Tamara's Ruger P89 review - Like a 9mm Mullet

[JonInWA]

The barrels are not cast, to the best of my knowledge.

The barrels are made from cast blanks, and are broach-bored. They are are of exceptionally high quality durable steel.

Best, Jon

[Whirlwind06]

I had bought a used P89, the firing pin channel was so full of gunk that it wouldn’t fire. The first pistol I detail stripped to its component parts. Replaced all of the springs, once I did that it ran just fine. Even carried it for a while. The mag releases were problematic with a lot of holsters I discovered that you could remove the right side one which helped. I had couple P95s as well but all the cool kids had 1911s and Glocks. So they got traded for “just as good as Glock” keltecs and XDs [emoji12]

I wouldn’t say that I miss them but if I still had them would be nice to take to the range one in a while.


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[JonInWA]

I am stunned and surprised, only not.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that mainsprings weren't getting replaced at any kind of regular interval. (Although I wonder what the lifespan on them is, assuming fairly regular recoil spring replacement? A lot of manufacturers are surprisingly vague on these sorts of things.)

I'm gonna assume that Tam was actually refering to recoil, not mainsprings in her discussion. However, in the case of both, they were essentially engineered to be "lifetime" springs-the recoil spring generally needing to be replaced much more frequently than a mainspring, my interpretation of the "lifetime" P85/P89 recoil spring would be someplace between 20K and 40K rounds.

The P85/P89s need to be run wet , particularly efarding the slide/receiver rail interface surfaces. Grease, or a cream-type lube like TW25B is strongly advised. I run mine with Lucas Red "N" Tacky #2 grease on metal-on-metal reciprocating surfaces. The anodized receiver aluminum alloy with its hard coating is actually harder than the carbon-or stainess-steel slide, so a thicker lube is pretty necessary.

Correctly lubed, I don't experiece the "Shake Weight" characteristic Tam alluded to.

Best, Jon

[Joe in PNG]

My first centerfire handgun was a P-95DC.

I didn't own it long or shoot it lots, or even carry it. I also don't regret selling it.

[Tamara]

I'm gonna assume that Tam was actually refering to recoil, not mainsprings in her discussion.

No, I was specifically referring to mainsprings, as noted by my wondering whether recoil spring replacement intervals affected that.

In a hammer-fired gun, overrunning the hammer provides a significant proportion of braking force to the slide.

[JonInWA]

No, I was specifically referring to mainsprings, as noted by my wondering whether recoil spring replacement intervals affected that.

In a hammer-fired gun, overrunning the hammer provides a significant proportion of braking force to the slide.

I suppose that's possible, but while not a gunsmith/engineer/manufacturer, in my readings and experiences with semi-auto pistols, the need for mainspring replacement is pretty rare; they seem to be pretty much a lifetime part. Recoil springs on the other hand, need to be replaced with some frequency at forecastable replacement intervals. The longest recoil spring replacment intervals that I'm aware of are HK P30 RSAs, at every 25K rounds, and Ruger's P85/P89s, which are "lifetime" according to a knowledgeable Ruger engineer (who was one of the actual P85/P89 project engineers).

I'd be much more suspect of neglected recoil spring replacement intervals (particularly in organizational pistols) than mainspring replacements or the need for mainspring replacement.

If you've got some information to the contrary, I'd be very interested to hear.

Best, Jon

[Tamara]

I suppose that's possible, but while not a gunsmith/engineer/manufacturer, in my readings and experiences with semi-auto pistols, the need for mainspring replacement is pretty rare; they seem to be pretty much a lifetime part. Recoil springs on the other hand, need to be replaced with some frequency at forecastable replacement intervals.

There are only so many branches on the diagnostic tree for "failure to fire".

I'm not a gunsmith, I've only written up service tickets for gunsmiths for many years, so take my hypothesizations with a grain of salt. I'm a gunwriter and we all know those people are full of shit.

I'll note that, in the process of debugging a failure-to-fire issue that cropped up at around the 750-rd mark in a small DAO hammer-fired .380 pistol I was testing, I contacted someone at the manufacturer to ask about recommended replacement intervals for the RSA and mainspring and was basically given a shrug. When I had a friend contact a large LE agency that issued them as BUGs, I was told that their armorers recommended replacing both at the 250-rd mark.

[Tamara]

Also, I literally LOL'ed at "lifetime".

I had an optics company engineer look me in the eye and tell me how optimistic he was about the durability of a red dot sight because they had examples having gone over a thousand rounds with no issues.

Engineers in this industry are just...man. The more of 'em you meet, the more you wonder how much anyone who actually shoots has input into this stuff.

[Bigghoss]

So much yes! But will never happen....

pat

We'll never even see the return of any of the P series. But I would be so stoked just for that.

[Bergeron]

In one of Rob Leatham's video interviews, he mentions how the eningeers were happy for him to evaluate completed products, but were uninterested in having him involved in actual design efforts.