I'm back with an LC9s !

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CoyoteHunter_

Bearcat
Joined
Aug 31, 2015
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Nice choice for a holster. I have that one too and if I was thinner and enjoyed wearing IWB type holsters I would have recommended that one for you too. But I'm bigger now and the pants don't stay up with an IWB holster. So I choose the OWB holster. I can tighten my belt up more with the OWB type holster than with the IWB type holsters. YMMV though.

I'm buying an Alien Gear 3.0 IWB (with Lasermax) holster for it. Where I live IWB and/or good pocket holsters are must-haves. I like that Alien Gear inner spring steel layer surrounded by neoprene.[/quote]

While I don't have a Walther PPK or the other Walthers that you mentioned above I do own a Walther's PPQ M4 4" barrel and the Ruger LC9S Pro pistols. I love my PPQ much better. I have been switching between the two guns as an EDCG and have now settled on carrying the Walthers PPQ M2 4" barrel in my new Stealthgear Flex OWB holster. Stealthgear didn't make a holster for my Ruger LC9S Pro yet so I went with the holster for the PPQ instead. I'm glad that I did as this new holster is very comfortable. I carry the Ruger in the Alien Gear Cloak Slide leather/kydex OWB holster now and the Walthers in the Stealthgear holster.

Stealthgear uses kydex inside the cloth material like Alien Gear uses stainless steel inside the fabric of their Cloak Tuck 3.0 IWB holster. But Stealthgear drills holes in the Kydex in certain places to allow air to pass though the material and this allows it to breath better according to the advertising. The Stealthgear people want a kings ransom for their holsters though. They charged $174 for the OWB Flex holster for my PPQ and the Alien Gear Cloak Slide was only about 30 bucks. Huge difference in the prices. The Stealthgear holster is nice but it's not worth 8 times more IMHO.
 

CoyoteHunter_

Bearcat
Joined
Aug 31, 2015
Messages
85
Location
Indiana
Nh Rugerman said:
It takes a high level of training and practice to be able to draw, cycle and fire with accuracy a semi-automatic handgun, regardless of type....to be able to do it in the time that is required during a life threatening confrontation is highly doubtful and down right dangerous. Too many things can go wrong.

The majority of police officers are NOT gun people and probably shoot once or twice a year as required ONLY , they carry their guns LOADED....just sayin'.

I would politely disagree with your statement about the majority of police officers not being gun people. I would think it's the opposite. I don't know that many police officers but the one's that I do know are all gun people. Evansville, IN Police Department. I know one of the older guys who use to be the training officer for that police department and he's trained a lot of non gun policemen to shoot better than most people. His name is Guy Minnis and he still trained civilians in how to shoot properly. He is on facebook too. He runs Warrior Dynamics and trains people to shoot guns. He was a detective for a while and was one of the Bomb Tech. He served on the EPD and worked for over 30 years before retiring. He was a detective for many years too. Another EPD detective John Haller, was also a good friend and school mate of mine. Then there is Tim Bishop who worked for EPD and I know several more that worked for the Vanderburgh County Sheriffs Dept. They are all gun people. I'm 65 now and have been around and know a lot of police and fire guys. You would be surprise how many people in the Public Safety Business are gun people who actively shoot all the time.
 

CoyoteHunter_

Bearcat
Joined
Aug 31, 2015
Messages
85
Location
Indiana
blume357 said:
I've been carrying one for over a year... but really need to take it to the range and put a few rounds through it to make sure it still works... been over 6 months....


Try some Hornady Critical Duty 9 mm Luger +P 135 gr FlexLock ammo and tell us if you get any Failure to Feeds when you fill up the 7 round Ruger Magazine that came with the LC9S Pro pistol.

My LC9S Pro doesn't like the Hornady Ammo. But it shoots the Blazer Brass 115 gr FMJ 9 mm ammo just fine. Look out for the Hornady doing a nose dive in the magazine when the slide comes forward and strips the top bullet out of the magazine and tried to slip it up the feed ramp.
 
Joined
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Messages
10,435
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Greenville, SC: USA
I practice with Georgia Arms full metal jacket and carry their Hydro shock ... never had a problem with this... it is remanufactured ammo. I think they buy spent cartridges from government facilities and then reload this.

Just to make a negative comment about my LC9s pro... I really, REALLY, wish that they would make one of these in stainless... getting tired of cleaning the rust off the slide.
 

