Essentials for the LCP
Adding the LCP-specific Hogue grip is transformational to the LCP. It really takes away the nasty "snap" to your hand from the recoil. I believe this is because the recoil is spread over a much larger area of your hand, rather than because of whatever material the Hogue is made of.
Also, the addition of the Impact Guns magazine extension not only gives you an additional round in the mag, but provides an extra finger place on the grip.......maybe.
When I first got mine, I was having 1-2 FTF's per 6 round magazine. Ammo type didn't seem to matter. During that time, there was also forum "chatter" about this charming feature. Discussions gravitated toward Feed ramps. It seems that there were "batch" problems that showed up on a hand full of ramps.
I looked at mine under a strong light and.....there appeared to be machine mark "grooves" running counter to the direction the bullet feeds. I took 1/4 sheet of 600 wet-and-dry, tightly rolled it into a tube just smaller than a pencil, put a small rubber band around one end to hold it as a tube, put a few drops of oil on the other end, and started "sanding" the feed ramp in the direction of bullet feed travel.
After about 4-5 minutes, the feed ramp was smooth and shiny with no grooves. As I didn't want to skew the potential improvement, I didn't even clean the LCP.
On the next trip to the range, I mixed ammo types and brands in the same magazines. I have, perhaps 10 mags and was shooting and changing mags as fast as possible, trying to get the LCP to fail. One thing for sure.....it did get quite hot! I had 2 FTF's in 200 rounds of mixed ammo. Both may have been my fault......limp wristing, probably.
A swapped the stock LCP's 9 LB recoil spring for the 11 LB Wolff spring, shot another 250 rounds with no FTF's. That was 2 years ago year. I haven't had a single failure since then. No, I didn't clean it before swapping out the Wolff spring. I know......bad practice, but for testing purposes - you should only change the thing being tested or you'll get uncertain results.
Now, I carry the LCP daily. I should probably check it for pocket lint build-up.