I had an opportunity to buy a CyberGun Canik TP9 Elite Custom GBB at a reasonable price. Although I had some concerns about the gun, I bought it because I was driven by curiosity and the desire to test it.

The first observation was that the pistol was marketed under the licensing brand of CyberGun. A couple of things about the French company are worth clarifying right away. It has never manufactured anything, at best it manufactures in collaboration with others. It hunts down the licensing rights to all the “worthy” guns on the market, and aggressively tries to protect them - perhaps too aggressively. This has multiple consequences, such as: high (or higher) price tag and prohibition / complete lack of supply chain for replacement parts. This ban is also accompanied by a total lack of fine tuning / aftermarket parts. You will only find parts for the very popular models (like WE's Desert Eagle), while less popular stuff will have nothing - not even basic parts and accessories.

Grabbing the package in your hand, you'll notice a few things even before you remove the replica from the box. The first is that in the case of the real steel Canik TP9, they include a nifty case with the pistol, complete with a number of accessories - grip panels, red dot mount, etc. Well, here you get nothing but the ugly cardboard box, the pistol itself, a magazine and some paper. The only way to get a package like the real steel one is to buy the collector's edition

The other thing that stands out is that the box itself and the build quality is awfully familiar. You can clearly see that the gun was made at the WE factory. Another feature supporting the theory, is that there is a cute sticker on the pistol indicating the place of manufacture - Made in Taiwan - which is typical of WE. The quality of the injection moulding is also strikingly reminiscent of WE, for example in the way the letters are shaped and raised. Not to mention the paintwork or the metals used – there is a distinct blurred/spotted paintwork inside the frame.

The design of the Canik TP9 is very well done. It gives the feeling of a sporting purpose pistol / race pistol while stealing or taking good ideas from many of its competitors. Examples include the end of the slide (a Walther feature), sizable and rounded trigger guard (more of an H&K design), trigger safety (which reminds me of a race pistol style Glock), disassembly lever (also Walther-like), large ambidextrous slide catch (also a Walther feature), slide shape (H&K VP9 comes to mind), threaded barrel (square thread protector made me think of FN for some reason) and I could go on and on. I had the feeling as if a lady laid in bed with every other pistol out there, birthing a comfortable, ergonomic and efficient offspring - and everyone can decide who the father is.

Since CyberGun provides the trademarks (and the higher price point…) there are several markings on the pistol. These have always been produced to a high quality standard by WE, which is no different here. Whichever marking you look at closely, you get a spectacular and beautiful look. The only oddity is an injection moulding error that can be observed on the right side of the frame, at the rear - the letter “n” in the word "Warning" is not fully visible.

The paintwork has also been done very nicely on the externals, although is slightly mottled on the inside - as we are used to from WE. Its matte paint (which gets shiny from oil) is quite durable, but it does wear quickly around the edges. The painted parts are fully colour-matched, with slight variations in the colour of the plastics. The metals are slightly greyish, while the plastics are more of a black silk colour. Because of the two-tone appearance, there are many Tan/sand coloured areas, which are a bit light in shade for my personal taste. On the other hand, the colour tone is nice in combination - which usually makes me dislike it by default, yet here it is something I don't mind.

Among the buttons, the most striking is the slide catch, which, with its two-handed nature and surprisingly long and sizable shape, has been made very prominent. Despite its emphasis, it's just big enough to be out of the way, accessible and easy to use, even for different hand sizes. It doesn't protrude too far from the plane of the frame, lying flat in a protected position while waiting to be used. The catch only contacts the slide on the left side, the right side has just been routed over.

The trigger is a flatter design, but not a completely upright one. You cannot adjust preload on this one. The safety lever inside has been given a pronounced and different red paint job, the quality of which is very different from the other parts - glossy and distinctly tacky. It is very odd that the safety is much larger and wider than on most models – it is unusually huge, but I should mention that it is better than Glocks. The gloss and colour of the black paint on the trigger itself is also a little off from the pistol - but not in a distracting way. It is very unusual that the trigger has no resistance at all when cocked – this is a design quirk, which I will elaborate on later.

