Ruger LC9S Review

TL:DR-Great little micro gun if you need a deep concealment piece. I still hate micro guns.

Just to be up front I generally hate micro guns. no matter the caliber. I didn’t even want to put ammo though this one because I figured for sure I would hate every round I fired though it, just like with the R51. But surprise I actually kind of liked it for what it is. Don’t get me wrong I still dislike micro guns as a whole but if I had to carry a small gun this would be towards the top of that list. Somewhere under the G43/42.

Usually one of the things I dislike about the little guns is a total lack of usable sights. They are usually just little bumps on the slide. The LC9 has actual usable sights that function well and shoot pretty close to point of aim for me. At 10 yards I was able to hold a decent group. Even at 15 and even out at 25.5 yards (the furthest our range goes) I was able to keep all shots in the -0 zone of an IDPA target with only 3 fliers just outside of the -0 zone and those are attributed to me not the gun.

The controls are ok and easy to reach. The slide release is easy to reach and use, the safety works well going off safe but sucks going on safe while keeping a good grip on the gun. It’s pivot point is to the front of the safety as opposed to the rear making sweeping it on safe a bit stiff but coming off safe is really easy. The magazine release I found to be a PITA to use. It wasn’t easy to push and required a lot of travel to finally release the magazine. Since it’s already a nearly flush fitting magazine release that can make for an awkward mag change.

It felt ok in my hand but again not a fan of these tiny guns to start with. Better than some other small guns even ones chambered in .380 feel to me. Certainly not an ergonomic dream but better than a lot of others.

Trigger was ok even if it had a lot of travel. I did find the reset to be quite long. Basically the entire length of the trigger travel which I disliked. But this could be circumvented with some training. I am finding a lot of pistols with very long resets. Maybe my primary carry gun, a G17, has me spoiled a bit in that department as it has a pretty short reset.

Overall I still dislike micro guns and try to talk people out of them when given the opportunity. I still feel as though most people would be far better served with a larger full size or compact handgun. I carry a GLOCK 17 daily. Either openly or Concealed and have found very few instances where I needed to carry something smaller. There were times I wished I had something smaller but made the G17 work anyway. And after selling off or giving away my subcompact guns years ago I have since added a compact gun to the safe for those times when I want to dress up a little nicer and don’t want to dress around the G17 or want a bit deeper concealment for less than gun friendly environments.

But if you simply don’t want to carry a full size gun or feel as though you need something tiny to conceal on you the LC9 could get the job done well and offer some usable sights and decent handling characteristics to boot.

But I still suggest going with a larger gun 😉

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This guest article was written by Joshua Downs.