Considering Buying A Ruger American

Have been wanting to get a 9mm full sized semi for a while & thinking about getting one of these for the wife. We went by Academy yesterday evening & I got her to hold a few different 9mm pistols & see what she thought about how they felt. She said the grip they had on it felt a little large to her but I they had the larger one installed. She liked the weight of it (she is recoil sensitive). I'm kinda thinking there should be at least one full sized 9mm in the house ( have a couple of 9's but they are smaller). So can anyone give me a reason this would be a bad choice? Are there any issues I have missed watching the threads here?

I have the American in 9mm and use the small grip. It fits my smaller hands very well.
As far as why not to buy or problems, it is very funny that you are hearing very very little about the American on the internet after the initial release of the pistol. You are hearing absolutely nothing about it. I think that is because it is just working. At least that is the way mine is.

Mike,

Here is a review of that pistol.

http://www.gunsumerreports.com/review_ruger_american_pistol_9mm_p1.php

We have been discussing this some more. We may wind up going with a 9E. The biggest reason being it is slightly smaller. My hunch is she would probably be fine with either one. This will be for carry so I am trying to balance finding something small enough to carry with something heavy enough to reduce recoil to where she wont mind shooting it. I have a little Taurus PT 111 G2 that weighs 22 oz.'s she says it is too snappy.

I've got the RAP 9 and the 9E, I like them both, but if I was on a budget I'd go for the 9E...If the price difference isn't a big deal, I'd go with the RAP 9.
When I bought them I just couldn't decide which one so I got both. I may eventually pick up a RAP 45, but I'm in no hurry as I recently went on a buying spree and am pretty content for awhile.

FWIW I found the RAP 9 to be dead on right out of the box but the 9E is just slightly off. Not enough that you couldn't hit a person at 7 yards...but the quarter might take a few shots.

Especially for the price, I don't think you could go wrong with either gun.

Mike J said:

We have been discussing this some more. We may wind up going with a 9E. The biggest reason being it is slightly smaller. My hunch is she would probably be fine with either one. This will be for carry so I am trying to balance finding something small enough to carry with something heavy enough to reduce recoil to where she wont mind shooting it. I have a little Taurus PT 111 G2 that weighs 22 oz.'s she says it is too snappy.

Click to expand...

The difference in size between the RAP and 9E isn't that much. If you want something significantly smaller consider an SR9C. It's heavy enough to keep recoil moderate but smaller enough to be much easier to conceal. It comes with a 10 round and a 17 magazine so you have better concealment but the availability of a high capacity mag when concealing it isn't an issue.

Quoted below is an excerpt from the review linked by 427mach1. Can anyone confirm this misbehavior in their own American?


"When unloading the pistol and removing a live round from the chamber, I found 115gr hollow points would hit the rear of the barrel as the ejector tried to flip the round out of the chamber. This was also the case using 115 FMJ round nose ammunition and other types of ammunition. The bullet hitting the barrel made the slide stop and gave a false sense of having the slide pulled fully to the rear. Releasing the slide from this position re-chambered the round, so you need to make sure you pull the slide back hard and visually verify a round is not in the chamber when unloading."

To me I have not noticed that and it seams kind of silly. Just pull it with a little force, if not force watch what you are doing. Not Rocket science.

So I ordered one of these today from Whittakers guns. $399.99 plus 12.99 shipping & handling. I'm having it sent to the hardware store FFL I use. He only charges $10.00 for a transfer.

On a side note while digging around & researching this I found a video that I found humorous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAT4HXunfi8

Its because Ruger finally got their head out of the @$$ when they built this one. It seems to be a good quality well engineered piece for the money. Still having a hard time biting on anything Ruger automatic these days, but I liked it when I looked at it.

So I picked up the 9mm Ruger American Pistol up today. Haven't shot it yet but I believe I like it so far. It shipped with the medium grip insert installed. I changed it to the small one to let the wife shoot it. She is excited (which is what I was really after anyway). We are going to try to go shoot Saturday. I'll try to get a report up before I have to back to work on Tuesday.

One other thing-I dry fired it & the trigger felt really nice for a striker fired gun. I had dry fired one of these a while back at Gander Mountain & thought it was okay (a touch heavy but with a nice clean break). The one we got in feels much nicer. I like the trigger.