I've owned both guns and personally own neither right now. Here are my thoughts:
I thought the P95 was a fantastic gun for $249 brand new. It was reliable as all get out, accurate in a "service pistol" sense, and didn't look as ugly as it's reputation implies. My beef with this gun was in the trigger pull. It was smooth, but there was a TON of unneccessary travel in it, especially in single action mode. Something about that just didn't "fit" me. I ran into some extra money and sold it for a CZ 75 P01 that I got from a gun show (like new) for $269 out the door.
If I was strapped for cash at the time and had to keep it, I would not be upset. The P95 is a brick and you will get good service life out of it, with acceptable accuracy. It's a beast to carry, or at least it was for me. Accounting for reliability, cost, accuracy, etc, I give this gun a B.
To the SR9. At the time of this purchase I was a ruger man all the way. I had to have this gun because it said Ruger on the side. I scoffed at the nice man in Kingsport who tried to sell me his CZ 75 for under $400 because I was getting "the greatest gun ever made, the SR9" :banghead:
This gun was a looker, I will give it that. I had the brushed stainless slide. It was a cinch to carry. Loved the thin grip and capacity, weight, etc. Mags were stiff. So stiff that Ruger sent me three for free, and a free Upula mag loader (Love that thing, by the way. Everyone should own one!). The first outing with this gun was fun. Accuracy was horrid, but it was a new gun and I was blinded by the Ruger banner on the side. I had never fired a striker fired pistol except a Glock 19. The Glock 19 trigger felt like a 1911 single action pull compared to the SR9. It was HEAVY, it was GRITTY, it broke early in the pull, it broke late in the pull. Bullets flying everywhere.
I got the gun home, broke it down and looked at the barrel. Top of the barrel was being mashed to death from contact with the slide. After another outing and hoping the trigger would smooth out, it kept getting worse and accuracy was suffering. Sold gun at a loss
Grade for my specimen of the SR9: D-
My SR9 was a 13xx serial #, very early release. The new trigger group may be better and they may have fixed the barrel peening problem (not just a problem I saw, others did as well.) I know they changed magazines. I'd take a P95 over an SR9 any day, unless I was confident the bugs were worked out.
I think the SR9 has tremendous potential. I am a firm believer, however, that one reason Ruger can sell semi-auto centerfires for the prices they sell them for is because trigger quality suffers in the process, and that is everything to me.