New Forum Member & Ruger SR9 owner... my experience so far.

[Ganderson]

Hello,

This is my first post on this forum but I thought those looking at the SR9 might be interested.

After several weeks of research, I purchased a new all black SR9 almost 2 weeks ago and have since put 316 rounds through her on 2 trips to the range.

I knew a bit about the SR9 and it's potential "issues" when I went gun-shopping and to be honest I didn't think I would end up with one.

Really, for the money and with it's reputation the P95 is what I figured I would get... until I held one. Let's just say the grip/ergonomics weren't for me... bummer.

Well, If not the p95 then I would open the wallet a little more and go with the Springfield XD9 and even better they had a used one for just under 400 with one mag... add another 30.00 for the extra mag... still not bad.

The XD feels pretty good in my hand. A little heavier and thicker than I was expecting and the bore axis seems to ride a bit high but ergonomically I could definitely live with it once I got used to that grip safety... hmmmm. At this point I'm thinking I should at least hold the SR9. After all, It sure looks nice and that new black one is the same price as the used XD.... plus I pretty much grew up with Ruger's and have always liked them.

That was it. The SR9 just fit my hand better and pointed more naturally for me than anything else I touched so I bought it.

Out of the box I didn't find any serious external quality issues. The front sight was WAY off-center and VERY difficult to move in it's dovetail with hammer and brass punch. As many have reported, the trigger feel is not great. Very gritty and generally "cheap" feeling trigger out of the box... definitely in contrast to the XD's trigger feel. Being a manufacturing engineer I could get real nit picky about the precision with which this guns components are machined but I will not. It seems built with enough precision to do the job but could be better.

So far I have mixed feelings about it after 300+ rounds fired: Accuracy is good, ergonomics are great for me, recoil is very comfortable, but at this point I do not have a warm fuzzy feeling about this guns ability to reliably chamber the next round after every shot.

First Range Trip (straight out of box):
Shot qty.100 Winchester"White Box" 115gr & qty.50 range house brand 115gr rounds. I had a total of 3 failures to chamber the next round fully (return to battery). This occurred with both types of ammo. Maybe limpwristing a little?... I don't know.

Took gun home. Field stripped and cleaned completely (it was pretty grimy and full of grease). Lubed with CLP & reassembled. Did some dry fire practice and worked on my grip. Still don't like the trigger feel so I removed magazine disconnect. This definitely improved the grittiness in the first stage of trigger pull for me so i left it out. Loaded the mags and left them that way for a few days to loosen them up.

Second Range Trip:
Shot qty.166 Remington ShurShot 115gr. The last round of EVERY magazine load failed to return to battery... this was with 2 different mags! I had 1 additional return to battery failure in the middle of a mag as well. My grip was solid for every shot as far as I could tell. Could be the ammo I guess.

I'm going to field-strip, clean and lube again and give it a couple hundred more rounds with different ammo I suppose before I call Ruger but any thoughts/advice is appreciated.

 

[glock36]

First off welcome to the High Road, glad to have you join us. Your report was quite indepth and well thought out. My wife has a SR9 and at first the trigger felt gritty to me although she had no complaints about it, I learned that day if I were to be in a frefight that I wanted her on my side. That girl can shoot LOL. Anyway after a day of shooting I broke it down and thourghly went over it
and lubed it up nice and well then after reassembly the grittyness was barely noticible.
Keep us up to speed on your progress ok?
Good luck and God speed

 

[kokapelli]

There have been all kinds of warnings to not dry fire the SR9 with an empty chamber unless you have removed the magazine safety as this will cause the pistol to develop a gritty trigger after only one or two trigger pulls. Hope you haven't done this.

I have one of the very early SR9 pistols that had to go back to Ruger for a new barrel and the trigger mod.

Ruger replaced the barrel and did the trigger mod and now the pistol is one of my favorite 9mm pistols. Mine has never failed in anyway, even with the defective barrel.

 

[jad0110]

There have been all kinds of warnings to not dry fire the SR9 with an empty chamber unless you have removed the magazine safety as this will cause the pistol to develop a gritty trigger after only one or two trigger pulls. Hope you haven't done this.

Actually, I thought the warning was not to dry fire the pistol with the magazine removed. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it, but if that is the case, I've noticed most dealers will hand guns to customers with the magazine removed; and everyone dry fires it in that configuration. This might explain why every SR9 I've dry fired (I reinsert the empty mag first) had an absolutely horrendous trigger pull: rough, gritty and with a very stiff break (call it around 18+ lbs).

They do feel nice in my hands though. If I were to buy one, I think I'd insist on ordering one that had not been on display.

 

[Fiv3r]

I had an SR9, but recently traded it toward a Glock in .45.

What I loved about this gun:

• The size/weight as a range gun
• The capacity
• The point of aim/grip angle
• the price

What didn't work for me:

• The trigger pull (acceptable after a broken in, but still not great)
• The size/weight as a CCW
• The barrel peening that started to happen

I bought my SR9 because it feel SOOO good in the hand. I tried the others, but they were either too awkward or too fat.
However, after I reaccessed my needs (good quality shootable range/CCW firearm) and honed my skills a bit, I traded up in caliber to the G36 because it's the only Glock with ergos that fit me and tucked away a lot easier than a full sized 9mm (lower in capacity though it may be).

All around, the SR9 is a very nice pistol for the money. However, as the peening started to happen I noticed more drag on the slide. It never failed on me, but better to trade 'er off than mess with it.

Hope she works out for ya Lot of potential in that gun.

 

[Ganderson]

Correct... in stock form you are not supposed to dry-fire without a magazine in place because of the magazine disconnect, which I have never done. Dry-firing is fine otherwise according to Ruger.

Mine was never on display and the trigger still isn't great, though removing the mag. disconnect smoothed out the first stage of pull a bit.

 

[highorder]

This is the best guide available for SR9 owners.
http://www.rugerforum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=52057

Great pics, lots of info. Welcome to THR!