Review of the New Canik SFx RIVAL-S Pistol

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Usually when you buy a new pistol, you get the pistol, an owner’s manual, a lock and the box it came in. Sometimes you get a spare magazine. Well, Canik goes more than an extra mile, they go pretty much the whole road. The test pistol here is the Canik SFx Rival-S, an all-steel hi-cap 9mm pistol meant for, well, pretty much everything. Canik has been tearing up the competition circuit of late, in part because of the reasonable cost, the accuracy, the reliability and especially the very good trigger they all have. Right out of the box, the various Canik models are ready for use, a bonus not to be overlooked.

When you open the box with your new SFx Rival (I tested the “S” which is the chromed steel version), you see the pistol and extras in the insets of the foam interior. That’s just the first layer. You’ll see the pistol, an extra magazine, two extra backstraps, an extra magazine funnel, and two extra magazine baseplates. Oh, and the little clone Canik that is in the case? That holds the tools and some extra goodies to use in building your Canik. Why all the extras? Because you want to make your Rival yours. So, you can swap backstraps to fit it to your hand. You can swap magazine well funnels to suit your needs, competition or everyday carry. And you can swap magazine baseplates to match the mag funnels. Small for the small funnel and EDC, large for competition and the large competition funnel.

The foam is pre-cut for an extra magazine (of which Canik has plenty on the web page) and for a red-dot optic mounted on your Rival, but stick your fingers into the cutouts, and lift the top tray. Woah. The second tray holds a holster, a magazine loading tool, cleaning tools, and five of the seven different plates for adapting a red-dot optic to your Rival. Oh, and a lock for the trigger guard. An owner’s manual? That is tucked into the slot in the cover over the top tray, the one you lifted and set aside without looking, being so eager to see the Rival-S. (At least, I did.) Bonus: the owner’s manual is accompanied by a set of cards telling you what size tools fit which screws on the Rival, the tools you found in the little Canik clone. Okay, there are lots of goodies in the lockable hard-side luggage container it comes in, but what is it?

First, it is an all-steel full-sized Canik. That means it is on the heavy side, but that’s the way competition shooters have gone of late. (Well, for a few years now, really.) In the high-speed shooting that is IPSC/USDPSA, there are three things that determine your time. They are footwork, transitions and recoil management. Footwork you have to handle yourself, with practice and actually being in shape. However, the transitions (from target to target, and array to array) and recoil management (shot-to-shot) can be done faster with some weight to the pistol. It may seem counter-intuitive, where you’d think, “A light gun gets me from one to the other faster,” but there’s the matter of the microseconds of settling down to get an accurate shot. Weight helps, until it doesn’t. Well, the 42 ounces empty weight of the Rival-S dampens felt recoil. A lot.

Add to that, the five-inch barrel and it cuts down felt recoil even more. The longer slide and barrel add to the unlocking weight, which softens felt recoil, plus you need less powder. “Less powder?” you ask. Simple: a five-inch barrel gets you up to the threshold of Power Factor with less powder than a shorter one does. Your PF is measured by the bullets velocity, but the felt recoil you experience is generated by the bullet weight and the powder weight as well. An example: a 147-grain FMJ (typical bullet weight for the 9mm in competition) needs 3.4 grains of Titegroup to make Minor with a cushion. A 124-grain bullet needs 4.0 grains. While your bullet scoots out the muzzle, the powder jets like a rocket nozzle, at something on the order of 5,000 fps. Both loads generate 130PF measured at the chrono, but the 147-grain bullet generates a 147PF to your hand, while the 124-grain bullet delivers a 150PF to your hand. When stages are won or lost by a tenth of a second, that extra 3PF per shot can add up. So, a five-inch barrel.

When it comes to cocking serrations, the idea is to have grippy stuff that works in the place you will be most likely to be grabbing. Well, the Rival-S tops all of the contenders, with cocking serrations…everywhere. OK, almost everywhere, there aren’t any alongside the ejection port area of the slide, but, front and back, both sides, and on top, that pretty much covers all the available locations. Oh, and both for making the bushingless slide the correct mass for cycling, and to add in the non-slip grip ensemble, there are slots milled through the slide to the barrel. There’s still room for a dovetail front sight, and an adjustable rear sight set into the removable plate for the red-dot optic.

If you want to install a dot, remove the two screws holding the rear sight assembly onto the slide. Select the correct adapter plate from the five in the box, and then get to work fitting and bolting on your dot. The owner’s manual will tell you which plate goes with which dot. If you happen to be a fan of a dot for which the plate didn’t come in your box, then contact Canik and get the plate, or change dots. Each plate has a threaded hole for the included table prop. This is for “table starts” where you don’t draw your firearm but pick it up off of the table. The back of the slide has a plate holding the striker parts in, and there’s a clearance hole for the striker indicator. If you see it in the hole, the striker is cocked.

