Estimated reading time: 21 minutes
Who knew that in the year of our Lord 2024, we’d be looking at two new production, mid-size, blowback-operated .380 ACP pistols? These two new production pistols have gathered a fair bit of steam and popularity. They are the refined, elegant, and fancy Beretta 80X and the affordable, robust, and accessible Girsan MC14T. It’s a battle between Mediterranean maestros, whose instruments are simple but impressive firearms.
Table of contents
To be fair, the design does come from Beretta. Girsan based the MC14T on the Beretta Cheetah series. The 80X is a continuation and modernization of the Cheetah series, which was produced from 1976 to 2017. Beretta brought the series back in 2023. Girsan, and the Turkish handgun market as a whole, has recently taken a shine to classic handgun designs that are tough to obtain. This includes designs from Beretta, Browning, FN, and Colt.
Let’s take a look at our competitors.
The Beretta 80X
Beretta’s new X series has modernized its beloved, classic designs. The 92X, 30X, and 80X have all been well received. The 80X mixes the awesome ergonomics of the original Cheetah series with modern features and stylings to fulfill a new purpose. The market for handguns designed for folks with poor hand strength and disabilities has grown, and the Cheetah is part of that crowd. It’s a straight blowback .380 ACP pistol with a 13-round magazine.
The Girsan MC14T
The Girsan MC14T mixes a few of the original Beretta Cheetah models, namely the 84 and 86. This means it’s got a tip-up barrel and double-stack magazines. The MC14T also features some more modern touches and isn’t afraid of what the modern market wants. The Girsan offers a fairly affordable firearm that can also fill that gap in the market for people with smaller-than-average hands.
Available on GunsAmerica Now
What They Have in Common
The guns have a lot in common, so I wanted to compare them. From the outside, they look similar. They are both Beretta designs, but only the 80X is a Beretta.
Both are DA/SA pistols that use a straight blowback design and fire the old .380, aka 9mm Short, aka 9mm Kurz, aka 9mm Corto, aka 9mm Browning, aka 9mm Browning Court. Why the hell are there so many names for .380 ACP? It has more AKAs than ODB.
Both guns use identical and interchangeable 13-round double-stack magazines. The hammers are exposed, and both guns have ambidextrous frame-mounted safeties. They both have accessory rails.
If you were just looking at each gun’s product page, it might be tough to tell which is worth your hard-earned cash. Luckily, you’ve come here, and we plan to thoroughly test the guns to determine whether one is a better choice.
Design Differences Between the 80x and the MC14T
Off the bat, the 80X comes in swinging with optics-ready capability. It requires a plate, but you can easily mount a red dot on the 80X. I mounted a Swampfox Sentinel 2, which uses the RSMc footprint, and it works like a charm. A red dot makes shooting faster, further, and straighter easier. The real downside is how high the dot sits on the Beretta 80X. It’s at revolver red dot heights, and you have to remove the rear sight to install the red dot.
The 80X features a safety that doubles as a decocker. The MC14T features a simpler safety that allows for cocked and locked carry. The Girsan also has a 4.5-inch barrel compared to the Beretta’s 3.9-inch design. The T in MC14T stands for tip-up, or at least I assume it does.
With the press of a lever, the barrel pops upward and exposes the chamber. This makes it very easy to load and clear, and provides an alternative to working the slide for weaker hands. The downside to the tip-up design is the lack of an extractor and ejector. It relies purely on the blowback design to eject and extract cartridges.
When it works, it works. When you have a malfunction, it creates a complicated malfunction that can’t be fixed by something as simple as a tap, rack, bang drill. The 80X has an extractor and ejector, and malfunctions can be remedied with a tap-rack-bang drill.
Recoil and Muzzle Rise
Neither gun has much muzzle rise. They are flat-shooting guns, and the sights are quick to get back on target. It’s easy to throw a lot of rounds quickly and accurately with either gun. The fact that the barrel doesn’t move rearward while firing helps keep the gun flat-shooting. Who says a blowback operation doesn’t have its benefits?
