The Ruger SR9 Pistol
Story By Massad Ayoob
Photos By Joseph R. Novelozo
Before the company dropped the SR9 bomb, Ruger had guarded its secrecy well. Not as tightly as the Manhattan Project, perhaps, but well. A few weeks before the intro, there had been rumbling among those of us in the industry, but few were sure exactly what the new product would be. Then, a few days before the SR9 invasion force hit the beach, the word got out on Internet forums from folks who worked in gun shops and saw the early guns come in. The new “stealth product” would be a polymer-frame, striker-fired pistol.
The Plan
American firearms purchasers have long complained about a gun being splashed all over the covers of the magazines, only to discover it wouldn’t be on the market for months. Or longer. Or, sometimes, never.
Sturm, Ruger & Company had such a painful experience with the 9mm P85. P85 translated to “Pistol of 1985,” the year of its introduction … at least to the firearms press. It was almost two years before the average shooter could buy one and the public was righteously ticked off, and let everyone from founder Bill Ruger, Sr. on down know it.
Thus, the surprise effect of “dropping the SR9 bomb” on the market in mid-October of 2007 turned out to be a stroke of brilliance. Videos flooded the Internet shooting boards, touting the new pistol. Talk about “buzz”!
Slimmer than a Glock, but similar in shape, the SR9 gives the impression Ruger took a very hard look at the Glock 17, incorporating what they saw as its best features and taking into consideration any complaints. Because some people negligently left rounds in the chamber during the takedown process, which on Glocks and others begins with what should be a dry-snap pull of the trigger, some suggested a gun needing its trigger pulled to begin disassembly is somehow a bad thing. I don’t see it that way, but I suspect Ruger concluded some prospective customers did, so the SR9 does not need its trigger pulled to initiate takedown. Takedown of the SR9 will remind you more of disassembling an older P-series Ruger.
A lot of shooters, particularly 1911 users, aren’t comfortable without a thumb safety. Ruger provided one and it’s ambidextrous, frame mounted and operates in the same directions (“Safe” is up, “Fire” is down) as the familiar 1911. Ruger also makes it clear the manual safety is not required. The SR9 is perfectly “drop-safe” with a round in the chamber and the safety off. Some dislike Glock’s grip and Robar pioneered a cottage industry slim-lining Glock frames. Ruger followed those tracks, too. The SR9 has a very short reach to the trigger. Five-foot-tall females on our test team had no trouble getting a good purchase on the test SR9’s “bang switch” and we who prefer a revolver-like trigger contact with the distal joint of the index finger could achieve it without shifting our grasp off center.
Glock was not the only design to whom the Ruger engineers paid homage with the SR9. If I recall correctly, Walther first came up with interchangeable grip backstraps to alter feel and trigger reach, since copied by others. Ruger gives it a twist. There is a single backstrap, but if you slide it out (easily done with a paper clip) and re-insert it upside down, you get a markedly different feel. Call it, “The only interchangeable backstrap you ain’t gonna lose,” since it always stays with the gun. Personally, I’d call it the sort of simple, practical approach that wins awards for gun designer ingenuity.
There’s a light rail, too, and Ruger also looked inward. As noted, takedown harkens back to Ruger’s earlier center-fire autos. So does the proliferation of what some call “lawyer features.” The loaded chamber indicator rises above the top of the slide when there’s a missile in the launch tube, resembling sort of a shark fin. (Hmmm … the lawyer image again.)
On the other hand, the inevitable warning, “Before Using Gun — Read Warnings In Instruction Manual — Available Free” appears in discreetly small letters on the polymer frame, not billboard size on the slide.
Ya know the internal locks, which some traditional handgunners hate with a passion? Well, this pistol doesn’t have one. It comes instead with a humongous external lock. You can leave it in the box or shackle your bicycle with it. And, there’s also the controversial magazine disconnector safety.
Like the Ruger P345, the SR9 has a magazine disconnector safety whose design seems all Ruger. With the magazine removed, the gun will not fire, however, it will go click, as if the gun misfired or the firing pin landed on an empty chamber.
This leads some folks dry-firing the SR9 in the store to think it doesn’t have a disconnector hooked up after all. Well, if it fools shooters in the calm environment of a gun shop, this feature is sure likely to fool any bad guy who gets the gun away from you and tries to shoot you with it. By the time he figures out you thumbed the mag release button to drop the mag and activate the disconnector as you felt him starting to tear it out of your hand, you’ll have had lots of time to implement Plan B.
Ruger carefully warns dry firing without the magazine in place will damage the striker block mechanism. Since the disconnector works via a striker block instead of by interdicting trigger linkage, the block will get chewed up. So, dry fire with an empty magazine in place and all will be well.
Yes, it is easy to remove the magazine disconnector mechanism if you really know the insides of the SR9. However, ever since famed Miami defense attorney Mark Seiden consulted me on a manslaughter case where one of the state’s platforms for proving the shooter’s recklessness was his possession of a Browning Hi-Power with its mag disconnector safety removed, I’ve been leery of that particular parts removal job. It’s not a debate point you want to hand to those who are trying to send you up the river.
How a gun feels is subjective, so take it up front, what works for me may not work for you. What works for me on the SR9 is the slim grip-frame, the very low bore axis, and the wonderful trigger reach. I’m still trying to figure out which of the backstrap positions is my favorite. I like ’em both. The difference in feel is analogous to the difference between a flat and an arched mainspring housing on a 1911. My only complaint is the rubbery backstrap’s horizontal striations allow the heel of my hand to slip ever so slightly sideways. I’d like to see Ruger checker this component instead.
