Stoeger Industries released one of my favorite pistols during the past year and that was the STR-9 Full Size. With a nice suite of features and awesome performance for a shockingly low price, the STR-9 Full Size was a gangbusters value proposition. Well, the STR-9SC carries on that tradition while doing so in a sub-compact form factor.
The STR-9SC is available in three different configurations. There’s the base model with standard three-dot sights for an MSRP of $329. Two other models are available, one with tritium sights or one with an optics-cut in the slide to mount your favorite red-dot. Both of those have an MSRP of $399 and for a pistol of this size, I opted for the tritium sight model for the evaluation.
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With that low MSRP, the STR-9F comes with ample front and rear socking serrations, a Picatinny accessory rail, a reversible magazine release and a flat-faced trigger that broke at almost exactly 5 pounds of pressure. For excellent protection against corrosion, the STR-9SC wears a nitride finish. It ships with only one 10-round magazine, so you’re probably going to spend a bit more money on a couple of spares.
While the STR-9SC didn’t have a lot of flash and wasn’t the best in any particular area, it did what it was supposed to do quite well overall. The trigger was actually pretty good, with a couple of the guys saying that it was better than the one on the latest generation Glocks. The pistol was quite accurate and handled recoil well for its size, though one tester dinged it a bit for the grip being just a little too short for large hands. But that’s just the nature of sub-compact pistols.
However, what everybody in our test group did agree on was that, while still delivering excellent performance and reliability, the STR-9SC was the best value of all the compact pistols that we evaluated. While you don’t get much in the way of accessories in the box, you sure do get a lot of bang for the buck.