There is a difference between felt recoil. The Girsan MC14T has noticeably more. Or perhaps it’s more uncomfortable? It’s more noticeable and tiresome as the pistol slaps into the web of your hand. The Beretta 80X doesn’t have the same sting as the Girsan. It’s much more comfortable to fire.
The main difference comes from the grip design. The Beretta’s grip is a bit larger and thicker, which seems to help dissipate recoil. The difference is very noticeable. I don’t want to sell the Girsan as a hand maimer. The recoil isn’t all that bad. It’s just worse than the 80X.
Accuracy
Another fun surprise is that both guns are quite accurate. I expected Beretta to produce a fairly accurate gun. However, both guns outright impressed me. I expected fairly accurate and happily settled for very accurate. I shot both guns for groups at 15 yards. They printed fairly similar, very small, and very nice groups overall. Maybe I just expect less from .380s?
Which was better? Within 15 yards, the Beretta was slightly tighter, but just barely. When we got back to 25 yards, I didn’t shoot groups; I just tried to hit a 10-inch gong. Both guns consistently hit the gong, and Beretta took the lead due to the red dot.
I went to the 50-yard line and shot at an IPSC steel target. While the target’s large, it’s still tough to hit at 50 yards. Surprisingly, the Girsan did a fantastic job of ringing steel even at 50 yards. The Beretta and the red dot riding it did a little better. The red dot does make a difference, but the Girsan is impressively accurate.
Reliability
This will be a fairly short section. Neither gun has failed to fire, eject, extract, feed, etc. Both have been very reliable. With that in mind, I loaded a snap cap to induce a failure and see how fixing a simple malfunction would go.
With the Beretta 80X, it’s as easy as grabbing the slide, racking the snap cap out of the chamber, and loading another round into the chamber. There isn’t a whole lot to it. The old tap-rap bang worked without a problem.
If you applied the tap rack bang to the Girsan MC14T, you’d end up with a complicated malfunction in the form of the double feed. To fix the malfunction, you need to hit the tip-up barrel release and extract the malfunction with your fingers.
Now, you can close the barrel and rack the slide to reload. If you don’t have the strength to rack the slide, you’ll have to remove the magazine, remove a round from the mag, insert it into the barrel, close the barrel, reinsert the magazine, and fire. It’s complicated.
Value: MC14T vs. 80X
The Girsan MC14T retails for around 400 dollars. To me, that’s an arguable amount for a Turkish pistol. You can get a used Beretta Cheetah series for roughly 300 dollars. That said, there is no Cheetah series pistol with a tip-up barrel, rail, AND a double-stack magazine. Maybe 400 bucks isn’t all that bad for something original.
READ ABOUT OTHER GUN COMPARISONS: The RXM Versus the Glock Gen 3 – Who is the Most Glock?
The Cheetah 80X series costs a fair bit more. At 600ish and up, depending on options, the Beretta is admittedly pricier. It is optics-ready, smaller, and has a better trigger. It’s still just a straight blowback pistol, but it’s the nicest straight blowback pistol I’ve ever seen.
Performance Tells the Tale
The Beretta 80X Cheetah is the better firearm when we account for performance, ergonomics, and factor in the ability to fix malfunctions. It’s pricer, admittedly, and does lack a tip-up barrel. The Girsan MC14T does come in a fair bit cheaper at around 400 bucks. If you just want a fun Beretta Cheetah-like gun, I’d pick the Girsan. If you wanted a serious concealed carry pistol I’d go with the 80X.
Which would you pick? Let us know below!
*** Buy and Sell on GunsAmerica! ***
Travis Pike is a dedicated firearms writer, a Second Amendment Advocate, and a subject matter enthusiast for all things firearms. He is an amateur competitor with dreams of one day not coming in 4th place at a local defensive match. If he’s not putting text to word processor, he’s likely spending time with family, enjoying Florida’s Nature Coast, or drinking hipster beer. As the resident Florida man he has a preference for obscure guns and calibers.
