Ruger LCP Max

[Doc_Glock]

Happily I found a nice DeSantis Nemesis for the LCP 2 that fit it. It is the G2 marked Nemesis. The G3 is just a touch smaller and too tight. With the G2 it draws just beautifully. No snagging at all.




The Max is very comparable in size to my LCP classic and just a subtle in the pocket. The grip length is about perfect as I feel like I need to run a pinkie extension on the LCP classic to get my ring finger on the gun. This is not necessary with the MAX.

Shooting performance: 200 rounds four brands of ammo:

The magazine is strange to load and doesn’t feel
that durable. In general the Max feels like a cheap ass gun when you shoot it. Kinda like most Rugers.

The sights are perfect tip of front from 5-15 yards and drive the dot at 25. It is of course difficult to shoot. I managed a 44/50 dot torture at 5 yds and four of those missed were figuring out the sight picture on the first two targets.

I could not keep more than 7-8 rounds on a B8 at 25, yds vend and bagged which is pretty bad performance for me even with a small gun.

Supertest was 258-1 and 244-2 within time limits from ready.

I had one malfunction below that required disassembly around 150 rounds in. The spring came off the guide rod and go tangled into the innards a bit. I re seated it and it functioned afterwords.




Throughout the shooting session I felt the gun was really under sprung. The slide return was slow and I had frequent failures to return to battery requiring a push on the back of the slide to seat the round completely.

After I got home I inspected the pistol and compared to schematics and doggone it I am missing an entire inner recoil spring which explains a lot. I think this is just a factory oversight. I called Ruger and they are shipping replacements for both springs.

I expect it will run well with a proper recoil spring. I had no failures to extract or eject which are usually the LCPs Achilles heel.

I moved the nested double spring from one of my older LCPs while I am awaiting the Ruger parts and will report back.

[Doc_Glock]

Also adding I got a blister on my trigger finger pad. I think it was from the sharp edges where the dongle goes below the main shoe. I touched it up with some sandpaper and hopefully problem solved.

I also found new inner and outer recoil springs in my spare parts so installed those and hopefully it is up and running.

Trigger clocks in at 5.5lbs.

[MandoWookie]

Happily I found a nice DeSantis Nemesis for the LCP 2 that fit it. It is the G2 marked Nemesis. The G3 is just a touch smaller and too tight. With the G2 it draws just beautifully. No snagging at all.




The Max is very comparable in size to my LCP classic and just a subtle in the pocket. The grip length is about perfect as I feel like I need to run a pinkie extension on the LCP classic to get my ring finger on the gun. This is not necessary with the MAX.

Shooting performance: 200 rounds four brands of ammo:

The magazine is strange to load and doesn’t feel
that durable. In general the Max feels like a cheap ass gun when you shoot it. Kinda like most Rugers.

The sights are perfect tip of front from 5-15 yards and drive the dot at 25. It is of course difficult to shoot. I managed a 44/50 dot torture at 5 yds and four of those missed were figuring out the sight picture on the first two targets.

I could not keep more than 7-8 rounds on a B8 at 25, yds vend and bagged which is pretty bad performance for me even with a small gun.

Supertest was 258-1 and 244-2 within time limits from ready.

I had one malfunction below that required disassembly around 150 rounds in. The spring came off the guide rod and go tangled into the innards a bit. I re seated it and it functioned afterwords.




Throughout the shooting session I felt the gun was really under sprung. The slide return was slow and I had frequent failures to return to battery requiring a push on the back of the slide to seat the round completely.

After I got home I inspected the pistol and compared to schematics and doggone it I am missing an entire inner recoil spring which explains a lot. I think this is just a factory oversight. I called Ruger and they are shipping replacements for both springs.

I expect it will run well with a proper recoil spring. I had no failures to extract or eject which are usually the LCPs Achilles heel.

I moved the nested double spring from one of my older LCPs while I am awaiting the Ruger parts and will report back.

I'm impressed it functioned at all with a major component like that being defective. Not so impressed with the QC from Ruger.

So far my father is liking his, but he has only put about 75 rounds through it, both ball and Hornady XTPs.

[Doc_Glock]

Ruger got me the springs today and I got them installed and generally the LCP Max feels a lot better with both recoil springs installed.