The magazine release is surprisingly tiny, in return it will not get in the way. The button doesn't need to be pushed particularly deep to release the magazine, and when pressed it drops the magazine immediately. It has a small angular bastion-like shape with the button screwed onto the top of it. Of course, in keeping with modern standards, ambidexterity is achieved by reversing the magazine release - so strictly speaking, the pistol is not 100% ambidextrous.

The grip is very comfortable. It fits snugly in the hand, is sufficiently compact and is sized quite well for the XL (9-10) size in its current configuration. Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned cheapness, additional grip panels are not included in the standard package, so the hand size cannot be fully customized in this way - a huge middle finger to the owners. The texturing on the wider side is neither spectacular nor accentuated - it's there, but it doesn't add much to the usability. Also, I have the same feeling about the small squares on the spine. The two chamfers on the grip panel on the back spine are a thoughtful touch, they add to the comfort nicely. The grip length is just long enough for an XL size hand, but starts to feel a little short.

There's also an extra magwell on the pistol, which is well designed at the rear, but has a gap between the magwell and the grip at other places - the magazine can get snagged at these gaps. I've decided that after the test period I will definitely round this rim off as well. I have a picture where you can see the damage to one of the corners of the rim - the magazine does get a little stuck, but this can be compensated with practice.

The sights on the pistol gave me mixed feelings. The front sights are fully fixed, the rear sights are adjustable. Unfortunately, the front sights still have the shoddy red fiber used by WE. From experience, it breaks regularly on Glocks and collects light poorly. It is a good idea to replace it with a better fiber optic piece right away. The front sight sticks out slightly from the plane of the slide, it won't get stuck in anything, but it will bump into things during use - for me the right edge deformed after just a few games. The rear sight is a black cube with a horizontal rib and is held in place by two grub screws. In principle, it can be adjusted sideways (for windage). I wouldn't have minded if they had designed something better for the rear sight, it's a bit puritanical and simple for me - it could have been a light collecting fiber.

Aiming is otherwise very good with this set, but you can feel that they expect you to use an optic mount.

Another great detail is that we got an indicator on the state of the firing mechanism. The end of the slide strongly resembles a Walther, with a small red dot indicating the pistol is ready to fire. It
slightly protrudes from the notch at the end of the slide. It can be felt with bare hands, less so with gloves on. After firing, the red dot sits deep inside the slide.

The outer barrel is slightly longer than the slide. I feel it could have had a little shorter length. The thread protector on it is huge and angular, also visually not that appealing. It is made of aluminium, painted in a very bright and deep black - a colour that stands out from anything else. The thread protector is surprisingly heavy, no o-ring is applied to secure it, it simply needs to be threaded in by force to ensure it is properly secured.

The disassembly lever is accessible from both sides, it is necessary to use both sides at the same time. The disassembly process is quick and easy.

Here comes the surprise that you get a big difference from the usual airsoft interior, there is no internal hammer mechanism, like on all previous pistol models. You get a trigger unit with striker system similar to the GHK.

The method of operation is that the firing pin is pushed by the trigger bar against the magazine valve. When the proper distance is reached, the firing pin is locked and secured in place, which is later released by the slide during the rearward movement. The characteristics of this are that the slide moves completely smoothly and unobstructed, the firing is determined by the pressure of the gas in the magazine and the firing method is slightly different from the hammer-fired versions. If you pull the trigger in a short and weak manner, you will also push the valve in slowly and gradually, meaning that the muzzle energy will only be stable with a strong and firm firing - which takes a bit of practice. But then again, I love the harder, stronger and more decisive firing than usual - it feels slightly closer to a real steel pistol. Granted, don't expect a race pistol-like, very crips and hard trigger, but it's a good and pleasant feeling - light years better than an AAP, Glock or HiCapa. What's really weird is that with the trigger cocked and no magazine inserted, there's no feedback whatsoever – there is no click or anything.

The next surprise is that there's a concentrated amount of silicone grease in the slide, while the trigger is pretty much bone dry.

The assembly quality of the slide also left something to be desired. The first thing I noticed was that the nozzle was stuck inside the piston housing (BBU – blow back unit), as the separate shell ejector piece was misaligned, not moving freely and the nozzle was stuck in it. The nozzle spring was weak from the beginning, so I had to replace it straight away. The screw on the red dot mount plate had torn a small piece of the thread out, which was also in the way of the nozzle. Otherwise, it has a large, circular shaped piston. The nozzle spring is designed to be at the right place, while the nozzle itself is very solid and sturdily built - meaning this section looks durable when put together properly.

