Another Ruger design flaw with the KP345

I've owned three Ruger KP345 pistols since they were first introduced, the first two were highly defective, with serious broken parts issues right from the box. In fact the last of the two resulted in Ruger refunding my money in full, and was such an ugly experience in CS(contrary to everything you'll hear from the Ruger hardcore fanclub)that I'm certain I'm persona non grata with the home office in Prescott, check that, I'm positive I am!

At any rate, I conducted a trade with a local shop and came out on top, meaning they owed me some dough at the end stage of the trade, it wasn't that much of a difference so we agreed on a Ruger KP345 .45 auto. I figured I'd sell it and make $200.00 profit easily, I sure as hell had/have no intention of ever owning one for my own use, they are extremely flawed as a design, and I'm well aware of them all, "err" at least I thought I was.

I never really had taken a close look at the rear sight on the P345 before this past week(the other two weren't in my possession long enough to have done so), the one thing I had noticed about them I didn't like, that being the close proximity of the two rear dots to one another and their teency, weency size. For that reason I had originally purchased a set of Tru Dot's from Ruger way back when we still thought we liked each other, but for the obvious had never installed them.

So, enter the current KP345, and sure enough it has those same crappy sights, and of course I have the Tru Dot's for it on hand. It's at this stage I must advise those of you who don't know that the rear sight on the KP345 is a very large dovetail affair that comes with a set screw for securing it, which leads us to the flaw I encountered.

The set screw must be applied until very snug(particularly on the factory Tru Dot's)as the sights are quite loose in the dovetail, this because you can easily move the rear sight without the set screw, just with your fingers. This you cannot afford to have on a defensive pistol, particularly one such as the P345 where that rear sight serves another function, which is to capture a whole passel of parts that your .45 will definitely not run without!

It was when I was inspecting this rear sight arrangement that I noticed the consequence of the necessity of that set screw. You see dove tail sights that require a set screw all have a flaw, that being that the screw pushes up the sight on one side! This creates a cant in the rear sight(on the Ruger this cant is from left to right, a result of the set screw being on the left)that is annoying, or in this instance very, very annoying, a by-product of the close proximity of those dots and the shear size of the rear sight! What this does is make it virtually impossible to center the front with the rear sight, further, if you attempt to compensate for it by drifting the rear sight, you end up exposing the firing pin block, firing pin block spring, and the firing pin block plunger to the elements.

To rectify this I had to install the set screw in a very abreviated fashion(see picture)and blue loctite that bad boy in place, nevertheless, it still cant's up at the left, seasoned shooters will see this right away, newer or younger ones may have some difficulty at first, as of course I attempted to compensate as best I could. I'm never comfy with applying loctite to a major component on the slide, especially on a .45 auto.

I refuse to believe the factory failed to notice the scope of this particular flaw(one of many)to the P345 pistol, they had to have known, and they just didn't care! Seriously, IMHO, the Ruger KP345 platform is right up there with the Nambu, as one of the single worst examples of a factory produced semi-automatic pistol in history, a true POJ.....

I have to disagree, the dovetailed rear on the KP345 requires the use of that set screw to maintain continuity with the slide, unfortuneately the set screw is OFF center and the result totally unavoidable, the sight is pushed up at the point of the set screw, even in the modified mounting of mine it's readily apparent!

Are there some tighter fitting specimens? Sure, however of the eighty some thousand in circulation, I'm quite positive that the vast majority are exactly as the one in the photo, I know this, Ruger is well aware of the problem and has done nothing to rectify it, which would require centering the set screw, something that cannot be done due to the location of all the captured springs and components....

gwnorth said:

So, if they are that bad of a design and you have had such terrible experience with them, why keep buying them

I don't understand people who bash something, then go right back out and buy the same thing again. It's not like there are no other choices out there.

Click to expand...

"Ahh" did you read my op?

gwnorth said:

Yeah, I did, So you took in a gun that you feel is complete crap on a trade in the hope of dumping it off on someone else for a profit? You then complain about how said gun (your 3rd) is, once again, pure garbage.

Given your whole post, I do not understand why you would except the trade? And why you would want to then sell it off to another gun person when you yourself think it is a POS?

If you truly feel they are as bad as you say, why ever go near one again, and why on earth would you want to foist one off on someone else?

Click to expand...

Oh please, you are out of line, and soooo tedious! This is pertinent info, and I have every right to make a buck off of a sale, you don't like it? BS! You're just sore that someone is reporting the truth about another poor, to marginal production effort, from a company thats fast becoming disreputable....