On the steel frame there are plenty of controls. First, there are ambidextrous slide stop levers, plus a dual-tab takedown button. While we’re here, let’s go over that. If you’ve taken apart pretty much any striker-fired pistol, you know the drill. Unload, remove the magazine, and ease the slide forward. Then pinch the slide back enough to relieve tension of the recoil assembly and pull down on the disassembly tabs on both sides. Ease the slide forward, dry fire, and the slide comes off. Well, it comes off not all straight forward. Move it forward a bit, then lift it up off of the frame. To reassemble, press it down onto the frame at that same point, then run the slide back. Once you give it a few practice runs, you’ll get the knack for the exact location this takes.

The recoil spring assembly comes out of the slide like any other pistol, as does the barrel. The barrel has an integral feed ramp, and it locks into the slide using the ejection port, but it also has longitudinal slots milled on its exterior. These slots decrease the surface area, cutting down on friction when cycling, and also provide clearance for any gunk, grit, dirt or debris that might have found its way into your Rival. Clever.

The trigger of the Rival has a central safety lever, so it works to keep the trigger from moving unless it has been depressed. This is standard in modern pistols, and means you have to keep your finger out of the trigger guard unless you are shooting. To help there, the Rival has a pair of checkered panels on the frame, above and forward of the trigger guard, as a place to index your trigger finger. Oh, and there’s an accessory rail forward of that. The straight trigger has been designed so that it is at ninety degrees to the bore when the striker is released. This means your trigger finger is pressing straight back (unless you’ve gone and built some weird trigger finger contortions into your press) and this aids in a clean release.

The frame has been machined for a non-slip grip, and the backstraps are textured to aid in that process. The magazine release button offers the option of making it better for your hand, with three different sizes of button that can be installed. Add in the mag well funnels and the magazine baseplates, and you could spend an entire winter evening doing nothing but adjusting and fitting the Rival-S to your hand. Oh, and the magazines? Eighteen rounds each, unless you opt for a magazine extension of one kind or another. With the spare that comes with it, you are ready with a reload. If you use the SFx Rival-S as your daily carry pistol, then you’re walking out the front door with 37 rounds of 9mm on your person. If you feel the need for more, Canik has extra magazines for a reasonable price, or you can use magazine extensions.

I had a chance to handle the SFx Rival-S at the 2024 Outdoor Sportsman Group Roundtable, in Colorado, where we were shooting on a rifle range. So, of course, we entered into competitions to see how far out we could tag the steel plates arrayed up the mountain. Out to 200 yards, it wasn’t too difficult to stay on the plates, but once we got to 300 and then 400 yards, calculating drop, and adjusting for the wind got to be a lot of work, but I managed to come close enough, often enough, to the one-foot square plates at 400 that anyone out there would have had to move or get hit.

Back home I took the SFx Rival-S to the gun club and absolutely hammered the 100-yard gongs, to the point where it simply got to be boring, it was so easy. The top-notch accuracy and the nice trigger made the task simple, and the heft of the Rival-S made recoil no big deal. Often in accuracy testing, I see one really small group from each load, one that pulls the average down. With the SFx Rival-S, they were all small and consistently so.

So, what is the SFx Rival-S for, then? Besides having fun? Well, the clean and crisp trigger, and the superb accuracy means it will be a superlative pistol for competition. Since it comes with a holster and spare magazine, all you’ll have to do for competition is get a spare mag holder or two, and maybe a spare magazine, depending on what kind of stages your local gun club sets up for matches. Come to think of it, that is perhaps the only trick Canik missed in packing the SFx Rival-S case full: no spare mag carrier, but, they are not expensive, they are as common as dirt, and we all have our own ideas on what’s best, right?

If you are looking at the SFx Rival-S (or one of the other Rival models) as an every-day carry pistol, then the weight might seem a bit much. However, as I’ve mentioned many times before, a proper holster (and what is proper depends on you and your body shape, so get busy testing) makes carrying an otherwise “heavy” pistol not a big deal.

The kydex holster included in the case with the SFx Rival-S has a basketweave pattern molded into it. It is adjustable up and down, but not for cant. It is a friction-retention design, and you can adjust that as well. It is right-handed, so southpaws will have to seek a holster 
elsewhere. (There’s only so much even Canik can do.)

CANIK SFx RIVAL-S PISTOL SPECS

• Type: Striker-fired semi-automatic
• Caliber: 9mm
• Capacity: 18+1
• Barrel: 5 in.
• Overall Length: 8.1 in.
• Weight: 43 oz.
• Finish: Chromed steel
• Grips: Synthetic
• Sights: Fixed front & adjust. rear
• Trigger: 3 lbs. 7 oz.
• MSRP: $950
• Contact: CanikUSA.com

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