Experience
- Hunter – Long time deer and hog hunter in the swamps of Florida
- Instructor – Volunteers to teach basic firearm safety classes to kids, adults, and cats
- Wannabe Competitor – Has recently dipped his toes into competitive shooting and has happily discovered an expensive hobby.
- Marine – Served five years with the infantry before transferring to the First Civ Div.
I really hated what they did to the 80x but I now know the military complaints on the 92fs were a factor in the redesign.(grip size, rail etc.)
As a long time fan and owner of the Beretta 84fs, I had to admit defeat when I held the sig p365 for the first time. It’s about the same size but lighter, 9mm(cheaper and easier ammo), close to the same capacity, and mine has a good functioning manual safety(something p320 owners should be thinking hard about). The safety also doesn’t have the hangup issue the 84fs has. The fs is not safe unless the hammer drops but feels like it is and the safety will hang there like it’s meant to be! –I wonder if the 80x has that same wonky lever step the fs had? I’d still like to get an 85bb for my collection one day(not right now though, something has to go first). Cocked and locked ambi safety, slimmer grip frame and a nice tapered and rounded trigger guard made those very slick.
I’ll be getting the 80x with threaded barrel. mount a holo 407 greendot and a huxwerx flow 9mm can.
this is going to be my HD pistol.
Dedicated “house pistol” in an urban setting: .380 acp Girsan MC 14 T fitted with a Banish suppressor on the threaded barrel, loaded with Federal Hydra-shok deep 99-gr. JHP. The 13-rd. magazines I have are fitted with an extra shell held within the bottom plate. While there is a loaded magazine in the pistol, an extra magazine is in the same location. Pick it up, insert the base-plate cartridge into the open chamber on the tipped-up barrel after getting it out of its location with the barrel open, snap the pistol barrel shut using gross motor skills only. Double-action for the first trigger pull. Single-action for subsequent shots. If time permitted, one could always thumb cock the hammer first.
Excellent design for people with injured hands, weak hand strength, or who live in a densely populated locales or apartments or whatever.
IMO, the only reason to choose a .380 for personal defense, is for carrying it in your pocket while wearing lightweight clothing. Both of these handguns are too big and heavy to be considered a true pocket gun. If you are going to carry something that big and heavy (20oz empty for the MC14T and 24oz empty for the 80X), there are better choices in 9mm. Also, not sure why a review comparing two similar guns would begin by attaching a red dot to one. Regardless, were I to have to choose between those two, the MC14T eliminates itself by having no extractor. If you need a house gun for someone with a weak grip, I would suggest a 1911 style handgun stored loaded, cocked and locked.
380 mv is subsonic and if you can get good shot placement with it its good enough for me. I want my HD gun quiet.it will be suppressed
The tip-up barrel will likely be the feature that sells the Girsan more than the lower price. I get that it’s harder to clear if there is a malfunction, but if you can’t rack the slide due to lack of strength (like my wife!) then what good is the gun? I’d say that feature far outweighs any other. I would recommend practicing clearing it to anyone who buys it though. Just make it a habit to drop the mag then tip the barrel to clear, drop a new round in the barrel, reinsert mag, and go. Yes, it takes more time, but you have a gun you can actually load and shoot versus one you’d have to have someone else rack and put on safe for you to keep around. I’d have my wife keep the Girsan in a drawer without a bullet in the chamber and a 2-3 loose rounds with it (so you’re not fumbling to find that one!). Easy enough to tip barrel and insert. That would make it a bit safer to keep around in case a niece or nephew got upstairs and found it.
By the way, my wife has a Smith & Wesson M&P Shield EZ .380. I had considered a Beretta Tomcat .32 tip-up, but the larger caliber won out.
Yes. Mine too. The Smith and Wesson M&P EZ .380. She does really, really well with that pistol. I almost got the 9mm Equalizer when that came out. I just didn’t want to have two mechanically similar pistols in different calibers. So .380 for the EZ and the Girsan fitted with a suppressor. I have it from colleagues who work at pistol ranges that a number of EZ users do fail to depress the grip safety sufficiently to allow the pistol to fire. Crazy? Well, sure. But there it is. So train effectively with it, and grip the pistol properly.