What's new

Are The Ruger LCP Models Durable?

Someone said LCR had worst trigger in previous posting.............; most people think the contrary.......the trigger pull is the ONE good thing with these Rugers...... Just pull continuously and it will go bang.....don't try to guess or stage it.....
 

OkieStubble

Dirty Donuts are so Good.
I too have the LCP II. Have not had any issues with it but have only fired maybe 100 rounds through it. I like it for a CCW but am concerned by what I read. In retrospect the Beretta Pico would have been a better choice.

Most LCP troubles have been with the Max. LCP II’s can have weak magazine release springs which can be easily replaced with a stronger aftermarket spring that isn’t expensive to acquire and is easily installed.

Other then that, my LCP II has been reliable for a decade with somewhere between 700-900ish rounds thru it.
 
I too have the LCP II. Have not had any issues with it but have only fired maybe 100 rounds through it. I like it for a CCW but am concerned by what I read. In retrospect the Beretta Pico would have been a better choice.
“In retrospect the Beretta Pico would have been a better choice.”
No faulting the Pico. Had once once upon a time. Only problem-just too small for my hand size and the magazine extension I found to be…uh, kinda bogus. No problems with my LCP Max to date, but on any given day where a really small sidearm is needed, I’ll grab the Beretta Nano👍🏻
IMG_5481.jpeg
 
I far prefer my S&W M&P Bodyguard 380 )pauses to catch my breath) and actually it's what I'm carrying today.

View attachment 1810284
I looked at one of these and ALMOST got one. I gave the slight nod to the Ruger because the LCP II is a tad smaller. I never seem to hear anything bad about the S&W Bodyguard (well - other than some folks just don't like mouse guns, but that's a different topic).
 
Most LCP troubles have been with the Max. LCP II’s can have weak magazine release springs which can be easily replaced with a stronger aftermarket spring that isn’t expensive to acquire and is easily installed.

Other then that, my LCP II has been reliable for a decade with somewhere between 700-900ish rounds thru it.
Some folks think the issue is the LCP II is just small and snappy and depending on your hands, it's easy to engage the safety when you shoot it. Either way, seems to me a stronger mag release spring is a good idea.
 
I do suspect, based on all of the reports of people having the same problems with it that I had (hopefully in the past sense...) that there's some inherent difficulty with feeding and ejecting - perhaps, as you said, related to the weak recoil spring.

This makes a lot of sense now that I think about it. A stronger recoil spring makes the small slide harder to rack. This could be a problem for a segment of their target customers. So it' possible that they deliberately undersized the spring trying to find the good middle point between easier loading and reliable feeding, and in some individual pistols this shifted too far away from feeding / ejecting.
I was wondering the same thing and am going to try a stronger recoil spring in mine, along with a stronger mag release.
 

jar_

Too Fugly For Free.
I looked at one of these and ALMOST got one. I gave the slight nod to the Ruger because the LCP II is a tad smaller. I never seem to hear anything bad about the S&W Bodyguard (well - other than some folks just don't like mouse guns, but that's a different topic).
When I bought the Bodyguard the LCP II didn't yet exist. And the LCP (I also owned one of them) was quite frankly the worst pistol I've even owned in any caliber from any manufacturer.
 

OkieStubble

Dirty Donuts are so Good.
I had a pair of the original LCP’s for the wife and I years ago. They were faithful little pistol’s. I ended up selling them both in order to upgrade the wife to the new LCP II when it first came out and also got her first 9mm in the Glock 43. Thinking about it in hindsight, I should have kept those original LCP’s.

I was to quick in getting the disease of wanting the next latest and greatest thing.
 

WThomas0814

Ditto, ditto
I had a pair of the original LCP’s for the wife and I years ago. They were faithful little pistol’s. I ended up selling them both in order to upgrade the wife to the new LCP II when it first came out and also got her first 9mm in the Glock 43. Thinking about it in hindsight, I should have kept those original LCP’s.

I was to quick in getting the disease of wanting the next latest and greatest thing.
The LCP was bought for my wife. I can barely shoot it because the grip is so small. I added Pearce extensions so I could get two fingers on it. I will occasionally carry it in a leather wallet holster, but generally my Kahr CM-9 is the smallest gun I carry.
 

OkieStubble

Dirty Donuts are so Good.
The LCP was bought for my wife. I can barely shoot it because the grip is so small. I added Pearce extensions so I could get two fingers on it. I will occasionally carry it in a leather wallet holster, but generally my Kahr CM-9 is the smallest gun I carry.

I knew @nortac was going to hit the like button the minute he saw ‘Kahr’. :)
 
I
I had a pair of the original LCP’s for the wife and I years ago. They were faithful little pistol’s. I ended up selling them both in order to upgrade the wife to the new LCP II when it first came out and also got her first 9mm in the Glock 43. Thinking about it in hindsight, I should have kept those original LCP’s.

I was to quick in getting the disease of wanting the next latest and greatest thing.
I looked at the LCP II and honestly it didn’t make much sense to me, it’s a slightly better range gun, but also slightly worse carry gun. Same round, same mag capacity, slightly larger. My absolutely most favorite thing about LCP is just how extremely pocketable it is, while being still relatively easy to shoot. For me at least. So making it larger in exchange for better sights and better trigger is not the trade-off I would personally be willing to make, but then I don’t find either the sights or the trigger especially bad (considering its purpose).

Ruger also did away with the original LCP’s “half cocked” hammer. The original LCP still has some hammer travel left to the fully cocked position even when the slide is racked, which can only be completed by pulling the trigger. The LCP II has a fully cocked hammer when the slide is racked. Most likely this is to improve the trigger feel. In theory, this makes LCP II more likely to have an accidental discharge via the hammer falling on the round if the hammer sear fails, although I’d be the first one to say that it’s very unlikely to happen. They did add a Glock-style trigger doohickey, FWIW.

To me this looks like LCP II was Ruger’s attempt to please all the people complaining about the original LCP being a less-than-stellar range gun, which it was never intended to be in the first place.

But, that’s just my very personal opinion.
 

nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
Reviews on their reliability is mixed, but if ya get a good one, it does seem like it would be the perfect compact personal defense pistol. :)
My Kahr PM 9 has been reliable after the initial break in period, during which there were occasional failures to feed, but that worked itself out in due course .
 
Top Bottom