Here's the right side, and note the parallelogram on the frame just forward of the slide stop pin. This is where the metal slide stop and front frame rail are injection overmolded into the frame. Also note how the serial number plate is molded into the plastic. More on this later.
Here's the left side, and note the "MADE IN ISRAEL" text. The font is IDENTICAL to the MADE IN ITALY sticker on Tanfoglio cases.
Here's the 17 (!!) round mag with a Tanfoglio T mark on the bottom, and note the dimples in the feed lips. They're there to hang onto the rim of the 9mm case until the slide whacks the round forward and into the chamber. Nice touch, and I hope they're not infringing on Alex Zimmerman's patent for this concept.
Here's the gun field stripped, and note that the barrel is a good, solid chunk of steel with full size locking lugs. It's shorter, but it's not downsized as far as barrel thickness.
And yes, the gun fits nicely in my fairly humongous sized lunch hook.
And last, from the Tanfoglio website, a picture of the Force Pro, which is part of their police oriented line of pistols. Hmmmm, is that a family resemblance or what? Also note the serial number plate.
Gun ate everyting it was fed over the whole load range, and trigger is normal for a Tanfoglio. For $339, a good deal.
EDIT:
And as an afterthought, the question arises as to how strong this construction is, and due to the fact that this IS a Tanfoglio, there is a reassuring answer. Th eoriginal EAA Witnesses came in a small and large frame, and they had a full size steel size and a compact polymer size. It should be noted that the compact polymer size came in 10mm, so their compact designs have been tested with loads that dwarf ANY hot 9mm load. I don't have any plans to try and hot rod this pistol like I did my EAA 45 Witness, but it's reassuring that this kind of a polymer frame can handle 10mm loads.
UPDATE:
Well, after several trips to the range and some tweaking, I think my "leetle fren' " is ready for prime time. (See reloading section for ballistic testing) One of the nicest things about this gun are the sights, and while I was unable to take a picture with the depth of field necessary to show this, a little digital editing is able to show what you actually see. The rear sights and the front sight both have white dots that you line up, and in addition to that the TOPS of the sights line up dead nuts in line with the white dots, so you have two points of reference to work with. With other guns this is sometime the case, and sometimes not. In addition, the sights appeared to be set properly, and I was able to keep 90% of my shots on an 8 x 12 NRA slow fire target at 25 yards shooting standing one handed. Plenty good for the 30 - 20 foot range.
The safety was originally stiff and not terribly easy to flip off with the thumb, but after the third range session it smoothed out nicely so you could carry this gun in Condition 1 and rock and roll in quick order. The DA trigger pull is about normal for an EAA gun, and the SA pull is a little longer than normal, so you want to make sure your trigger finger is in the proper place on the trigger to keep from pulling your shot left or right. In my initial ballistic testing this gun shot 5 shot groups of midrange to max loaded and cycled 100%, so it's not finicky about the power of the ammo. Initially it did have one noticable problem, and when you got the mag fully loaded with 17 rounds of ammo (oof!) and put the 18th in the chamber, there were times when the truncated cone flat nosed bullets would "nosedive" in the mag and run into the flat area of the barrel lug below the feed ramp and jam. This is sometimes the case for high-cap EAA mags and CZ style barrels, and the cure is fairly simple. You just extend the feed ramp all the way to the bottom of the barrel lug with a Dremel and a fine stone, and then polish it to a mirroe finish with a felt bullet with lots of JB bore paste rubbed into it. The pictures below show a barrel with a longer feed ramp ground into it:
Interestingly enough, both the newer EAA Stock and Match models have modified barrel lugs, and with these guns the ramp goes all the way to the bottom of the lug, and these guns feed flawlessly right out of the box.
At any rate, with this modification the feeding problems vanished with the BUL, and I went through a couple of hundred rounds with the gun having 18 rounds to start with and 13 rounds in it when I reloaded with no problem, and this is with flat tipped bullets. As far as defense ammo I'll have to see what I can find in boxes of 50 so I can try some out. My preference would be Cor-Bon Powerballs, but if I can get a deal on Hydrashocks I might try those.
In conclusion, I'm quite happy with my "little" 25 ounce compact 9mm, and at $339 for the gun it's literally an excellent bang (18 times in a row) for the buck. I'm off to my friendly neighborhood holster maker to have him custom mold me a holster for this little bugger!
