I was fortunante enough yesterday to try out a Ruger LCR. Since this is a new revolver, with a pretty groundbreaking design, I'll throw out what I thought of it:
Inital impressions - The first thing you'll notice when grabbing this gun is how light weight it is. I mean, it's super light! For anyone who is thinking about getting a CCW gun, but is opposed to carrying around a lot of weight, this gun would be ideal, coming in at a mere 13.5 ounces. One way Ruger acheived such a light weight, without using scandium, was by using polymer, a breakthrough in revolvers. The polymer has other benefits too, which I'll talk about later.
The next thing you'll probably notice about the LCR is the grip. Ruger really seemed to put some time into this grip design. Pictures can be somewhat deceiving when looking at the grip size of the LCR. When looking at pictures, it appears that Ruger put on a huge grip, to reduce perceived recoil. Quite the contrary, when you actually handle the gun, you'll find that the grip is very nicely sized. It's definitely not too big. The Hogue Tamer has nice stippling on the side, and on the backstrap has a cusioned gel insert.
One of the reasons the grip looks so big is due to the cylinder size. Ruger used a reinforced stainless cylinder (with some titanium inserted), where they "chiseled" out the area around where each round is placed...very good use of space. Ruger markets the cylinder as the "smallest .38 cylinder on the market." I believe it. It really is small. Again, for those looking to find a thin CCW, and prefer revolvers, this is a huge advantage.
You've got your little revolver loaded now, and you look downrange. Small revolvers are normally designed with horrid sights. I mean god awful! Fortunantely, Ruger seems to have done a decent job on the LCR's sights. The front blade is a little bigger than what most will be accustomed to on a S&W J-frame. Another thing I noticed, is the groove running down the spine of the gun seems to be a little deeper. These two features make the LCR's fixed sights pretty bearable.
So now you've grabbed the gun, held it, thought about it, loaded it, looked down the sights, and you're ready to shoot. You pull the trigger and the gun unexpectedly goes off. "What was that?" Revolvers are notorius for having a long, inconsisent pull, that is often staged. The Ruger LCR is honestly the smoothest trigger I have ever felt, out of the box, on any revolver. It feels a lot like a good semi-auto trigger. Ruger incorporated a cam design in the trigger system, to "smooth" it out." Ruger also used polymer in the trigger housing, which undoubtedly got rid of those nasty burrs most are used to on metal revolvers. The cam design and lack of burrs, makes this trigger ultra smooth.
You continue to shoot a box of .38 special downrange and you realize it isn't uncomfortable. Those of us who are accustomed to J-frames often find that putting a full box of .38 special ammo downrange can be somewhat taxing on the hand. It hurts! Ruger must have put some good R&D into the Hogue tamer grips, becuase they honestly make recoil, a non-issue, which is unheard of for a gun this small and light. Polymer, undoubtedly, also aids in reducing perceived recoil, as it "soaks" it up better than stainless steel.
Before giving you my final thoughts, I'd like to introduce some drawbacks to the LCR. The biggest drawback is finding a holster. I've been thinking about getting an LCR, and thus investigated holster options. My findings were that there is very little in the way of holsters. In time, this should change. As with any new gun, holsters are scarce. Another feature that Ruger incorporated, that I'm not a fan of, is they require the user to release the trigger fully forward, after firing a round, in order to fire the next round. If you're used to shooting your first round, releasing your trigger partially forward, and then pulling the trigger again, you'll get frustrated. This gun WILL NOT fire, unless the trigger is released fully forward.
Final thoughts - Ruger really made a big breakthrough with this gun. In my opinion, the LCR will revolutionize the snub nose market. Snub nose revolvers have some general drawbacks: cylinder width (makes it hard to conceal), recoil (ouch!), a bad trigger for a gun with a short sight radius (makes it hard to shoot accurately), low round capacity and awful sights. Ruger has addressed each of these issues, except round capacity, and designed a product that not only improves upon the drawbacks, of a snub nose, but basically solves the problems. If you're in the market for a high quality snub nose revolver, I would look no further than the LCR! I know I won't! When I can find one, I plan on buying it...maybe even two (one for me and one for the wife) . Hope this review helps some of those who are looking at the LCR.
Edit: Has a huge trigger guard, which doesn't "slap" your trigger finger, when firing. Much larger than S&W J frames
Edit Edit: "The American Rifleman" put 10,000 +P round through an LCR. Here is what they had to say "More than 10,000 rounds of .38
Spl. + P had been fired through the gun. It didn’t look or handle like a gun that had been torture tested or worn out. Everything worked, it shot straight, and it still locked up tight." That's pretty impressive!
