Shame on me. My 1st issues with new-to-me P95 at range

I'm here to come clean and fess up to some mistakes I made yesterday with my new-to-me P95 on a first range day. And I said I'd offer a range report. Anyone familiar with me knows I readily admit any error I make, and take responsibility for my actions.
I made sure my new gun was clean and bright. It has a known positive history, is 2 years old and has about 500 rounds through it. And it comes from a family member I trust. Because I was not sure about proper lubing with a polymer frame gun, I decided to run my gun dry as I had read of military folks doing in arctic and other sub-freezing temperature climates, until I had obtained an appropriate lube for the rails and innards. This would be a short function firing session anyhow, trying out 115 grain, 124 grain and 147 grain factory loads both Blazer Brass FMJ, and some premium brands of JHP style. Both factory magazines were used in test firing, and they were loaded to full capacity in each try.
Yesterday was cold for our area down in the valley, with 30 degree temps and a light breeze. I had to wear thin leather gloves, but arthritis required me to often warm my bony swollen hands in my pockets just to be able to load the beautiful stainless steel factory magazines.
At 21 feet I was shooting wonderful practical groups of about 2 inches offhand. I was wearing the gloves during the firing also. Sadly I soon experienced stoppages. Here's what I experienced in about 80 rounds:
Failure of the slide to full retract three times on firing, resulting in jammed partially stripped cartridges and the slide half closed.
Fully in-battery closed slide on an empty chamber once
The 147 grain FMJ loads jammed several times at the feed ramp as if they were too long, with the cartridge rim appearing to refuse to rise up into the breechface and snap up under the extractor.
I made certain I was not limp wristing. This is not my first experience with center fire autos. I cut my shooting teeth on HiPowers, Astra 600's, 1911's, a Walther PPK, and several others. I've been a shooter for 50 years. I've gravitated over the last 25 years to revolvers though because I hate to chase brass.
I have to wonder if my thin gloves were touching the slide stop. I feel I really boobooed by running the gun dry. Perhaps metal to metal dry as in arctic conditions is OK but maybe the polymer to metal status caused the issues.
I'll lube the gun and head out again to the range. On a practical note, I'm pleased with my experienced decision to try out my gun as I did rather than assume it was good to go. In the meantime, I'l continue to CCW my SP101 as I have for years. Once I have several hundred rounds through my P95 It too can become a carry option for me.
I expect criticisms here and understand them. Polymer is new to me and if that's a factor with my new gun I need to adjust my thinking.
Don

I don't have any poly-framed guns, but I can't imagine that they'd be made with materials that can't withstand normal gun oil.

Lube it up like you would a steel gun and try it again.

My autos like a decent film of lube on the slide rails and inner workings.

Aqualung

There is another thread just a few threads down debating the best lube. Interesting comments and some kinda funny. But, what no one has advocated is no lube. My polymers all love the lube... In fact, my trigger was gritty without it. Don't get so down on yourself though. I would check the polymer contact points for excessive wear though.

Having said that... i am curious when those malfunctions happened in the count of 80. Also, the slide going into battery once on an empty mag does not sound like a lack of lube problem to me. The jamming of the heavier rounds could be because of it being dry, as the added wait was adding to the increased resistance ratio from the lack of lube and causing a jam. Having said that, polymer rejects heat transfer more than metal and should do better than metal on metal without lube.

lube should have no effect on the polymer of the P-95, I did leave my thumb print permanently embedded in the grip because of carelessly using carb cleaner to clean the metal internals.

I run white lithium grease on my rail, stays around longer and lubes better than most any oil I've used.

Have spent some time in southern Kentucky; will do so again soon.
Thus, I must say that your state does NOT seem like the Arctic. Don't know how you got the idea to lube as if it was.
Just do everything normally and your problems may vanish.

lipofsky said:

lube should have no effect on the polymer of the P-95, I did leave my thumb print permanently embedded in the grip because of carelessly using carb cleaner to clean the metal internals.

Click to expand...

Actually... not a bad idea to identify if the gun ever gets stolen!

Tallbald said:

I feel I really boobooed by running the gun dry.

I expect criticisms here and understand them.

Click to expand...

I agree about the boo-boo but no criticism here. I'm afraid you'll search and find my thread about trying to run my new AR556 dry. Live and learn. My P-series guns got Hoppe's grease on the slides and rails.

Oh yeah, the AR556 gets it too.

Thanks for the kind thoughts. I realize there's a difference between a Garand in a Korean winter and a P95 in a KY frost, but honestly I really thought it would do OK dry. A bit of a learning curve for me with wonder plastics. Don.

Have you seen any visible damage or excessive wear?

Have you shot it again properly lubed? If so, how did that go?

I've never had a problem running wet firearms

OP, who knows if running your gun "dry" caused or contributed to the issues you experienced. A couple of observations, though. First, as another member noted, weather in the 30's may be chilly where you live, but it's not exactly extreme cold. Second, shooting polymer framed handguns is not like waking up on Mars. The important parts are still steel, and the steel slide runs on steel rails.

The Ruger instruction manual is vague about lubricating the P95, but in think it's safe to say that a drop of oil on each of the rails would be appropriate.