sights are very good out of the box. Dove tailed in and made from steel, they can be easily drifted for zeroing. Beyond that, the rear sight has a small ledge that aids the shooter in single handed manipulations. These sight have just enough room to allow for repeatable and accurate shots. Yet they still maintain a high visibility three dot sight picture for pure speed. Aftermarket sights aren’t readily available, so it’s a good thing the factory sights work well.

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The compact design is large enough to control, but still slim enough to conceal.

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As this is a striker-fired design, the gun has a few passive safeties built in. The trigger face safety and the the firing pin block are very reminiscent of a GLOCK.

The take-away here is that the stock features of the gun are all things you can work with. And the familiarity of the design means it doesn’t feel foreign. They are big selling points of this gun. I have to say the Turkish do build a nice gun.

How does it shoot?

Shooting the MC28 is like shooting many other polymer framed handguns. Recoil is tame, controls are easily accessed, and the grip angle and construction make for a very comfortable gun. If the grip seems a bit small or large that can be easily fixed as well with the addition of a different sized back strap.

Pull the trigger and you’ll find recoil very similar to a GLOCK. The trigger breaks cleanly but has a long pull and a bit of an anemic reset. My one and only complaint with this gun is that the reset isn’t very tactile or audible. Beyond that it’s a perfectly functional trigger and it will allow you to squeeze above average accuracy out of your MC28.

These guns are far more accurate and controllable than you’d expect. Are they producing half inch groups at ten yards? No. But they are doing a damn good job, especially at their price! Beyond the price, which is enough of a selling point for some people, there is genuine value here. These guns shoot well. The controls are very accessible while still being well shielded in an attempt to prevent inadvertent actuation. Reloads are fast and easy to accomplish. Everything you’d hope to have in a pistol this size is here.

I put the MC28 through the normal review paces and it did very well. Shooting a steady diet of IMI 115gr EX-Star, I had zero issues to speak of. The gun ran like a sewing machine for 500 rounds. Moving to steel cased ammo, I did have two problems to speak of. First I had a failure to eject (a Wolf steel case became stuck in the chamber) The second problem occurred when I had a magazine failure where the steel cased ammo locked up in the magazine causing it to lose spring tension. I don’t find this to be a deal breaker. As long as you shoot brass ammunition the MC28 should be good to go.

I hadn’t expected the MC28 to shoot as well as it does.

Accuracy of the MC28

The MC28 is, for the most part, a full sized fighting gun. With good weight and plenty of grip to hold onto these guns are designed to be held tightly. Throwing lead down range from its 4.25-inch barrel, the gun achieves pretty stellar accuracy. Taking 5 shots at 10 -meters I was able to produce groups consistently under 1.25 inches. Like I said above–this isn’t anything ground breaking, but at the MC28s price point this is very impressive. Moving closer to the target (the 7-meter line) groups shrank to sub 1 inch holes. For me the combination of great sights and a good trigger make the MC28 a highly accurate package.

In the end

At the end of the day there are lots of great handguns on the market. Manufactures are continually popping up and new guns are hitting our shores every year. The Girsan MC28 SA is a perfect example of a gun that is flying under the radar right now. They are available online or at your local dealer and are able to be owned at a very low price. Take advantage of the fact that people don’t know much about these guns yet. Once they do you might see that price start to rise and supply start to drop.

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Shooting the Girsan was as easy as a lot of the guns that cost twice as much.

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Take down is easy.

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And the gun’s guts are well put together. From a value standpoint, the Girsan looks to be a solid buy.

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