250 rounds, four brands of ammo and one failure to load which I ended up clearing by racking the slide. In retrospect I think it was an activation of the slide lock and probably something in my grip that caused the malfunction. Still 1/250 rounds is really getting there for a pocket gun as far as reliability. I did a fair amount of single handed shooting today and there were zero issues. Extraction continues to impress. Overall I am pretty impressed with this little gun. I was not totally fatigued after 250 rounds and it is a real step up from the classic LCP as far as build quality goes. I expect it will be quite durable. It may have me looking at an LCP II for carry if this one turns out to be too big in the pocket. I ordered another nine mags as I am ready to commit a bit to it now.



Tee Ball Dot Torture at 5 yards I am going to call clean because my first couple shots were a tip of front sight and not a drive the dot sight picture and therefore hit low. The gun is capable at 5 yards but I don't think I will be able to clean this any further out. More on that later.



After that I went to the 25 yard line and simply could not pull a clean B8. 74 (-1), 75(-1), RHO 74 (-1), LHO 64(-2). 25 yard shooting also requires drive dot hold.

The Test at 10 yards: 7.46s 79 points.

Supertest from Ready: 15yd: 14.72s/94, 10 yd: 10.40s/90, 5yd: 3.93s/80 (-1) total: 264-1

5 yard line working speed since that was my weakness on the supertest:

5.63s/98 0.40 splits. That is my accuracy standard, I just needed to speed it up,
4.12/89 0.30 splits
4.4/93 0.32 splits
4.08/85 0.31 splits

RHO: 9.38/83 0.80 splits
LHO: 8.96/89 0.80 splits

Interesting observation that my single handed shooting is about twice as slow as two handed for about the same scores. Never noticed the correlation before, but it makes a lot of sense since there is half the amount of recoil control on the gun.

7 yard line. Did some more precision work. I absolutely can not hold a 1" and probably a 2" dot at 7 with the LCP. 3" of 4" is no problem.



Did some single handed precision work and struggled with holding even the 3"

Finally I had my G19MOS dot gun and I ran a mag through it for kicks to see the difference and obliterated the 1" dot with a one hole group. It wasn't even that difficult. Place dot and carefully pull trigger.

[TGS]

@Tokarev @Doc_Glock @vcdgrips

Now that you guys have had the LCP Max and have done a decent amount of shooting/carrying with them, what are your impressions of it versus the Glock 42?

[Tokarev]

@Tokarev @Doc_Glock @vcdgrips

Now that you guys have had the LCP Max and have done a decent amount of shooting/carrying with them, what are your impressions of it versus the Glock 42?

Sorry. Don't have a Glock 42 to compare against.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[Doc_Glock]

@Tokarev @Doc_Glock @vcdgrips

Now that you guys have had the LCP Max and have done a decent amount of shooting/carrying with them, what are your impressions of it versus the Glock 42?

I shoot the Glock better and it is mush more pleasant to shoot.

But any pocket gun I can run 250 rounds through in less than an hour isn’t exactly beating me up. So I would put the MAX in between the LCP and G42 as far as comfort to shoot goes. G42 is only slightly worse than a .22 to me. The Glock has a better trigger and with Defoor installed, more precise sights.

The Max withdraws from the pocket in a way the G42 can only dream of. If I could draw the Glock consistently without snagging I wouldn’t even look at the LCP or LCP max, but I can’t.

[vcdgrips]

Apologies if I posted something to indicate that I have a Ruger LCP Max. I do not.

[hickrev]

I shoot the Glock better and it is mush more pleasant to shoot.

But any pocket gun I can run 250 rounds through in less than an hour isn’t exactly beating me up. So I would put the MAX in between the LCP and G42 as far as comfort to shoot goes.

I’ll echo this. I took the new Max to the range yesterday and put 125 rounds of FMJ and Hornady JHPs through it in about 30 minutes, and could have kept going except for time constraints. For comparison, after 100 rounds of my LCP Gen 1, I’m pretty much done.

Like the doc said, I was not quite as accurate all the way out 20-25 yards as I was back when I shot a G42 regularly, but about on par with how I shoot an LCR, and presentation from the pocket was just as easy as the original LCP or LCR.

[TGS]

Thanks for the feedback guys. My use for the G42 is centered around ankle and tucked IWB carry, so it looks like I'll skip the LCP Max as its attributes seem prioritized for pocket carry while the G42 seems more optimal for my use.