I’m a big fan of manual safeties on duty and carry guns, mainly from the handgun retention perspective. I’ve confirmed many cases where the bad guy failed to shoot the good guy with his own gun because he couldn’t find the little switch. There was a time in America when roughly 1-in-5 murdered policemen was killed with a snatched police weapon. Today, it’s roughly 1-in-10, which is still too many. On-safe auto
Hot Toddy pistols like this one can help with that.
However, if 1-in-10 cop-killers uses the officer’s snatched weapon, the other nine brought their own to the fight, so you’d better be able to get yours into action quick. And here I have to find fault with the SR9. Its ambi manual safety lever is set too far to the rear for most people’s hands to quickly activate while keeping a perfect hold.
Unless you have tiny hands, the ball of your thumb is too far forward to catch the lever when the pistol is in a firing grasp. I can thumb it down to “Fire” with the portion of the thumb near the web of my hand, but it’s slower and more awkward than with other such pistols. Moreover, getting the safety back on requires me to break my hold. The rear edges of these “safety catches” are also too sharp.
first half of double tap is in the air as muzzle flash signals departure
of second half, pistol is beginning to unlock for its recoil cycle. Photo: Gail Pepin
The SR9 appears to have been designed to be totally ambidextrous. Southpaws constitute up to a sixth of our population, depending on your source. The SR9 has mirror image thumb safety, slide lock lever, and magazine release button on its right side, situated for left-hand shooters. This can also be helpful to right-handed auto shooters, many of whom will find they can hit the release button faster on the right with their trigger finger than on the left with their thumb when they need to do a speed reload. It’s safer, too, since it guarantees your trigger finger is out of the triggerguard.
My only complaint here involved the mag release buttons. My test sample’s mag release, serial number 330-03566, stuck badly, both right button and left, remaining in the “release” position and the next magazine would not click into place. I would slap in the fresh mag with my left hand, its heel still holding it in place as my left thumb activated the slide release lever and sent the topmost cartridge home into the firing chamber.
However, as I pivoted my hand back into the firing support position, I would press the trigger and get the dull “click” of the magazine disconnector doing its thing, as the mag had fallen partway back out. Since this particular striker-fired design doesn’t give “second strike,” it was a good thing I was conditioned to do a “tap-rack” in such moments. The hard slap of the magazine back into place usually jarred the mag release button loose from its stuck position and caused it to work again.
My old friend Michael Bane was instrumental in the Ruger SR9 media blitz circa 10/17/2007. He admitted his first SR9s had a problem with the magazine release. Michael also said Ruger got right on top of it and actually delayed the introduction a little until it was fixed. My specimen was an early one and probably just slipped through the cracks. I haven’t heard anyone else mention this problem with an SR9, so apparently Ruger’s fix took hold.
Photo: Massad Ayoob
The first thing I noticed about the SR9’s trigger, before the first shot went down range, was that, well, it sucked. It wasn’t heavy, mind you — right at 6.5 pounds average on my digital Lyman trigger pull scale. It was just rough. Creep and drag were palpable from the beginning of the stroke to the shot, interrupted only by long overtravel after sear release giving the gun nearly 1/10" of trigger “backlash.”
Accustomed to the golden accuracy of Ruger P90 and P345 .45 autos, I was disappointed in the way the SR9 grouped at 25 yards. Trying several loads from 115- to 147-grain persuasion from proven ammo lots by top makers, I could only get the test gun inside the generous accuracy standard of “4" for service pistols” with a few combinations. Federal’s famously accurate 9BP 115-grain standard-pressure JHP did 3.35" for five shots, and 124-grain Remington Golden Saber +P put its quintet into 3.10". The tightest group was 2.70" for five shots, fired with Black Hills 124-grain +P JHP.
The 2.70" with the Black Hills, I can live with. The occasional 5" groups with unexplained called flyers, I can’t. Ain’t just me. Various match-winning shooters on my test team found the same. Accuracy was also poor with the first P85s, improved in the P85 Mark II and P89, got better still in today’s P95 (all 9mms), and Ruger turned the P-series into something close to a target pistol with their .45s. I expect evolution to improve accuracy in the SR9.
The trigger pull “wears in” somewhat, but I was still dissatisfied after more than 500 rounds. I took a tip from 5-Gun IDPA Master Jon Strayer and put a little adhesive furniture/floor pad in the back of the trigger window as a temporary trigger stop. It helped a little, but an integral trigger stop would really improve the SR9’s shooting characteristics.
Back to the good news. We shot this gun for hundreds of rounds bone-dry and it functioned 100 percent. Shot it limp-wristed. Shot it upside down. Lubed it properly and shot it some more … and could not make it jam. Once the magazine was locked in, the SR9 cycled 100 percent. That’s Ruger tradition, and I’m glad the SR9 is living up to it. Internet reports I’ve seen appear to agree, with the only failures occurring with junk ammo.
I like this pistol’s reliability, and I like the way it stays on target in flat-out rapid fire. I like its feel in the hand. Checker the backstrap, clean up the trigger pull, tighten the groups, redesign the thumb safety and it could become a personal favorite. As it is, in its early incarnation, it’s a reliable, good-pointing pistol well worth its price tag.
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SR9
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Action type:
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Striker fired semiauto
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| Caliber: | 9mm |
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Capacity:
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17+1
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Barrel length:
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4-1/8"
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Overall length:
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26-1/2 ounces
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Weight:
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38 ounces
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Finish:
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Brushed stainless steel
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| Sights: | Fixed, 3-dot |
| Grips: | Glass-filled nylon, integral with frame |
| Price: | $525 |
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