Weapon

It has been so long since I have seen a Canik with an MIM striker that I had just about forgotten about the change over that occurred from MIM to machined. The older MIM ones were prone to wearing down and/or tip breakage (likely due in part to the crazy striker springs they were still using at the time). After those problems started popping up, they changed over to a machined striker and, so far as I know, those solved all of the problems with breakage. The original one in my SFx never broke as I ran it with a several lighter striker springs until I figured out which one would work (there was zero aftermarket for them back then) but I still upgraded it when they came out with the new ones. Luckily, they are easy to tell apart. The top one is machined, the bottom one is one of the old original MIM models:

Try a 6.5lb Ghost Glock 17 striker spring. I have been running one of those in my SFx and Rival Dark Side for years with no problems. You will probably want to swap out the block plunger spring and the trigger return spring as well if you want a really light trigger. If you play around with the springs and polish this and that, you should be able to get the FS trigger down to 2.0lbs or less with no light strikes (assuming you want to go that low). As for recoil springs, keep in mind the recoil spring has to fight the striker spring when the slide is closing. You will get to a point where the striker spring vs a light recoil spring will keep the slide from returning to battery. Thanks to the striker indicator on the back of the Canik’s slide, you can see exactly where the striker spring is fully compressed. Dry fire it and then watch the striker indicator on the back of the slide as you slowly close the slide. A lot of 1/8” out of battery problems are due to a heavier striker spring vs. a light RSA. Speaking of the striker/firing pin indicator, it’s a good idea to check the slide backplate and make sure there are no polymer or metal burrs around that hole in the backplate. One of my first Caniks had a weird little burr there that caused several headaches until I found it and removed it. It still looked like it the pin was rubbing there so I ended up enlarging that hole by about a thousandth or two just to make sure there was no drag on the pin. That’s likely not a problem on newer Caniks as the one on my Rival already looks slightly larger (and smoother) than the one I bored out but it’s still worth checking.

This may help someone… Caniks cock on close (in the just last few millimeters of slide movement). If you are running a lighter RSA you often have to use a lighter striker spring. Failure of the slide to go into battery during those last few mm is due to the recoil spring having to fight several things at once - the round going into the chamber, upward pressure from the mag spring but especially the force required to compress the striker spring. The first SFx pistols and other Caniks of that time were designed around 9mm NATO specs. The striker springs were ridiculously overpowered (they could likely launch a golf ball into low earth orbit). Their recoil springs were also very stout so that didn’t cause any problems especially if you were shooting them with 9mm NATO spec ammo (i.e. 124gr FMJ moving at around 1225fps out of an SFx). That’s 151.9 power factor for anyone still paying attention. NATO spec ammo often has harder primers so that recoil spring and striker spring combo made sense for the specs. However, it certainly isn’t ideal for production division or CO. A few years later, Canik lightened both springs but just slightly. Around the same time, the Sig P320 drop fire nonsense came up and people were all over YouTube whacking loaded guns on the back of the slide with a mallet to see if they could make them go off. Canik released the “severe duty upgrade” to make sure their guns were “whack with a mallet” safe. The part of this that’s worth noting is they changed the drop plunger spring — if you have a pretty blue coated drop plunger spring in your Canik, that’s a post-SDU spring. They are heavier and this is relevant as it can cause some drag issues on the striker if you start playing around with the other springs. It also adds a weird wall in the trigger pull on some Caniks. So, if you want to go really low on the recoil spring, you will almost certainly have to change the striker spring (Sprinco, 6.5lb Ghost spring out of a Glock 17, etc). If you also have the SDU drop plunger spring, you likely want to replace that with one from Sprinco or a Ghost Glock RP Glock block plunger spring (this spring may require a slight stretch but it works…competition use only obviously). With a mixture of the various springs above (I tried around 27 different combinations before I quit counting), I have been able to run ammo as low as 105pf in my Rival with no problems. I was using different bullets and powder and started at book recommended loads when I discovered this - they were hilarious to shoot due to the compete lack of recoil but they ran fine. The point being you can run a really light RSA if you swap out the other springs and get the right balance between them. note: changing the striker spring and the drop plunger spring will also reduce the trigger pull. Another problem to watch out for on newer Caniks is the freebore/throat & leade. Someone at Canik had the brilliant idea to make the newer ones really short. This was not a problem on the original SFx ver. 1.0 as you could load really long with those - like >1.160” with coated bullet and have no problems. You are not going to get near that COAL in the the newer barrels. Loaded rounds that will easily pass a Dillon gauge will not work. The one in my Rival Dark Side was so short that I finally sent it off and had it reamed. It still won’t let me load as long as my original SFx but at least it gives me a little more room than the factory barrel. For whatever the reason, a very short freebore/throat/leade seems to be the new thing with many manufacturers. Since I ran into this problem on my Rival, I have encountered the same with other barrels from other manufacturers where virtually none of my older 9mm pistols are like this. As such, I have gotten in the habit of doing a plunk and spin test with every new 9mm barrel I get to check it with every ammo I plan to use in it. That includes factory ammo as, to my amazement, I have now found some 9mm barrels that will not pass plunk and spin with slightly older production date factory ammo. The most recent was the concerning combination of a PSA dagger barrel and older Remington 115gr JHP +p. Despite being factory ammo, those had the bullet firmly in the rifling (just short of plunk, no where close to spin) and, as they are also +p, that could cause an impressive pressure spike. I didn’t test fire them as I like having all my fingers.