Inital impressions - The first thing you'll notice when grabbing this gun is how light weight it is. I mean, it's super light! For anyone who is thinking about getting a CCW gun, but is opposed to carrying around a lot of weight, this gun would be ideal, coming in at a mere 13.5 ounces. One way Ruger acheived such a light weight, without using scandium, was by using polymer, a breakthrough in revolvers. The polymer has other benefits too, which I'll talk about later.
The next thing you'll probably notice about the LCR is the grip. Ruger really seemed to put some time into this grip design. Pictures can be somewhat deceiving when looking at the grip size of the LCR. When looking at pictures, it appears that Ruger put on a huge grip, to reduce perceived recoil. Quite the contrary, when you actually handle the gun, you'll find that the grip is very nicely sized. It's definitely not too big. The Hogue Tamer has nice stippling on the side, and on the backstrap has a cusioned gel insert.
One of the reasons the grip looks so big is due to the cylinder size. Ruger used a reinforced stainless cylinder (with some titanium inserted), where they "chiseled" out the area around where each round is placed...very good use of space. Ruger markets the cylinder as the "smallest .38 cylinder on the market." I believe it. It really is small. Again, for those looking to find a thin CCW, and prefer revolvers, this is a huge advantage.
You've got your little revolver loaded now, and you look downrange. Small revolvers are normally designed with horrid sights. I mean god awful! Fortunantely, Ruger seems to have done a decent job on the LCR's sights. The front blade is a little bigger than what most will be accustomed to on a S&W J-frame. Another thing I noticed, is the groove running down the spine of the gun seems to be a little deeper. These two features make the LCR's fixed sights pretty bearable.
So now you've grabbed the gun, held it, thought about it, loaded it, looked down the sights, and you're ready to shoot. You pull the trigger and the gun unexpectedly goes off. "What was that?" Revolvers are notorius for having a long, inconsisent pull, that is often staged. The Ruger LCR is honestly the smoothest trigger I have ever felt, out of the box, on any revolver. It feels a lot like a good semi-auto trigger. Ruger incorporated a cam design in the trigger system, to "smooth" it out." Ruger also used polymer in the trigger housing, which undoubtedly got rid of those nasty burrs most are used to on metal revolvers. The cam design and lack of burrs, makes this trigger ultra smooth.
You continue to shoot a box of .38 special downrange and you realize it isn't uncomfortable. Those of us who are accustomed to J-frames often find that putting a full box of .38 special ammo downrange can be somewhat taxing on the hand. It hurts! Ruger must have put some good R&D into the Hogue tamer grips, becuase they honestly make recoil, a non-issue, which is unheard of for a gun this small and light. Polymer, undoubtedly, also aids in reducing perceived recoil, as it "soaks" it up better than stainless steel.
Before giving you my final thoughts, I'd like to introduce some drawbacks to the LCR. The biggest drawback is finding a holster. I've been thinking about getting an LCR, and thus investigated holster options. My findings were that there is very little in the way of holsters. In time, this should change. As with any new gun, holsters are scarce. Another feature that Ruger incorporated, that I'm not a fan of, is they require the user to release the trigger fully forward, after firing a round, in order to fire the next round. If you're used to shooting your first round, releasing your trigger partially forward, and then pulling the trigger again, you'll get frustrated. This gun WILL NOT fire, unless the trigger is released fully forward.
Final thoughts - Ruger really made a big breakthrough with this gun. In my opinion, the LCR will revolutionize the snub nose market. Snub nose revolvers have some general drawbacks: cylinder width (makes it hard to conceal), recoil (ouch!), a bad trigger for a gun with a short sight radius (makes it hard to shoot accurately), low round capacity and awful sights. Ruger has addressed each of these issues, except round capacity, and designed a product that not only improves upon the drawbacks, of a snub nose, but basically solves the problems. If you're in the market for a high quality snub nose revolver, I would look no further than the LCR! I know I won't! When I can find one, I plan on buying it...maybe even two (one for me and one for the wife) . Hope this review helps some of those who are looking at the LCR.
Edit: Has a huge trigger guard, which doesn't "slap" your trigger finger, when firing. Much larger than S&W J frames
Edit Edit: "The American Rifleman" put 10,000 +P round through an LCR. Here is what they had to say "More than 10,000 rounds of .38
Spl. + P had been fired through the gun. It didn’t look or handle like a gun that had been torture tested or worn out. Everything worked, it shot straight, and it still locked up tight." That's pretty impressive!
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So, I guess the little Ruger is in the ballpark after all. LOL Stuff is going up so fast, seems I can't keep up with it anymore. They were wanting $320 for a Kel Tec P3AT that I could have gotten for 100 bucks less a few years ago. *sigh*
