Just got an email from Ruger. The gunmaker’s spinmeisters took a gander at our review and had this to say about that: “You are not doing viewers any favors by telling them to strip all the lube off the gun and then not lube it correctly. You have removed all the lube in the striker channel and trigger area [see: the video above] so it is no wonder you get a gritty trigger pull. Like any machine with moving parts you need to lube all the moving parts. Don’t overdo it so the lube holds debris, but do it to the point all surfaces of moving parts are adequately lubed.” We’ll talk to Wayne tomorrow. Meanwhile, we called in our Gun Doctor (like Top Gear’s Stig, only way slower and more careful). Here’s his report . . .
After I got off the phone with you I went and got one of my control guns (unmodified) and sprayed the guts out as you did in the video, I can attest to the trigger gritty crappy to start with but the spray did aggravate the feel more. I’ll have to give Ruger’s engineer credit. With the mag disconnect installed and a unpolished and unfleshed internal striker it does make the trigger worse. Pull the striker, a drop of rem oil on the striker spread out on the shaft and the disconnect wiped with an oil patch it goes back to factory normal.
Wanted to share that, I’ve only tried to improve the pistols so far never tried to maintain the crappy factory trigger pull. Something new to add to the list.
Anyway hope that helps in some way. I still think the best overall solution would be to eliminate the mag disconnect or at least make it optional. Improved QC wouldn’t hurt either, who ever is over the sr9c should be put over the sr40.
TTAG is dedicated to telling the truth about guns. If we get it wrong, we will put our hands up. While we investigate some more, I’d like to point out (as I did in the original review) that grittiness is only one of the trigger’s problems. The pull is extremely long, the trigger stacks and the breaking point is vague.
I will bet any Ruger engineer $1000 that if I grab any XD/XDm or Glock, strip it to bare with brake cleaner, and reassemble, that it will still have a better trigger than a freshly lubed Ruger. Also, I could still shoot 1000 rounds through these guns without a failure. Actually, someone beat me to it –> http://springfield-armory.primediaoutdoors.com/SP…
I am at over 1500 rounds through my SR40, which I have not had one single failure to feed, thus far. No, the SR40 is not the best out there, but as far as reliability goes it is phenomenal! Also, the trigger started to get very smooth after about 600 rounds. No, it shouldn’t need that much break-in, but a little time with some snap-caps and it should be much better in no time.
That's not really saying anything. In the course of the Quest for Master Class, I've shot over 5000 rounds through the Ruger SR9c that we've been testing (making it undoubtedly the highest round count SR9c out there) and have gone over 2000 rounds in between malfunctions. Just dumping 1000 rounds through a gun really isn't an indicator of its reliability – I fully expect the SR9c I've got to last for 10,000 rounds before I have to replace any internal parts.
If I said 10,000 rounds, would that be saying something? I'm sure there are hundreds, probably thousands of Glocks, SIGs, M9s, XDs, etc with tens of thousands of trouble-free rounds. Heck, I've seen some Daewoo Lanos' hit 200k miles. As with any distribution plot, there are the exceptions on both ends. Some are great, some are terrible, and most are in the middle. Ruger SR pistols and their SR line of rifles suffer from TERRIBLE QC/QA problems, you just got lucky! Google "Ruger SR trouble". My original post was about the trigger anyway, the reliability thing was thrown in there more for impact than a point. A reliable gun with a terrible trigger is no gun at all in my book!
Also, if I'm not mistaken – didn't Ruger supply you with your SR9c? Seems like a little conflict of interest. I knew something was up when I saw that you were going for Master Class with a compact pistol. It's like going to a racetrack with a Mini S – some people are laughing with you, most are laughing at you. Of course, when you win with a Mini, everyone will get up and cheer, so more power to you for trying (and more so for succeeding!).
Actually, yes 10,000 rounds would be a statistically significant sample. Lots of people buy guns that dont get shot very often, and then when that gun experiences malfunctions which may be do to ammo or magazines they lack the necessary round count to properly diagnose the malfunction.
As to my personal SR9c, yes Ruger did provide me with the guns we’re using in the Quest for Master Class. The point of the series is to demonstrate that with skill and practice the weapon used isn’t nearly as important as the person pulling the trigger. And the guns themselves are just normal guns, Ruger’s T&E guns come out if the same pool that consumer guns go to.
Well, assuming normal distribution, 10,000 rounds isn't really more statistically significant than 5,000 rounds (or even 1000 rounds for that matter). We'll skip the statistical faux pas about making a reliability statement based on the performance of one pistol. It is my experience that if a semi-auto pistol can hit 500 rounds without a major malfunction, reliability becomes nothing more than a function of round count. On that note, round count isn't really an indicator of reliability, but more of durability. A reliable gun is a function of quality, design, and maintenance, maintenance being a big issue with most gun owners. The durability of the SR pistols wasn't really in question, although the reliability/QC problems have been apparent. Regardless, the triggers still sucks – grease or no grease!
I bought a new in box SR9 in February of 2009.
The first trip to the range I experienced a crappy trigger pull, hard to press mag release and many failures to eject. When I got home I did the obvious thing and dissembled the pistol, striker and mag release included. What I found was very similar to what your gun doc found. All kinds of stuff, (sand?), plastic and metal shavings and a b load of grease. I cleaned everything and lightly oiled all parts. Things were looking up. The second trip to the range the trigger was much better , the mag was easy to drop, but I still had failure to eject problems. I mean the empties that didn't jamb, were dropping at my feet. Back at home I looked everything over and noticed that there was plastic from the casting partially covering the rear slide rail. I touched that up and the gun ran near perfect. After several hundred rounds it does run perfect.
Saturday I handled the SR9C. Today I sold the SR9 and tomorrow I will buy a new SR9C.
I think I will make sure it is cleaned and lubed before taking it to the range.