Ruger LC9S, first day at the range

Hi all, I'm a newbie here and I'm sure there are other threads identical to mine, but I took my Ruger LC9S to the range today, first time since I purchased it new a little over 2 weeks ago.

I was extremely impressed, shooting relatively tight groups at 20 and 30 feet. I fired a total of 132 rounds (one magazine of my carry ammo, the rest my target ammo). Only malfunction was a failure to feed which ended up stovepiping. Removed the round and it performed flawlessly the remainder of the shoot. Snappy little gun but that's to be expected. Wonderful trigger as well. Overall I am very very pleased and can't wait to take it out again.

The LC9S is a excellent pistol

I'll second that!

I have the LC9S Pro model and want to give you a heads up about one type of ammo. The Hornady Critical Duty 147 gr Flexloc type 9 mm +P ammo has a tendency to jam up in this little gun. Maybe it's just my gun but I've noticed that while manually racking the slide with one in the chamber and a full mag that the top round in the mag has a tendency to fail to feed. The nose on the bullet (flexloc) has a tendency to nose down and hit the feed ramp and jam up.

Other ammo that I've used (Blazer Brass 115 gr FMJ 9 mm) works flawlessly in this little Ruger 9mm LC9S Pro semi auto matic pistol.

The gun's trigger is excellent and I can shoot this gun very well. I shoot it at 17" large Shoot NC type targets at a range and at 25 yards away. The range I go to does not have a shorter range to shoot pistols at. Only the 25 yard ranges is useful to shoot pistols. The other ranges are 50 yard, 100 yard and 200 yards.

I was carrying this gun for a while until I learned about the failure to feed with my best defensive ammo. I took all the Hornady Ammo out of this gun and replaced it with the Blazer Brass for now. I'll by some other defensive type ammo and test it to see how it feeds in this gun. Each gun and ammo combination should be tested thoroughly if you intend to carry this gun for self defense. The last thing you need is a gun that tends to jam with certain ammo and not be able to quickly defend yourself in a time of need. Best to be sure of the gun ammo combo before you depend on this combo to save your life.

I'm carrying a different gun now for EDC and it works good with the Hornady Ammo Flexloc type ammo.

PS: I used three different types of Magazines with the Hornady Ammo and all three had some FTF. Of the two Ruger Magazines one was a Italian made and the other was made in the USA. The third mag was made by another company and I can't remember the name of the company now. But it holds a lot more ammo than the two Ruger Models. It's a third party made magazine for the Ruger Pistol.

Thanks for the pointers, CoyoteHunter. I ran 125 rounds of 115 grain Remington FMJ and one mag of Federal hydra-shok 124 grain HPs. The failure to feed came from the FMJ round when my wife was shooting it, and the HPs fed flawlessly although I only put one mag through of those

The one stove pipe was probably from limp writing... it does happen. I've been carrying the LC9s pro for a while now... have only shot it (2-3 mags) about 3 times.... it has functioned flawlessly each time.... with that said, and I've said this more than once, this is not a gun I'm going to go to the range with and run a hundred rounds through... I guess I'm a wimp when it comes to shooting small 'snappy' pistols.

lc9s86 I just recently purchased same. Had it to the range 1 time used REM FMJ 115 no problems. Loved the way it handled and the trigger. Planning on heading back to the range in the next few days for some fun and grip practice. Good Luck with your new pistol. Oh, I forgot I also shot a box of Hornady FTX through it. Good to go.

blume357 said:

The one stove pipe was probably from limp writing... it does happen. I've been carrying the LC9s pro for a while now... have only shot it (2-3 mags) about 3 times.... it has functioned flawlessly each time.... with that said, and I've said this more than once, this is not a gun I'm going to go to the range with and run a hundred rounds through... I guess I'm a wimp when it comes to shooting small 'snappy' pistols.

Click to expand...

If I were not shooting my Walther's PPQ all the time I'd shoot my Ruger more often. But when I did start shooting the Ruger it work's flawlessly. And a few times I forgot to take out the Hornady Critical Duty ammo and it worked good.

The time I noticed the problem was when I was manually working the slide and trying to empty the magazines of ammo. That was when I had the problem with the Hornday ammo feeding or failing to feed properly. But the FMJ Blazer brass 115 grain ammo feed well when I manually worked the slide.