Difference Between a TEC-9 & a TEC-DC9

History

• The design of the TEC-9 has its origins in Sweden. It was originally designed by Interdynamic AB as a simple sub-machine gun, but, due to a limited demand in that country, a subsidiary company was established in Miami, Florida, to market the weapon in the United States. Because of the strict laws which regulate fully-automatic firearms, the design was altered to make it a semi-automatic weapon. This design was dubbed the KG-9. It was discovered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that the gun could easily be converted back to a fully-automatic weapon. The gun was further altered to address this concern and the gun was renamed the KG-99. Shortly thereafter, Interdynamic changed their name to Intratec, and the KG-99 was renamed TEC-9.

TEC DC-9

• Shortly after Interdynamic became Intratec, and the KG-99 was renamed TEC-9, the weapon went through another name change, this time to TEC DC-9. This was a change in name only, as the design of the TEC DC-9 remained identical to that of the TEC-9.

U.S. Assault Weapons Ban

• On September 13, 1994, a United States federal ban on assault firearms went into effect. This ban made it illegal to manufacture the TEC DC-9, but not illegal to own. Consequently, the weapon went through another redesign to comply with the new federal regulations. Intratec removed many of the "assault" features of the DC-9, such as: threaded barrel, barrel shroud and forward pistol grip. They also reduced the magazine size to 10 rounds, though it was still compatible with the same after-market high capacity magazines that were used by the TEC DC-9.

Other Versions

• Intratec produced a smaller variation of the TEC DC-9, called the TEC DC-9M. It made several changes to the size and weight of the weapon. For example: the unloaded weight was reduced from 3 pounds to 2.7 pounds, the overall length was reduced from 12.5 inches to 9.5 inches and the barrel length was reduced from 5 inches to 3 inches. Both weapons could accept magazines of 10, 20, 32 or 50 rounds. There were also copies made, such as the AA Arms AP-9, which was of suspect build quality and reliability.