West Coast Armory & A Very Brief Evaluation of the Caracal F

I’ve spent some time hanging out at West Coast Armory with a friend recently, and the (very polite) staff has inexplicably given me access to the whole facility, including their multiple indoor ranges and open bays for “action” shooting. I began comparing WCA to Scottsdale Gun Club as soon as I arrived. SGC has a wider firearm selection – both rental and sales – but I was treated with respect at WCA, whereas at Scottsdale Gun Club, I’m almost always ignored or treated as if I don’t know anything about guns.

It’s worth noting that a number of WCA employees recognized me, but even those who did not were polite and helpful to me as they seemingly would be to any customer. And although WCA’s rental selection is smaller, they still have a ton of stuff available. The only negative thing I can think of to say about WCA at the moment is that several of their rental firearms were in dire need of basic maintenance and parts replacement. I pointed out the issues I saw to range staff.

One of the firearms available for rent was the Caracal F, which I had been meaning to examine for a while, and therefore found its availability convenient.

This is not what I would consider to be a review of the firearm. I didn’t put a ton of ammo through the Caracal or spend a lot of time with it, and therefore I can’t make any definitive conclusions or recommendations. However, I do have some kinda okay photos thanks to my good buddy Roy of Weapon Outfitters allowing me to use his lighting setup.

I will be able to show and discuss some of the features of the weapon, although many of you may have read similar comments elsewhere – for I am a bit late to this particular party. I’ll also discuss how it shoots – that part is at the end, if you want to skip ahead.

The Caracal F is a full size, polymer frame handgun in 9mm. It’s decently attractive, I guess, as handguns go – although I like Glocks, and they’re uglier than anything, ever. If you didn’t already know, the Caracal is made in one of the more affluent of the seven United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi. Dubai has a big shiny tower, but Abu Dhabi has its own handgun – so that’s pretty cool.

It has a lot of markings on the slide and a good number on the frame, but they aren’t too obnoxious. They’re also nicely done, unlike the crooked laser engraving on the slide of the M&P9 Compact I recently acquired.

The sights are interesting – the front is in a dovetail, but the rear sight is integrated into the “firing pin unit,” as the Caracal manual calls it. Two dots, one above the other. I didn’t notice them when shooting and simply kept the front where it should be in relation to the rear.

The mag catch is ambidextrous, but the slide release (yes, I call it a slide release) is only on the left side of the pistol. It’s small and a bit farther back than, say, a Glock, and I didn’t find it terribly easy to release with the index finger of the left hand. With my right thumb, it worked just fine.

The slide itself is pretty short, rounded and smooth, which wouldn’t seem to lend itself well to manipulating the pistol with sweaty hands. That said, the surface area available for gripping is, in my opinion after briefly handling the weapon in a range environment, more than adequate, and the rounded design might actually be better than a relatively short, angled slide.

Back to the sights for a minute – the rear sight continues the curve started by the slide, and once you put the front sight in the right spot, it sort of completes a nifty rounded circle thingy, as viewed directly from the rear (naturally, I chose to make this point while showing you an angled shot from the muzzle end). I don’t know for sure if this would aid in a rapid alignment of the sights under stress, but it seemed to make sense.

The magazine holds 18 rounds, and the opening for the mag catch has a little tab which sticks out prominently and sharply enough that you can easily feel which side needs to be pointing forward, even without rounds in the mag.

The pistol comes apart quite like a Glock. I didn’t spend too much time messing with the internals. The range staff informed me that it had seen perhaps 5000 rounds without any major complaints from customers to speak of, but this does not mean 5000 malfunction-free rounds. Still, it does not seem to have fallen apart in that time.

This review is a bit backwards chronologically, as I shot it before I took photos of it. But I didn’t bring my K-01 with me into the range – just my iPhone – so the image quality will suddenly decline here…

I fired the pistol at 7, 10, and 25 yards, both slow fire and with speed in mind. I also shot weak hand and strong hand. I’ve heard the pistol described as having a low bore axis and stuff – whatever. I have never spent much time thinking about bore axis.

The Caracal F shoots well. It is easy to control and easy to get back on target with. In the above photo, the four groups are, counter-clockwise from bottom left, my first five shots from the pistol (which were fired using both hands), then strong hand, weak hand, and finally, top left, five more shots offhand. All shots were taken at 10 yards.

I don’t have any other target photos, but it was incredibly easy to keep all shots in a small area when shooting rapidly, and accuracy at 25 yards was good as well.

Perhaps I will have more time with a Caracal pistol in the future – for now, my interest has been piqued.