My son and I took his FS9 to the range the other day. It is an older slide markings gun. It was more of a meet and greet with the gun than a full on test. We just jumped in the truck and took off.When we got to the range we discovered the range bag was almost empty. We had no tools and no oil. But we had ammo and our safety gear so it was all good.We shot the gun dry, just like it came in the box. We shot 250-300 rounds of 115, 124 and 147 grain hand loads that I had loaded 10 years ago for competition. We shot five different brands of ammo. We also shot some sub-sonic ammo and a few Golden Sabers. Accuracy was very respectable. The gun shot within 3-4 inches at 25 yards with anything we put in it. The best group was 1.5 inches at about 17 yards with CCI Blazer 9mm aluminum case. Pretty much the cheapest ammo we had with us, go figure. Reliability was 100%. We had one FTFire on a round of my handloads. Postmortem on the round showed a dented primer. What I mean to say is I screwed up when I loaded that round and crushed the primer. I don't think it would go off if you hit it with a hammer. Other than that we had no other issues with both of us shooting. We shot a lot of rounds, with no stoppage OF ANY KIND, it was a good day tater!The gun is a blast to shoot. 9mm recoil out of a fullsized gun is there but it is not an issue. It is easily managed with the right grip, making for super fast second shots. The full sized grip allows for easy controlability without having to worry about where to put your pinky finger. The ergonomics are awesome. The gun is like a refined Glock. They corrected the Glock grip angle issue which has kept me from shooting a Glock. I have many thousands of rounds downrange in 1911 style guns and CZ clones. I have one 1911 alone that has over 10k rounds through it and my point is Glocks point wrong. They point high. I also own a Glock 19 so this is not book learning. Its a fact, John Browning hit the perfect grip angle, it was copied by nearly every gun manufacturer in the world, except Glock. Diamondback got this right. The gun shot low and left. We borrowed a hex wrench from our shooting neighbor and drifted the rear sight. We ended up dead on and about 3-4" low at 25. With a little Kentucky windage we were making some good hits on clay pigeons at 35 yards.There is a place in my life for a modern striker fired full sized hangun. In fact we now own 3 FS9s, two new and this older gen slide. The FS9 falls in a good spot. At 21.5 oz it is the lightest full sized service sized handgun made. The CZ P09 weighs 28.8 oz, and the M&P9 weighs 24 oz, for comparison. A steel 1911 weighs almost 40 oz and just holds 7 rounds. The FS9 has the longest sight radius in it's class at 6.5 inches and combined with the 4.75" barrel it makes good hits consistently. The CZ, Witness and M&P all have shorter barrels. The Smith is .2 tenths of an inch shorter in OAL slide length and the CZ is 3 tenths longer. The street price at $300 may sound cheap, but it ain't. The gun only comes with one mag, so add another $25 per mag. Then if you want night sights which come standard on the M&P Pro and the CZ p-09 add another $100. Now, with two extra mags and night sights we are up to $450. Just about right for what you get.The Diamondback FS9 is a great gun. Based on our experiences ergonomics, accuracy and functionality are all spot on. The gun fills a niche in my desire to own a modern striker fired, light weight full sized polymer service pistol, in 9mm (for low recoil and fast follow on shots) and high capacity mags. And it's made in U.S. of A.!
