The video above puts a Taurus TH9 through a couple hundred rounds with mixed ammo, and it’s an honest look at what you get for a 9mm pistol that sells for under $200. The range work is theirs, not mine, so watch it and judge the footage yourself. What I can add is context from the gunsmith’s bench. I’m Lance Rankin, owner of Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas, and budget pistols cross my counter and my bench every week.
What the TH9 is
The TH9 is a full-size, polymer-frame 9mm with a hammer-fired double action/single action trigger and a manual safety. Capacity is a legitimate 17+1, and it appears to share magazines with Taurus’s G3 series, which keeps spares cheap. Sights are basic three-dot. Nothing exotic, but at this price nothing should be.
Two things in the video match what I’ve seen handling these in the shop. The ergonomics are genuinely decent, with good grip texture and finger grooves that fit most hands. And the slide is noticeably light to rack for a hammer gun. That last point matters more than reviewers usually admit. For shooters with arthritis, weaker grip strength, or just less experience, an easy slide can be the difference between a gun they’ll practice with and one that stays in the drawer. It’s one of the first things I have customers try at the counter, and I talk about it in my handgun guide for women too.
How the range test went
The first magazines at 20 yards went fine. The trigger runs stiff, so does the magazine release, but both are the kind of thing you adapt to. Stretched out to 35 and 55 yards, hits got harder, which is true of most service pistols in most hands.
The trouble showed up as the round count climbed. The testers hit repeated failures to eject across different ammunition, including Magtech 115-grain and some lead-free loads. When a malfunction follows the gun across ammo types instead of following one specific load, that points at the gun. The ejection pattern was also all over the map: brass going forward, backward, straight at the shooter, sideways. Erratic ejection is often an early symptom of marginal extractor tension or spring issues, and on a defensive pistol I take it seriously.
They also dinged the finish as rust-prone, which tracks with budget Taurus offerings. If you own one, keep a light coat of oil on it and don’t store it in a sweaty range bag. Cheap insurance.
Where it sits against the competition
The video’s comparison is fair: against a Hi-Point, the TH9 is lighter, points better, and shoots softer than the Hi-Point’s blowback action. Against something like a CZ P-10 for a couple hundred dollars more, the TH9 loses on refinement and, based on this test, on reliability. That’s the honest math of budget guns. My roundup of the best 9mm handguns under $500 covers what that extra money actually buys you.
My bottom line
I’ll say what I tell customers in the shop: a defensive gun has one non-negotiable job, and that’s going bang every time. Failures to eject in the first few hundred rounds would keep the TH9 off my nightstand until it proved itself. As a budget range gun, a first pistol to learn on, or a project to break in and watch, it offers a lot of features for very little money, and the easy slide is a real virtue. If you buy one for defense, run at least a few hundred rounds of your chosen carry ammo through it without a hiccup before you trust it.
Want to handle one, or want a second opinion on a budget pistol you’re considering? Come see us in Roanoke or call 817-393-4000. And if your TH9 is spitting brass in every direction, that’s a fixable problem. Bring it by the bench.
Lance Rankin is the owner and Chief Gunsmith of Western Sport, a family-run Type 07 FFL and Class 3/SOT dealer in Roanoke, Texas, serving shooters since 2007. Born and raised in Texas with over 50 years of experience handling firearms, Lance purchased Western Sport in 2017 and turned his lifelong passion into his profession. He specializes in AR-15 and AR-10 platform rifles, manufactures Western Sport’s own AR-15 line under the Rankin Industries brand, and runs the shop’s in-house Cerakote coating operation. When he’s not behind the counter or the workbench, you’ll find him on his ranch deep into the night, hunting coyotes with an AR-15 and thermal optics. Lance holds an MBA and personally shoots and tests the products Western Sport sells.
