New Mag, Old P89

I recently bought a used P89 DC, blued, great mechanical shape, some scratches in the finish. The serial number is 303-520**. I guess it's unusual first of all because it's a decocker model before 304-serial numbers. But also, the decocker lever is on the left side only. On the right there's just a circular plug held in by the extractor. Is the non ambidextrous decocker rare?

It came with a 10 round magazine that you had to shove up on pretty hard to latch. I suspect the mag was not original to the gun. I saw that the left magazine lip was hitting the ejector. So I took a jewelers file and cut away a bit of the top of the latch slot in the front of the magazine. Now that mag locks in easily and functions without a problem.

I also bought a new 15 round Ruger magazine that was supposed to be for guns with serial numbers up in the 304- series and above. I made this magazine latch-in properly the same way, by removing a few thousandths of metal from the mag latch slot.

I guess I could've shaved some metal off of the magazine latch in the gun to make the mags work but these modified mags will only be used with this gun, and the gun is still in original condition. I did put after market Hogues on it but I still have the original grips.

Congrats on a nice old P-gun. Ruger sells mags for the older guns and yhou just bought the wrong one. The fix you did is fine though.

You old unit is modeled after the 85 and is setup as it was. That is why it has the funky decock lever. Also the early DC guns all had the decock on the left only.

Enjoy and keep the P-guns alive.
Yes I am a P-nut.

Yeah, I knew the mags were available from Ruger which fit the older Ps, but I went with the newer and less expensive mags through Cheaper Than Dirt. I figured 10 minutes work with a file was worth the $10+ difference in cost.

Having this P89 is for me correcting a mistake I made 25 years ago when I passed up buying one from a friend.

Good you figured it out... I went the other direction with my older P89.... and filed the magazine release part down about 2 mm.... reason... I have other 9mm P pistols and PC9's and so wanted it to work with the newer mags....

Blume357, I read all through your posts on latch vs magazine modifications before I decided to buy the mags that I did. Thanks to you sharing your efforts I was confident I could just trim the mags if I wanted to and have them work OK.
If I had other Ps in the stable, I would've trimmed the latch like you did.