The Girsan MC14T vs the Beretta 80X

Who knew that in the year of our Lord 2024, we’d be looking at two new production, mid-size, blowback-operated .380 ACP pistols? These two new production pistols have gathered a fair bit of steam and popularity. They are the refined, elegant, and fancy Beretta 80X and the affordable, robust, and accessible Girsan MC14T. It’s a battle between Mediterranean maestros, whose instruments are simple but impressive firearms. 

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To be fair, the design does come from Beretta. Girsan based the MC14T on the Beretta Cheetah series. The 80X is a continuation and modernization of the Cheetah series, which was produced from 1976 to 2017. Beretta brought the series back in 2023. Girsan, and the Turkish handgun market as a whole, has recently taken a shine to classic handgun designs that are tough to obtain. This includes designs from Beretta, Browning, FN, and Colt. 

Let’s take a look at our competitors. 

Beretta’s new X series has modernized its beloved, classic designs. The 92X, 30X, and 80X have all been well received. The 80X mixes the awesome ergonomics of the original Cheetah series with modern features and stylings to fulfill a new purpose. The market for handguns designed for folks with poor hand strength and disabilities has grown, and the Cheetah is part of that crowd. It’s a straight blowback .380 ACP pistol with a 13-round magazine. 

The Girsan MC14T mixes a few of the original Beretta Cheetah models, namely the 84 and 86. This means it’s got a tip-up barrel and double-stack magazines. The MC14T also features some more modern touches and isn’t afraid of what the modern market wants. The Girsan offers a fairly affordable firearm that can also fill that gap in the market for people with smaller-than-average hands. 

The guns have a lot in common, so I wanted to compare them. From the outside, they look similar. They are both Beretta designs, but only the 80X is a Beretta. 

Both are DA/SA pistols that use a straight blowback design and fire the old .380, aka 9mm Short, aka 9mm Kurz, aka 9mm Corto, aka 9mm Browning, aka 9mm Browning Court. Why the hell are there so many names for .380 ACP? It has more AKAs than ODB.  

Both guns use identical and interchangeable 13-round double-stack magazines. The hammers are exposed, and both guns have ambidextrous frame-mounted safeties. They both have accessory rails. 

If you were just looking at each gun’s product page, it might be tough to tell which is worth your hard-earned cash. Luckily, you’ve come here, and we plan to thoroughly test the guns to determine whether one is a better choice. 

Off the bat, the 80X comes in swinging with optics-ready capability. It requires a plate, but you can easily mount a red dot on the 80X. I mounted a Swampfox Sentinel 2, which uses the RSMc footprint, and it works like a charm. A red dot makes shooting faster, further, and straighter easier. The real downside is how high the dot sits on the Beretta 80X. It’s at revolver red dot heights, and you have to remove the rear sight to install the red dot. 

The 80X features a safety that doubles as a decocker. The MC14T features a simpler safety that allows for cocked and locked carry. The Girsan also has a 4.5-inch barrel compared to the Beretta’s 3.9-inch design. The T in MC14T stands for tip-up, or at least I assume it does. 

With the press of a lever, the barrel pops upward and exposes the chamber. This makes it very easy to load and clear, and provides an alternative to working the slide for weaker hands. The downside to the tip-up design is the lack of an extractor and ejector. It relies purely on the blowback design to eject and extract cartridges. 

When it works, it works. When you have a malfunction, it creates a complicated malfunction that can’t be fixed by something as simple as a tap, rack, bang drill. The 80X has an extractor and ejector, and malfunctions can be remedied with a tap-rack-bang drill. 

Neither gun has much muzzle rise. They are flat-shooting guns, and the sights are quick to get back on target. It’s easy to throw a lot of rounds quickly and accurately with either gun. The fact that the barrel doesn’t move rearward while firing helps keep the gun flat-shooting. Who says a blowback operation doesn’t have its benefits? 

There is a difference between felt recoil. The Girsan MC14T has noticeably more. Or perhaps it’s more uncomfortable? It’s more noticeable and tiresome as the pistol slaps into the web of your hand. The Beretta 80X doesn’t have the same sting as the Girsan. It’s much more comfortable to fire. 

The main difference comes from the grip design. The Beretta’s grip is a bit larger and thicker, which seems to help dissipate recoil. The difference is very noticeable. I don’t want to sell the Girsan as a hand maimer. The recoil isn’t all that bad. It’s just worse than the 80X. 

Another fun surprise is that both guns are quite accurate. I expected Beretta to produce a fairly accurate gun. However, both guns outright impressed me. I expected fairly accurate and happily settled for very accurate. I shot both guns for groups at 15 yards. They printed fairly similar, very small, and very nice groups overall. Maybe I just expect less from .380s? 

Which was better? Within 15 yards, the Beretta was slightly tighter, but just barely. When we got back to 25 yards, I didn’t shoot groups; I just tried to hit a 10-inch gong. Both guns consistently hit the gong, and Beretta took the lead due to the red dot. 

I went to the 50-yard line and shot at an IPSC steel target. While the target’s large, it’s still tough to hit at 50 yards. Surprisingly, the Girsan did a fantastic job of ringing steel even at 50 yards. The Beretta and the red dot riding it did a little better. The red dot does make a difference, but the Girsan is impressively accurate. 

This will be a fairly short section. Neither gun has failed to fire, eject, extract, feed, etc. Both have been very reliable. With that in mind, I loaded a snap cap to induce a failure and see how fixing a simple malfunction would go. 

With the Beretta 80X, it’s as easy as grabbing the slide, racking the snap cap out of the chamber, and loading another round into the chamber. There isn’t a whole lot to it. The old tap-rap bang worked without a problem. 

If you applied the tap rack bang to the Girsan MC14T, you’d end up with a complicated malfunction in the form of the double feed. To fix the malfunction, you need to hit the tip-up barrel release and extract the malfunction with your fingers. 

Now, you can close the barrel and rack the slide to reload. If you don’t have the strength to rack the slide, you’ll have to remove the magazine, remove a round from the mag, insert it into the barrel, close the barrel, reinsert the magazine, and fire. It’s complicated. 

The Girsan MC14T retails for around 400 dollars. To me, that’s an arguable amount for a Turkish pistol. You can get a used Beretta Cheetah series for roughly 300 dollars. That said, there is no Cheetah series pistol with a tip-up barrel, rail, AND a double-stack magazine. Maybe 400 bucks isn’t all that bad for something original. 

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The Cheetah 80X series costs a fair bit more. At 600ish and up, depending on options, the Beretta is admittedly pricier. It is optics-ready, smaller, and has a better trigger. It’s still just a straight blowback pistol, but it’s the nicest straight blowback pistol I’ve ever seen. 

The Beretta 80X Cheetah is the better firearm when we account for performance, ergonomics, and factor in the ability to fix malfunctions. It’s pricer, admittedly, and does lack a tip-up barrel. The Girsan MC14T does come in a fair bit cheaper at around 400 bucks. If you just want a fun Beretta Cheetah-like gun, I’d pick the Girsan. If you wanted a serious concealed carry pistol I’d go with the 80X. 

Which would you pick? Let us know below! 

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