Century Arms announced a Product Safety Warning and a Severe Duty Upgrade notice for some of the Canik 9mm pistols. The 9mm pistols covered by these announcements are the TP9SA, TP9SF, TP9SFx, TP9SF Elite and TP9SF Elite-S.  According to Century Arms no other Canik pistols are covered by these two announcements.

Century Arms states that the guns are safe when used under ordinary conditions. The company is careful to note that the pistols comply with or even exceed Industry and military handling standards.

With the recent concerns about the drop safe nature of the SIG SAUER P320 handgun, many people have taken to the internet with their own amateur abuse and impact testing. Some of these tests appear to have been reasonable, while others have just been abusive. It would appear that Century Arms is attempting to forgo ridiculous abuse on its handguns by adding additional warnings and offering hey voluntary upgrade to its 9 mm pistols.

The new warnings are:

Evaluations and tests have shown that repeated abusive dropping of pistols may result in damage to safety features and unintentional discharge.

DANGER: IF ANY FIREARM IS DROPPED INTERNAL PARTS MAY HAVE BEEN DEFORMED, DAMAGED OR DISABLED. The product must be inspected by a qualified gunsmith or returned for inspection after any significant impact.

WARNING: REPEATED IMPACTS TO YOUR PISTOL TO TEST ITS SAFETY FUNCTIONS WILL DAMAGE INTERNAL PARTS, AND VOID ITS WARRANTY. Firearm abusive handling tests can be dangerous and should only be conducted by qualified individuals in controlled environments with proper safety precautions in place. Canik does not recommend that any customer conduct drop tests or other endurance tests before or after this Severe Duty Upgrade.

WARNING: CONSUMERS SHOULD ONLY USE CANIK PARTS IN OUR PISTOLS. AFTERMARKET PARTS COULD DECREASE OR DISABLE SAFETY FEATURES OF YOUR CANIK PISTOL.

The voluntary upgrade includes a new trigger safety spring and firing pin block spring. These parts are designed to decrease the likelihood of an accidental discharge in heavy or severe duty conditions. Century arms classified these conditions as “beyond industry standards.” According to the company, the upgrade does not change any design or a feature of the pistol. The upgrade and will be provided at no cost, however, gun owners will have to pay for shipping costs.

If you are an owner of one of the enumerated pistols, you can go to the Canik USA website for information on the severe duty upgrade. At the time of this writing, the website states that the upgrade process will be in place by September 8, 2017.