Is it the blue firing pin block plunger spring? I forgot to mention this in my previous reply but if it’s the blue one, it’s the “severe duty” upgrade spring that came about after people on YouTube started putting pistols in bench vises and whacking the back of the slide with a hammer to see if they could make them go off (I swear that was really a thing). Anyway, if it has the blue coating, I wouldn’t mess with it as it likely isn’t worth the effort and the Ghost Glock RP block plunger spring is cheap (~$3.49).

I am still talking to some of the other mods from CF - we may revive that forum or at least parts of it in the future as some of it was backed up. Hopefully all of that content isn’t just lost.

lol - it took quite a bit of time and tweaking to figure it out. I started tuning up Caniks when the TP9SA (mod 1) and TP9V2 first came to the US so I had a good idea of how they worked well before the SFx showed up. The TP9V2’s performance really surprised me (especially for its price point back in early 2016) so I spent days playing around with it. It has a DA/SA trigger and a lot of the tuning methods for the SA Caniks ended up coming from figuring out how to really smooth out and lighten up the DA and SA pull on the V2. The SFx Rival Dark Side I posted above uses a 6.5lb Ghost striker spring from a G17 and I haven’t had a light strike with any primer since I switched to that striker spring. The one in my original SFx has been in it a few years - since the summer of 2018 or around that time. So far, so good. I wrote some how-to threads on tuning the TP9 series and then specific threads for the the SFx and the SFx Rival that were on the Canik Fanatik forum for years but that forum went offline a few months ago. Unfortunately, I don’t have full backups of any of those threads but I think I still have all of the pics so I may put them up on another forum at some point. The problem there is finding a forum that will let me post 30 or more high resolution pics in a single thread. In any event, the short description of the process is: 6.5lb Ghost striker spring Modded oval #2 split ring added to the trigger return spring Freedomsmith trigger Polishing of all contact/mating surfaces in the fire control system (by “all” I mean every possible friction point including the really annoying ones to work on inside the ejector block) Ghost RP block plunger spring Block plunger polished Striker polished where needed.

Whoops - forgot the pic of the package. My local Academy Sports has them but they are likely available online as well:

Pic below is what the oval split ring looks like in the pistol. The split ring is cut to remove just enough on one side of the split ring so it is a single wire that loops over the hook on the end of the trigger bar (better fit in the notch than double wire).

