Over the weekend, I took Chris Costa's advanced handgun class, and used the Ruger throughout the whole class. Chris was a great instructor, and if I can scrape together enough cash and ammo, I'm going to go back for one of his shotgun classes.
There's been a few threads where people have wanted to know about the Ruger SR9: Does it carry well, is it reliable, how does it shoot?
I bought my Ruger two years ago, and its still going strong. In the thousands of rounds I've put through it, the closest thing I've had to a malfunction was when I fired the gun while jerking it back violently. In retrospect, I wouldn't be surprised if the slide impacted my torso, and prevented it from going all the way to the rear. Personally, I don't feel like this can really be counted as a blemish on the guns record, since it was more operator error than anything.
The SR9 ran like a champ. I had 3k rounds through it before the class started, and during the class, put another 2,200 rounds through it.
Here's a break down of how the gun did on each day:
Day one:
Fired about 600 rounds. The gun performed flawlessly. Went bang every time I pulled the trigger. I started to get a small abrasion on my thumb due to the large amount of shooting that we did. It wasn't until halfway through the next day that I realized, the problem: I was riding the safety much like some people do with a 1911... only the safety on the SR9 is smaller and sharper. I took my thumb off the safety, and the problem went away. I cleaned the gun that night, not because it needed it, but because I couldn't remember how long it had gone without cleaning, earlier in the week a friend of mine broke the recoil spring on his Sig, so I was feeling a little paranoid about that.
Notes: The front sight is slightly rounded, making it difficult to balance a shell casing on the sight for dry firing. Also, the loaded chamber indicator makes "Ball and Dummy" drills difficult if you use just use an empty chamber instead of an actual dummy round.
Day two:
More shooting. Lots more shooting. Fired maybe 800 rounds, and worked on clearing malfunctions. No, my gun did not jam, each malfunction had to be manually set up. I had a hard time setting up the "stove-pipe" and a failure to feed. The stove pipe was difficult because the recoil spring was pretty heavy (which is a good thing, I think) and the failure to feed doesn't work so well with this gun (setting them up, not clearing them): I'm not sure if its the tolerances or what, but I have never, ever had to strip a magazine out of this gun. I hit the mag-release, and the magazine falls out effortlessly. I did not clean the gun that night, but I did field strip it, and lubricate it a little.
Notes: If you pull the trigger with the gun out of battery, in a stove pipe, double-feed, whatever, it will not fire BUT the trigger will still break. I don't see that as a big deal, just as long as you know that. Also, the rear sights are slanted, but there was still enough of a shelf to use them to rack the slide. That's just how mine are, yours might be different, I don't know.
Day 3: Fired roughly another 800 rounds. The gun still ran like a champ. There were a couple times during the day that I (finally) used sunscreen, so my hands may have been a Little slick. They weren't covered in oil or anything like that, but they were still a little more slippery than usual. The checkering on the grip was great, and the increase in SPF 30 in my hands didn't make the gun any harder to grip. I'm not used to using the slide release during speed reloads, but when doing things with the support/reaction hand, I found it easier, and it seamed to "break in" throughout the day.
Notes: I understand that some people don't like the loaded chamber indicator. I don't see it as a safety thing: even if its up, you still need to check to make sure the gun is unloaded (Rule 1). I don't use to confirm that the gun is empty, rather, I use it to confirm that the gun is loaded. Its really convenient, when the range is cold or your not on the firing line, to be able to keep the gun in its holster, run your finger over the slide and know that you have a gun that's ready to go as soon as you put in a fresh mag.
I still think that its an awesome gun. I've never had any problems with it, even though it doesn't get cleaned or oiled as often as it probably should. Its not 100% bone stock: I did take out the magazine disconnect about 2,500 rounds ago, and I blacked out the dots on the rear sight with a sharpy. It also has the upgraded post recall trigger. Other than that, its exactly the way it came from the factory.
For those keeping track, my SR9 has a total of roughly 4,200+ rounds through it, with the only kinda-sorta malfunction being my fault not the guns. If we round it down to 4K, and blame the gun for that jam, that's still a failure rate of 0.025%, which I think is pretty good.
