Ruger LCP 380 auto

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buckshott

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Have seen pictures of the new Ruger LCP 380 Auto that is supposed to be available sometime in March. Has anyone heard what kind of price is on them?
 
I searched and found an old thread on this, old meaning a couple weeks ago I believe. I am wondering what kind of recoil a 380 like this has.... lets say compared to my XD40sc. I am shopping for a slim pocket pistol and the reports on this little Ruger look pretty good.
 
Four of the engineers designing the LCP originally designed the Kel-Tec .380.
 
i've shot the p3at, and the recoil isn't so bad. i'm sure ruger's, ahem, 'version' will be a little more substantial in weight, so recoil will probably be even less.
 
better than PPS?

just different. for those looking for a 9mm, the Ruger won't really compete. I'm not decided if I like the Kahr PM9 better, or the newer Walther PPS.

However, what I like about the LCP or Keltec, is that the .380 is a true pocket pistol, significantly lighter and smaller than most any 9mm (excpet maybe Rohrbaugh).

Pick up a Keltec PF9 and then P3AT. The P3AT is much more compact. That's why I'm glad Ruger designed (hmmm... copied) the .380 first.

I'm hoping they have a small 9mm in the works to give Kahr some competition too.
 
Well, I'll let everyone else be the beta testers of this gun. Seems only fair to me, I got to beta test the Kel-tec P-3AT by purchasing one of the very first on the market. :(

If it really is what it is made out to be, I'll trade in the Kel-tec!
 
Four of the engineers designing the LCP originally designed the Kel-Tec .380.
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Where'd you hear that?
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I'd know to know as well. Sounds like you made it up. My BS detector is going crazy.

The P-3AT is nothing more than a very slightly larger P-32 in .380 without a slide stop. The P-32 came out in 1999. George Kellgren designed it based on his P-11 design.

Ruger didn't "design" anything. All they did was to get a P-3AT to copy and then made theirs just a very slight tad larger and heavier, added a slide stop and a different extractor and presto, the "LCP".
 
Man though, could Ruger have made a more blatant knock off...
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I believe the correct term is "ripoff".

Internally, the parts are a one-for-one match to the Kel-Tec P-3AT. Comparing the exploded diagrams of both guns, they look IDENTICAL.

Externally, the Ruger has a manual slide stop, a conventional extractor and a slightly more tapered trigger guard. It's hardly enough engineering to justify calling it a different gun, and even a cursory comparison makes the Ruger claim of "starting with a blank piece of paper" laughable. They started with a blank piece of paper and then printed a P-3AT bill of materials on it.

I haven't felt such animosity toward Ruger since Bill Ruger actively campaigned on national TV and in testimony to Congress for the gun control measures like the 10 round magazine limit that were soon enacted as part of the Brady Bill.

I still hadn't quite gotten over that betrayal and now they rip off the Kel-Tec design. Ruger is trying hard to earn my animosity... and they're succeeding.
 
It seems obvious that the pocket holsters would be interchangeable between the LCP and P3AT. Any chance the mags would be too?
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Ruger made a comment about their source for the LCP mags that would be easy to interpret as meaning that they used the same mag manufacturer that sources the Kel-Tec P-3AT magazines. Given that the LCP seems to be a complete copy of the P-3AT, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the magazines were interchangeable. Ruger didn't do any engineering, so the mag supplier wouldn't need to either.

I'm still surprised that so many people don't care if Ruger ripped off Kel-Tec. If they can buy a Ruger at a good price, they seem happy to do so. I suspect many of these are the same people who publicly berate Kel-Tec and give them no credit at all for all the development they did on the P-3AT, and will now sing the praises of the Ruger, even though it's the same design and they ripped it off Kel-Tec. Everything that Kel-Tec does is wrong, by definition, and everything Ruger does is right, by definition. :banghead:

This is a whole new type of product for Ruger, and they may be in for an education. These tiny and powerful pistols are twitchy and the manufacturing margins are much slimmer. Adding a few ounces to the slide will help improve their operating margins although most people want a tiny pocket pistol as light as possible and the LCP is about 30% heavier than the P-3AT. That'll help reduce limp wristing, but the part tolerances are tight too, and it may be a challenge to Ruger to make money on their Lame Cloned P-3AT.

If I was in the market for a pocket .380, I'd wait a few weeks for the Kahr .380 that's coming, and not just because of Ruger's complete lack of ethics. The Kahr sounds like a great little pistol, and unlike Ruger, Kahr DOES have a lot of experience making pocket pistols. I love my Kahr PM9. You can bet Kahr does have engineers capable of designing a good pocket .380, and company leadership with more pride and ethics than to blatantly rip off a competing company.

No matter how you cut it, whether Ruger doesn't have the engineering talent to make a better pocket .380, or their management either doesn't have confidence in their engineers or is unethical enough to rip off Kel-Tec, either way it doesn't say anything good about Ruger and Ruger's future. The best they can do is copy Kel-Tec, and meanwhile Kel-Tec is off innovating and creating really neat new products like the RFB (innovative and very high quality .308 bullpup), the SU-22, the PLR-22, etc. The new versions of their SU-16 are going to cut into the AR market some more.
 
I haven't weighed in on the whole "controversy", but my point of view boils down to this:

If I invented something, and did not to patent it, I would have no one but myself to blame if another company started producing something VERY similar. Enough said.
 
If I was in the market for a pocket .380, I'd wait a few weeks for the Kahr .380 that's coming, and not just because of Ruger's complete lack of ethics. The Kahr sounds like a great little pistol, and unlike Ruger, Kahr DOES have a lot of experience making pocket pistols. I love my Kahr PM9. You can bet Kahr does have engineers capable of designing a good pocket .380, and company leadership with more pride and ethics than to blatantly rip off a competing company.
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Interesting...Kahr makes the slides for NAA's little .380; having a polymer frame may really lighten it up if that's the route Kahr Arms goes.

ROCK6
 
If I invented something, and did not to patent it, I would have no one but myself to blame if another company started producing something VERY similar. Enough said.
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To my knowledge, Kel-Tec isn't "blaming" anyone. I don't think there is anything new or unique in the P-3AT design to patent. It's just a small locked breech pistol. I don't think you can patent the size and shape of a pistol.
 
Put me on the list for the LCP. I've wanted a true pocket pistol for a while and have my doubts about the P3AT. I don't want to have to fluff and buff a new gun or have to send it back to the factory. Quality seems to be VERY hit or miss with them, even more than with a Kimber or Taurus. Ruger has too many sharheolders to answer to if they put out a crappy product.

As for the rip-off thing... Papermate pens are knockoffs of Bics. Puffs tissues are knockoffs of Kleenex. The Ford Escape is a knockoff of the Toyota RAV4. The Pontiac Solstice is a knockoff of the Mazda Miata.

Get over it.
 
Yikes--that really does look a lot like the KT P3at. I have 2 P3at's. Both got the fluff and buff and both of them shoot just fine. At this point I see no reason to get one of these new Rugers unless there is some major design change or something that makes the gun somehow better than my KT's.
 
The Ford Escape is a knockoff of the Toyota RAV4. Get over it.
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Jules from Pulp Fiction said it best. "...ain't the same ballpark, ain't the same league, ain't even the same ****in' sport."

The Ford Escape has a similar size, shape, feature list, intended use and market, but it IS NOT a part for part direct copy of the RAV4, down to every nut, bolt and screw, with a different hood ornament.
 
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