Kymasabe said:

Weird. I've had two P345's and loved them. Never had a single problem with either of them. My rear sight never looked canted or wonky either.
My P345's were nice guns and sold quickly when I advertised them locally.
It was my good experiences with the P345's that ultimately led to my purchase of my Ruger SR9c.

Click to expand...

But you sold them, both? Likely, you just didn't notice the sight irregularity, many shooters simply compensate for fixed sight issues as a matter of course. The real issue is that you cannot drift the rear sight to compensate without exposing the pistols internals(firing pin block, spring & plunger)to the elements.

MCgunner said:

I don't know about the 345, but my KP90DC stays with me! I think Ruger attained perfection in that one. Yeah, it's a little blocky and thick, but it is light enough on the hip at 33 ounces and, man, whadda shooter!

I really don't quite understand the reason for the 345. The P97 is about as compact. The 345 is a tad thinner, no biggy. I'll stick with the P90, though. If I get another .45, it'll likely be something lighter and easier to tote, like a Taurus PT145. Love my Rugers, though. I have the P90, a P85, couple of blackhawks, an Old Army, a Mk2, and a 10/22. I have owned in the past an SP101 and a Security Six. I have NOT owned a "flawed" Ruger and I'd be quite skeptical that the P345 has any "design" flaws. The worst thing I can say about my P90 is the mag release spring is wimpy, had one snap on me a while back after 18 years of shooting various competitions and carry and lots of practice rounds. God only knows the round count in that thing and it shoots good as new. A call to Ruger and I had a new spring in the mail box in 3 days free of charge..... Good on ya, Ruger!

Click to expand...

The Ruger KP345 has a couple well known design flaws, the rear sight captures critical components, which render the pistol inoperable if for any reason you lose the rear sight, a distinct possibility given the nature of the sights attachment to the slide. The biggest flaw is the magazine disconnect, which I don't believe you can be ignorant of, the pistol is infamous for failing to fire, google "click, no bang."

The magazine disconnect can damage the firing pin on just one dry fire, breaking the pin, it has also been notorious for "false magazine out failure's," in which the disconnect just engages itself due to any of a number of reasons, all of which result in the same inability of the mechanism to fire, a very uncomfortable and nagging concern for someone to consider as they deploy the pistol in a critical situation.

Originally, Ruger didn't even mention the "uhh" uncomfy fact that if you dry fired the P345 without a magazine seated, you'd likely destroy the firing pin, or damage the magazine disconnect itself, it was not mentioned in the manual until after they had sold thousands of P345's first! It was only after they started streaming back to Prescott that Ruger made the changes to the manual alerting the public to the potential(actually a certainty)of damaging the pistol.

The biggest issue however has been Ruger's steadfast refusal to rectify the problem parts, they have never modified the affected components, instead cheerfully fixing the broken pistols as they streamed in, and stream in they have, at one time, they were backed up for months, and yet they never modified the culprit componnets. They have never issued a recall, which leaves thousands of consumers blissfully unaware of the scope of the malfunction potential.

On the other hand, most people do not frequent gun boards such as thr. Many would likely have never even fired the pistol(a very common occurrence)at all, but would be very likely to have dry-fired it, especially those thousands who purchased one before the manual had been updated, think about that, there could be thousands of inoperable P345's in homes of people who haven't a clue......

1KPerDay said:

I don't think he's out of line. He makes a lot of sense, actually.

Click to expand...

Of course you do, until your Ruger breaks, you're invincible, and you've no time for the reality about their failure....I've never met a more surly group of gun owner then those who own a Ruger. Raving on, and on about how cheerfully Ruger fixes their broken gun, there are just thousands of such accounts about the SR9 alone.....

RE: Post 17, No, they did not! I know this because I purchased one of the very first P345's in March of 04(3-digitSN). They only ante'd up a warning when the pistols began to "click no Bang" in large numbers.
Lets be clear here, If your P345 hasn't failed, great! But the the truth is that many, many thousands have, and the very first thousands sold, were sold without any warning of this potential whatsoever....The only action taken by Ruger was to add the warning to later publications and cheerfully fix them for you as they failed....

benzy2 said:

I have a problem with buying to sell it, unless you are an FFL holder. Sounds like a straw purchase to me. Either way, I don't get why you would take the pistol if you hate it so much. To then stereo type every other one out there based on the tolerances of yours is a bit narrow as well. I don't care one way or the other about this pistol, or really anything Ruger, but it seems like you went into this one looking for a fight with a pistol you hated. Looks like you found it.

Click to expand...

Well it's not, it's perfectly legal for me to turn right around and sell a NIB pistol that I got at less then half price for a profit...visit the legal forum once in a while...