The cocking indicator at the end of the slide is pushed back by the trigger, which is a simple mechanical solution as well.

The hop up was not functioning at all out of the box due to all the grease, oil and the square-shaped hop tensioner – interestingly, as long as the tensioner didn't push onto the rubber, there was a hop effect (defeating the purpose of the tensioner piece). In 2025, it should be mandatory to have a padding between the tensioner plate and rubber, because unfortunately, the over-stressed, cutting action of the plate causes hop loss in most pistols.

The hop unit at minimum position...	... and maximum position.

Unfortunately for the hop, WE still refuses to let go of the horrible, small window inner barrel. On the other hand, the hop up tensioner is large enough and strong enough to adjust well. It’s a pity that the adjustment range of the hop effect is quite small - but hopefully I can improve this later by replacing the adjustment wheel. I custom-made an insert from rubber between the tensioner and the bucking, so I was able to fix the hop issue while immediately getting the hop effect I needed for 0.30-0.32 BBs. It's a bit odd that there is a very tiny piece of plastic in the front of the slide - used to dampen the metal-on-metal impact. The recoil spring guide is metal, connected to the hop chamber and has a sufficiently strong recoil spring. The outer barrel has been given a solution reminiscent of Glocks - two wings on the right side make a tilting movement - I would have preferred a fixed, non-moving outer barrel. The slide itself is slightly loose fitting. The wobble is not distracting, but it is wobbling more the the side, which is typical of WE.

The trigger has very few parts, it is a simple construction. The whole construction is sizable, although parts are made of pot metal - but judging by the tests so far, it looks durable. The trigger bar moves a rotating part that pushes the firing pin forward, which is then locked in place by a latch - an arrow-shaped part in the centre of the trigger group. This is the reason for the special characteristics of the trigger that I mentioned earlier.

What surprised me is that the gun kicks good, it has a hard recoil. It handles cold pretty well at 15 degrees (Celsius), but around 10 degrees and below, I think it performs worse than older pistols with hammer-fired triggers. There is a CO2 magazine option for the replica, but due to the complete lack of replacement parts, I have completely let this one go.

I ran a test at 15 degrees. I measured the pistol's power with Ultrair Orange gas using an AceTech Lighter BT chronograph unit. The first test was fired at one shot every 5 seconds. I then left the pistol and magazine in the shade of the garden for an hour. I repeated the measurement, but with continuous shots (every 1 second). This way I watched a little more aggressive cooldown. The second time, the BBs in the magazine emptied without a problem, and I continued in the same manner, after reloading BBs in the magazine. The third filling of BBs ended up being shot out of the pistol, but the magazine ran out of gas so bad, that the replica started firing in NBB mode – meaning the slide didn't move, the BB was fired and I had to manually chamber the next BB with a cocking movement on the slide. Overall, I think the cold resistance of the pistol is average or slightly better than average at best.

The magazine is an average sized piece with a 22 BB capacity. What's a bit unusual is that the magazine base pad is disproportionately large, in exchange for offering a better grip. This is especially useful if you have a larger palm, as you can grip the buttstock a bit. Otherwise, the magazine base pad is the right size for a +3 hand. Similarly to AW models, it is fitted with a red gas outlet rubber, which in my opinion is more durable and better than WE. What is a little disappointing is that all 3 of the magazines I purchased for the pistol was leaking. In two cases, a slight tightening of the screw holding the seal block was sufficient, while in one case I had to replace the sealing. This has also become a constant feature of WE pistols recently.

For me, the TP9 has become a great love. It is modern looking, compact, easy to customize and effective. The new firing mechanism makes it different and better to use. Unfortunately, it is significantly overpriced in my opinion due to CyberGun, and on top of that, the "ban" on full support may (or will) be the pistol's doom. Unfortunately, I see that there is no adequate, (not even minimal) aftermarket part support, and therefore I would not dare to recommend the model despite seeing it as a good pistol. Interestingly, they appear on the second-hand market at a very realistic price.

I didn't place all the photos by the text in the article, so be sure to check out the photo gallery after reading. I expect to post some simple videos later on, further enriching the review.

Text: Batmause
Translation: Yssomru
Photos: Batmause