Chris "the Kayak-Man" Johnson
There's been a few threads where people have wanted to know about the Ruger SR9: Does it carry well, is it reliable, how does it shoot?
I bought my Ruger two years ago, and its still going strong. In the thousands of rounds I've put through it, the closest thing I've had to a malfunction was when I fired the gun while jerking it back violently. In retrospect, I wouldn't be surprised if the slide impacted my torso, and prevented it from going all the way to the rear. Personally, I don't feel like this can really be counted as a blemish on the guns record, since it was more operator error than anything.
The SR9 ran like a champ. I had 3k rounds through it before the class started, and during the class, put another 2,200 rounds through it.
Here's a break down of how the gun did on each day:
Day one:
Fired about 600 rounds. The gun performed flawlessly. Went bang every time I pulled the trigger. I started to get a small abrasion on my thumb due to the large amount of shooting that we did. It wasn't until halfway through the next day that I realized, the problem: I was riding the safety much like some people do with a 1911... only the safety on the SR9 is smaller and sharper. I took my thumb off the safety, and the problem went away. I cleaned the gun that night, not because it needed it, but because I couldn't remember how long it had gone without cleaning, earlier in the week a friend of mine broke the recoil spring on his Sig, so I was feeling a little paranoid about that.
Notes: The front sight is slightly rounded, making it difficult to balance a shell casing on the sight for dry firing. Also, the loaded chamber indicator makes "Ball and Dummy" drills difficult if you use just use an empty chamber instead of an actual dummy round.
Day two:
More shooting. Lots more shooting. Fired maybe 800 rounds, and worked on clearing malfunctions. No, my gun did not jam, each malfunction had to be manually set up. I had a hard time setting up the "stove-pipe" and a failure to feed. The stove pipe was difficult because the recoil spring was pretty heavy (which is a good thing, I think) and the failure to feed doesn't work so well with this gun (setting them up, not clearing them): I'm not sure if its the tolerances or what, but I have never, ever had to strip a magazine out of this gun. I hit the mag-release, and the magazine falls out effortlessly. I did not clean the gun that night, but I did field strip it, and lubricate it a little.
Notes: If you pull the trigger with the gun out of battery, in a stove pipe, double-feed, whatever, it will not fire BUT the trigger will still break. I don't see that as a big deal, just as long as you know that. Also, the rear sights are slanted, but there was still enough of a shelf to use them to rack the slide. That's just how mine are, yours might be different, I don't know.
Day 3: Fired roughly another 800 rounds. The gun still ran like a champ. There were a couple times during the day that I (finally) used sunscreen, so my hands may have been a Little slick. They weren't covered in oil or anything like that, but they were still a little more slippery than usual. The checkering on the grip was great, and the increase in SPF 30 in my hands didn't make the gun any harder to grip. I'm not used to using the slide release during speed reloads, but when doing things with the support/reaction hand, I found it easier, and it seamed to "break in" throughout the day.
Notes: I understand that some people don't like the loaded chamber indicator. I don't see it as a safety thing: even if its up, you still need to check to make sure the gun is unloaded (Rule 1). I don't use to confirm that the gun is empty, rather, I use it to confirm that the gun is loaded. Its really convenient, when the range is cold or your not on the firing line, to be able to keep the gun in its holster, run your finger over the slide and know that you have a gun that's ready to go as soon as you put in a fresh mag.
I still think that its an awesome gun. I've never had any problems with it, even though it doesn't get cleaned or oiled as often as it probably should. Its not 100% bone stock: I did take out the magazine disconnect about 2,500 rounds ago, and I blacked out the dots on the rear sight with a sharpy. It also has the upgraded post recall trigger. Other than that, its exactly the way it came from the factory.
For those keeping track, my SR9 has a total of roughly 4,200+ rounds through it, with the only kinda-sorta malfunction being my fault not the guns. If we round it down to 4K, and blame the gun for that jam, that's still a failure rate of 0.025%, which I think is pretty good.
Chris "the Kayak-Man" Johnson