CoyoteHunter_

Bearcat
Joined
Aug 31, 2015
Messages
85
Location
Indiana
blume357 said:
I practice with Georgia Arms full metal jacket and carry their Hydro shock ... never had a problem with this... it is remanufactured ammo. I think they buy spent cartridges from government facilities and then reload this.

Just to make a negative comment about my LC9s pro... I really, REALLY, wish that they would make one of these in stainless... getting tired of cleaning the rust off the slide.

I'm just curious about the rusting. Do you clean the gun often and add any oil to the slides surface ever so often?

I clean my gun every time after I shoot it and then add some oil to a dry patch and wipe the patch on the gun's slides surface and then wipe off any excess with a dry patch or a blue cloth type paper shop towel. My gun is only about a year old now. I don't shoot it at the ranges much as I have another guy that I prefer to use at the range. But I've shot the Ruger about three or four times so far in the last year. I keep it pretty clean. I also keep it in a soft leather holster on the end table next to the couch at night. I sleep on the counch and the gun it at my head next to my CPAP machine. The humidity in this area is about 50 % as I also keep a little temperature/humidity meter next to the gun on the end table next to my CPAP machine. The CPAP machine is filled with water and the water is heated to keep the air moist. The air flows out of the CPAP pump and though a heated plastic box of water and into a tube and then to my face mask. So the humidity level in this area might be higher than the other parts of my house. I had the crawl space water proofed last month. Before that the crawl space had a lot of water in it. I had six inches of water on top of the ground in my crawl space at some times in the past. So I'm sure that over the last year my house humidity was higher than it should be. Yesterday the outside air had a humidity level of 40% or less and the humidity inside my house was 50%. My house is really tight. I had the energy people do a blower test on my house. They opened the front door and then sealed it with a plastic door and it had a blower fan in the plastic door. They blow air in or out of my house though the front door and then test the air pressure inside and outside the house with a long plastic tube and a manometer. So I know for sure that my house is sealed up good and tight. I'm thinking that the floors are still outgassing the excessive moisture and it may take a while to get all the moisture out of the wood in my floors and the crawl space area. They dug trenches inside the crawl space all around the inside perimeter of the concrete blocks (foundation). Then installed plastic pipe in the trench and connected them all together and ran them to a large sump pump pit. Then covered all the pipe up with pea gravel and dirt and then hooked the sump pump to a hard plastic pipe system that goes to the back yard's drainage pipes. These pipes collect any water that flows from the yard though the foundation and into my crawl space under the house and then pipes it away to the outside of the crawl space. My house sits lower than the two roads that run on the North and East Side of my house and any water that flows off the roads was collecting below my house for the last 25 years. I had one floor collapse in the NW side of my house and had to have that floor and some of the rim Joyce's repaired a few years back. The moisture level in the crawl space got pretty high and did a number on some of the wood under the house. Evidently the worst part was in the coldest section of the house in the winter months and that was the NW corner. Also that bedroom use to have a aquarium and the moisture got higher in that room. Anyway it's all fixed now. I hope. But it's only been about two months since the crawl space was waterproofed and the sump pump installed. So it may take a while to get the moisture levels down again. And it's been raining so much this years that more water keeps flowing into the system than normal.

Moisture and air pollution (Acid Rain =H2SO4= SO4 dry fine particles in the air). H2SO4 and Sulfates in the Air mixed with water produced Sulfuric Acid and it's coming from the coal burning power plants that surround the area of Southern IN that I live it. So we get a lot of metal rusting in this area.

I'm thinking that the oil coating that I put on my guns help keep them from rusting.

I do agree that it would be nice to see Ruger make the Slides better. Maybe they should coat them with some thing to keep the metal from rusting. A Tenifer Finish might be nice or using 416 type Stainless Steel would be even better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferritic_nitrocarburizing
 

NixieTube

Blackhawk
Joined
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Messages
988
Location
Massachusetts
CoyoteHunter_ said:
I do agree that it would be nice to see Ruger make the Slides better. Maybe they should coat them with some thing to keep the metal from rusting. A Tenifer Finish might be nice or using 416 type Stainless Steel would be even better.

I can't claim to have done any scientific measurement of humidity or airborne corrosives, but I do keep the pistol in a safe with dessicant packs when I'm not using it. I think just as importantly I try to wipe it down with Ballistol each time I put it away. I just grab one of the "Ballistol Rags" and wipe the entire pistol down before putting it away, and I also swab the bore if I've shot it. It takes 5 minutes, maximum and I haven't had any rust issues. I don't have any relationship with Ballistol but it seems to work well on my pistols - I do the same thing with all of them, and I've had no troubles.