6.5lb Ghost G17 striker spring. It became my default spring after I got tired of having to change out the 28 Newton striker springs when Federal GMM primers became hard to find. The 28 Newton Glock striker springs are too prone to light strikes when they get too many rounds on them anyway. That slightly lighter trigger pull doesn’t do you much good if you get click instead of bang on a couple stages due to light strikes. The rest was the oval #2 split ring, a Ghost RP block plunger spring, a lot of polishing of contact points in the fire control mechanism and playing around with the parts inside the ejector block. It’s still a pain to keep it consistently that low as any carbon build up starts adding some drag pretty quickly when it’s that light. I haven’t been able to get my Rival Dark Side’s trigger quite as low as my original SFx. That may in part be due to total round count as my SFx version 1.0 has far more rounds through it than my Rival but Canik did change a few parts as well (ejector block now has a polymer on metal contact point that used to be metal on metal). I have a spare ejector block from an original SFx but I haven’t bothered with trying to swap it out with the one in the Rival yet to see if it makes any difference or if it’s even possible.

Another thing to check is the area in the frame where the slot is cut for the trigger. At least on the polymer models, there is often a weird lip left there from molding. I used a flat needle file wrapped in 400 grit 3M wet/dry to smooth off that rough lip on the frame and that solved a weird hang up I was often feeling in the trigger pull. Pic of the spot I am talking about (right at the tip of the bright orange pointy thing):

I have been running them that way for quite sometime with no problems. I came up with the #2 split ring thing in May or June of 2018 and posted it on the CF forum after testing the FS trigger and checking the tension on the TRS. Building crankbaits for fishing was my other addiction at the time so I had dozens of split rings laying around and tested several until I settled on the #2. My other solution was a modified spring out of a box of springs I found at Home Depot for $5 that actually works great but requires a little more effort in terms of cut-test-cut trial and error to get it just right. In any event, the #2 oval split ring is now my favorite for that mod. If you cut part of the overlap on the split ring with a Dremel, it fits in that gap almost perfectly and reduces the tension on the trigger return spring just a tiny bit more. I will try to remember to post a pic of that split ring and the cut on it tomorrow. With that minor modification and several others that involved a bit more elbow grease and polishing compound, I finally got a trigger on my original SFx that was well below what I thought would be possible:

My favorite #2 split ring for that is now the oval one from Academy Sports. It requires a bit of trimming with a Dremel to make it sit in the gap for the trigger return spring correctly but it works 100% after the minor mod and allows for the lightest possible trigger pull without feeling spongy. However, if all you can find locally is a standard #2 split ring, it is still a considerable improvement (yeah, it’s dirty af as that was after I tested it for over a month without cleaning in 2018):

No problems in my rival darkside with the FS trigger yet. I have also had an FS trigger in my original SFx since the week they were released and it’s still running flawlessly. The main problem I had with my Rival Darkside was the chamber. It’s short and tight compared to my original SFx’s barrel. Loads that would easily pass plunk and spin in the SFx’s barrel wouldn’t even get close to plunk much less spin in the Rival’s barrel. So, it got sent off for reaming.

I use the Ghost Glock 17 RP block plunger spring on my Rival Darkside. It hasn’t hurt my efforts to tune up the Rival’s trigger when using a FS trigger and some other tune ups but it still isn’t quite as good as my original SFx. edit: I used the same spring on my original SFx.

My current SFx setup: Ghost 6.5lb Glock striker spring Ghost reduced power Glock block plunger spring Freedomsmith USA fat daddy trigger JTGR-1 tungsten guide rod Lightly modded Glock Gen 4 adapter (keeps the JTGR-1 well centered) Wolff 13lb Glock17 recoil spring Polished internals (trigger bar and block plunger are most of it but there are a few spots on the ejector block that need some polishing) Canik’s new machined firing pin (no MIM pin) Canik low profile extended slide release Taylor Freelance brass mag pads Grams mag springs and followers (23+1) tungsten backstrap mod trigger guard undercut/edge radius 60 grit silicon carbide grip Delta Point Pro Trigger breaks at about 2.1 lbs with just enough takeup for the trigger blade safety to clear the frame.