Well I finally had two things at the same time, time to hit the range, and .380 auto ammunition for my new Ruger LCP. Although I’ve had the gun for a few weeks I’ve not been able to actually shoot it.
I loaded up some rounds using 4.1 grains of Universal Clays powder and 95 grain Montana Gold jacked hollow points (before anybody comments I know a .380 won’t reliably expand JHP rounds, but being their center of gravity is back more JHPs are slightly more accurate than full metal jacketed rounds).
First off I want to say the gun is a perfect little piece. It fits in almost any pocket (although I won’t be carrying it until my pocket holster arrives). It’s very light even when loaded with 6 + 1 rounds of ammunition and conceals better than any other gun I’ve seen.
The Ruger LCP, like most small and light guns, kicks hard. Firing the gun can be painful after a while. The webbing on my right hand hurt quite a bit after roughly 30 rounds so I switched to left handed shooting for the remaining 20 rounds I loaded up. For a mouse gun the LCP is pretty accurate. I was able to peg steel plates from approximately 20 feet without too much trouble. If I’m dealing with ranges beyond that I’ll hopefully be able to use my primary carry gun.
The only thing about the LCP I really didn’t like when firing it was how far and erratically is flung the brass. I was shooting under a covered pistol range section. The roof was approximately 15 to 20 feet and several of the brass casing landed up on there. Other cases went flying 10 feet to the right and angles ranging from 45 degrees to right behind me. Since I load my own ammunition I like to keep the cases and that’s hard with this gun.
Working the slide is pretty simple. Several small semi-automatic pistols I’ve uses had very stiff slides. The LCP’s isn’t very stiff and can be easily manipulated with two hands. Due to the fact the LCP has little in the way of sights there isn’t much to catch it on in order to rack the slide with one hand though. Speaking of sights I wish Ruger would have made them just a hair larger. As they sit right now the sights are all but useless and I didn’t get a crimson trace laser for it (being I had enough trouble just finding the bloody gun). At short ranges this isn’t that big of an issue though since the sights are more than adequate for hitting human sized targets.
The gun came with a small extension for the, one and only included, magazine. I ended up using it simple because I couldn’t get a good grip on the gun without it. With the extension I was able to comfortably hold the gun with all but my pinky finger. I do wish Ruger would have included a second magazine so I could practice reloading it (I order a couple others but they certainly do charge an arm and leg for such a small magazine). I will say the magazine does indeed drop free when you press the release button. And while I’m on the subject of reloading do note that the LCP does not automatically hold the slide open when your magazine is empty so you do need to count rounds with this gun.
Overall I was impressed with the gun. It’s exactly what I was looking for in that it’s a small pistol that is easily placed into a pocket. I don’t see any features that make me want to recommend the LCP over any other .380 auto mouse gun on the market but for the price you really can’t complain much. If you want a mouse gun certainly take a look at one.