I will grant -- I try not to soak them in rain or otherwise subject them a lot of sweat (without wiping it off) or other corrosive substances. But the per-use Ballistol wipedown seems to work well for my relatively "careful" duty cycle.

Tomorrow I'll take a new pic. of my LC9s that I've had since very early in 2016. During that time it's been in and out of the (Remora) holster at least 300 times. I've carried the gun, holstered and unholstered it more times than I've actually shot it. The finish is still very good, there are just a couple of tiny wear spots, and no rust at all.

As I said I'm not a "combat user" and I do probably pay a little extra attention to keeping my guns clean and wiped down, etc. and stored for the most part in a clean, dry place when I'm not using them. If the Ballistol wipedowns are the main reason why, that's great.
 

NixieTube

Blackhawk
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Messages
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Here's a photo of my LC9s taken about 10 minutes ago, after having owned it for almost a year, holstering and unholstering it with a Remora holster.

This is minus the laser to show only the firearm. You can see that the major areas of wear to the finish are the edges of the extractor and the uppermost right hand side corner of the ejection port. This is an unretouched photo except for brightness, which I enhanced, and I smudged out the serial number.

The other side of the gun looks the same in terms of finish wear.

A few things:

1) I wipe this firearm down with Ballistol every time I "take it off" and put it away. I don't know for sure whether that's helped, but I can't argue with it.
2) I have holstered/unholstered this gun at least 300 times in a Remora holster, which seems to have a nice liner that isn't abrasive.
3) I am not a "severe user" and I tend to try and take care of my firearms and keep them in a clean, dry place when not in use. YMMV.

At any rate, with all those caveats, my LC9s has held up pretty well so far. NO RUST. Really. Anywhere.
I won't claim it has a super-duper-excellent finish (even when new!) but with a little care I'm not complaining. It would be nice if Ruger offered some options though.

LC9S_ALMOST1YEAR.jpg
 
Joined
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Nixie Tube... if I took a picture of the right side of my LC9spro it would look just like yours.... but the left side which is the side next to my body... is the side that has had the rust problem...I think I sort of fixed most of this by oiling the heck out of the Triple K leather hosted I wear.... seems it must be me and my sweat. Here is the left side of the pistol:
 

Mike J

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I have had an issue with rust first with a Kel-Tec P-11 and then later with a Taurus PT 111 Millennium G2. With the Kel-Tec I learned how to keep it from happening. Unfortunately I didn't even think about it with the Taurus until after it had a rust spot. If you are carrying a blued pistol if you wax the slide it will usually keep it from rusting. I don't use anything fancy just Johnson's Paste Wax. Not saying it is the perfect solution for everyone but it works for me.
 

NixieTube

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blume357 said:
...the side next to my body... is the side that has had the rust problem...I think I sort of fixed most of this by oiling the heck out of the Triple K leather hosted I wear.... seems it must be me and my sweat. Here is the left side of the pistol:

Let's face it: sweat *is* a salt water environment. It stings people's eyes and we've had our eyes for basically as long as we've had sweat glands, and they don't like it either, which is why we have developed the stylish, absorbent "bandanna." The original Gatorade was specifically made to replace the sodium lost to sweat and so it's not that surprising we see the finish on firearms that have to stand up against it look a little like they're on a boat in the briny sea. They ain't got no stinkin' bandannas. Lol.

To mitigate that you have to get the sweat off the gun and try to protect the finish. Ballistol seems to do a good job but I've also thought about a light coat of wax...not directly on the edges of the serrations...

Oh I can hear it now: "NixieTube TurtleWaxes his guns...."
 

NixieTube

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Mike J said:
I don't use anything fancy just Johnson's Paste Wax. Not saying it is the perfect solution for everyone but it works for me.

My thoughts exactly. Go out to the garage/shed and I'll guarantee most people have a little of their preferred wax somewhere. You just don't want to make the slide serrations slippery. If it protects the finish on your car/boat/what have you from all kinds of natural and man-made assaults, it should protect the finish of your firearm as well. And just a little will go a long way.
 

Mike J

Hunter
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NixieTube I learned about using wax by reading posts from an older gentleman that used to post on thehighroad.org & at ktog. His screen name over there was rcmodel. He was a member of the Army Marksmanship Unit back in the early 70's & knew a lot about guns, knife making & life in general. Unfortunately he passed recently but any time I saw his name in front of a post I made a point to pay attention.
 
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