Turkey’s centuries of history are replete with wars and an accompanying wealth of experience in the manufacture of firearms, but its commercial gun exports to the United States have suffered in modern times from a lackluster reception by American shooters. Reasons range from a disconnected sense of styling to spotty fit and finish. In recent years, though, Turkish manufacturers have proven that they are willing to listen to input from American importers about gun design, quality and aesthetics, and that has resulted in commercial success for both parties and a renewed sense among U.S. shooters that Turkish guns are worth a second look.

The company that perhaps best proves that point today, Sarsilmaz, is the only privately owned firm in Turkey that has the capability of producing law enforcement, military and civilian guns. It also happens to be Turkey’s largest gunmaker. So, even though it may not yet be a household name among American shooters, Sarsilmaz, which means “unshakable,” is a well-established gunmaker with an enviable reputation for quality in its homeland and many other countries. Several of its commercial products are distributed in the American market under the SAR Arms brand by European American Armory in Rockledge, Fla., which also imports Tanfoglio pistols from Italy, Baikal shotguns from Russia and Weihrauch revolvers from Germany.

Travels to Turkey late last year with EAA President Keith Bernkrant not only brought the country’s rich history alive, it made the Sarsilmaz legacy fully accessible in the form of meetings with the company’s owner, a hunt with its shotguns and a tour of its recently opened manufacturing facility, which has 391,800 square feet under one roof.

Historic Roots, Modern Manufacturing
Sarsilmaz was founded in 1880, during the waning decades of the Ottoman Empire. Today, 133 years later, it is headed by Aral Alis, a fifth-generation descendant of the original owners. A congenial, nattily dressed man, Alis conducts business from a metropolitan Istanbul office that walks out to an overview of the city’s sprawling tile rooftops and the bustling marine traffic in the nearby Bosphorus. The historically strategic strait marks the continental boundary between Europe and Asia and thus divides the city of 13 million into corresponding sectors, leaving most of the country’s area extending to the east where it eventually borders several hostile nations.

His company’s dominance among the more than half a dozen major Turkish gunmakers derives from the fact that Sarsilmaz produces the officially issued pistols of its armed forces and national police. Considering that Turkey has the second largest standing army in NATO and is among the 10 largest in the world, such contracts are significant and have helped ensure the company’s stability, allowing it in just the past year to expand into the new, nearly nine-acre plant two hours east of Istanbul in the culturally diverse city of Duzce. What’s more, Sarsilmaz has spared no pains to ensure that the building is equipped with the most modern manufacturing machines available—an effort that has resulted in the company’s being able to produce hundreds of thousands of pistols and shotguns for customers in more than 70 countries.

Bernkrant, who has spent a lifetime scouring the globe for firearm designs he believed Americans would connect with, justified the latest trip to Turkey as an opportunity to convince a small group of writers that Sarsilmaz is at the forefront of  firearm manufacturing. And, true to his word, the plant proved to be a showcase of the latest examples of CNC equipment, including seven-axis mills and fully automated and robotic equipment. And although much of the floor had not yet been occupied at that time, Bernkrant reported recently that new equipment is being added continually. During the tour, he pointed out one particular example, saying, “[The plant] has one of only two machines of its type in the world—the other being at Ferrari. Here it is used to cut aluminum shotgun receivers in only 12 minutes.” The machine’s robotics allow it to shuttle between carefully inventoried bins of tooling cutters in order to carry out each step necessary to the receivers’ manufacture. Further, said Bernkrant, the plant makes and maintains its own tooling, ensuring quality control and quick turnaround times on engineering changes.

Even more remarkably, and in contrast to most other firearm manufacturing plants, Sarsilmaz has its own injection-molding capabilities, manufactures some of its own pistol magazines and has a fully computerized wood shop for stock manufacture—again, all under the same roof. Interestingly, as to the latter, although a CNC mill turns slabs of Turkish walnut into gunstocks four at a time using computer programs rather than pattern stocks, the stocks are still finished by skilled human hands. When it comes to making barrels, a huge Austrian-made GFM cold-hammer-forging machine—the same as is used at the most advanced plants in the United States and in Europe—pounds billets of steel into fully rifled and chambered tubes devoid of seams or rough edges in a matter of minutes. Other procedures carried out in-house include heat treatment and shotgun barrel soldering. And although some metal pistol frame forgings are sourced, polymer pistol frames are molded in-house. Programmable robots handle the final polishing of some metal parts depending on the finish dictated by the customer and the particular firearm. Final quality checks for pistols include test firing with one full magazine each before the guns move on to packaging and shipping.

The American Connection
The Sarsilmaz factory tour included an exhibit of guns that it manufactures but that, for a variety of marketing or regulatory reasons, are not imported to the United States—including center-fire revolvers and a pocket .25 ACP pistol. The slate of guns that EAA does bring in under the SAR Arms brand comprises two categories: center-fire semi-automatic handguns and 12- and 20-ga. pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns. The former include: the not-yet-released SARGUN, a service-size, striker-fired, single-action semi-automatic with a polymer frame that neatly blends modern H&K and Walther styling; the K2, an all-steel double-stack .45 ACP; the K2P, a polymer-frame 9 mm Luger carry pistol with bilateral safety controls; the B6P and B6PL Compact, economical polymer-frame 9 mm Lugers; and the ST10, an all-steel 9 mm Luger that resembles an H&K USP upper mated to a SIG P220 lower. Shotguns include: the SARPA pump-action and the SARSA semi-automatic—both available in a variety of configurations and finishes including all-black, pistol-grip tactical models with the Special Purpose, or SP, suffix.

Aside from the SARGUN, the handguns are built using CZ-75-inspired internal and external design characteristics. For instance, all of the other guns, except for the ST10, feature the CZ’s distinctive slide-in-frame rail design, which offers the advantage of a bore axis that lies relatively low in the hand, minimizing muzzle rise. Second is a trim, ergonomically efficient grip frame that is particularly small in circumference at the top, allowing even smaller-than-average hands excellent purchase on the gun and reasonable access to the controls. Finally, all but the striker-fired, single-action SARGUN feature exposed, hammer-fired lockwork systems that, like the original CZ-75, allow firing in the double-action/single-action mode or in the traditional single-action mode. In the former the first shot requires a long double-action pull and subsequent shots need only a short, single-action pull—whether starting with the manual safety engaged or disengaged—and in the latter the pistol can be carried cocked-and-locked and, after dropping the safety, fired with a consistent, single-action pull.

While obviously a subjective matter, the SARGUN’s overall feel in the hand and shooting experience make it, perhaps, the most intriguing pistol in the line. It packs a lot of features into one platform, including: caliber conversion from 9 mm Luger to .40 S&W to .45 ACP on the same frame; fully bilateral controls, including H&K-style magazine-release paddles integrated into the rear of the trigger guard; interchangeable backstraps; translucent polymer magazines; molded-in accessory rail; three-dot sights; and both loaded-chamber and striker-status indicators. As of this writing, it had not yet become available—save for samples displayed at the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits and other trade shows—but was said to be arriving soon.

For the K2 .45 ACP, SAR Arms went in the other direction. At 40 ozs., the full-size, 4.7"-barreled pistol is hefty, but the weight is more than justified by its all-steel construction, pleasing ergonomics and 14-round-capacity magazine. Vertical frontstrap serrations, horizontal serrations on the squared trigger guard’s face, a machined-in accessory rail on the dustcover and a fully adjustable rear sight assembly round out the gun’s features. With a stainless steel slide and barrel assembly, the K2 reaches the upper end of the SAR Arms pricing scale at $925.