please help. Ruger had several failure to fires - Page 2

comn-cents · August 5, 2012, 10:29 PM

That looks like a pretty good dent in the primer from your firing pin. Try different ammo like others have suggested. If it was a light hammer strike I don't think it would look like that.

waymore · August 5, 2012, 10:47 PM

Comn-cents, it may be the ammo but I had two different boxes of the Remington with me and that all I had in 9mm. both boxes of ammo caused the failures in the LC9 but did not give any problems to the SR9 or sig SP2022 when I fired the rest of the 2 boxes. It could be that the gun is just very picky about ammo.

FloridaVeteran · August 5, 2012, 10:57 PM

Relative to Comm-Cents's reply, everyone I know claims that Federal has the softest primers. That's why I 100% successfully use Federal primers in my light-hitting CAS revolvers - never a FTF in 1000s of rounds. FWIW, my reloading buddies also say that CCI primers are the "hardest." I use Winchester primers for my harder-hitting rifles, and I use a lot of CCI ammo in my rimfires, but the latter is because rimfire guns have harder-hitting hammers (which is why they recommend you don't dry-fire them).

Recommend you next try Federal ammo (the primer is silver colored, not gold). If that doesn't work flawlessly, then I recommend you send the gun back.

waymore · August 7, 2012, 07:01 PM

I called Ruger customer support over lunch and explained the issue I was having. the guy I spoke with told me the gun shouldn't be doing what it has been even with the ammo I was using. He is sending me a new slide in the mail said it should be here in a week. overall happy with the service the whole phone call took about 15 minutes and the guy I spoke with was very pleasant to deal with. sounded to me like this guy has heard a lot of these issues with the LC9. he told me some adjustments have been made with the new uppers.

Vermonter · August 7, 2012, 08:31 PM

Man if only I had waited months and months for them to decide to send new slides to customers I might have had a functioning pistol in oh I don't know about the best part of a year.

P.S. I really hope that fix works out for you.

waymore · August 7, 2012, 09:43 PM

sorry about your experience Vermonter. I hope this does work or else sounds like I'm in for the same road you traveled. I guess after enough failures they figure it's more cost effective to send out a new part than deal with sending the whole pistol back and forth. I went to the guns shop today where I bought the pistol from and told the dealer my story. he was astonished that Ruger was sending me a new slide in the mail, told me he's never heard of them doing that.

dbluefish · August 7, 2012, 09:54 PM

Just to add that i am a happy camper with my LC9. Fired Federal 147gr ball to familiarize myself with the weapon(maybe a couple of hundred rounds)and no FTF or FTE. Then went to Hornady Critical for my carry weapon, ran another 100 rounds, no FTE or FTF. I trust it. Even when i dont fire it I clean it periodically just to satisfy mt anal half.

On dry fire? I use the plastic molly, gently inserted when the hammer comes back(gun cleared, mag cleared, double check)and one can fire to their heart's content.

Vermonter, I lived up there for 30 years and still miss it but the snow, not so much. FL has better weather since for my Harley.

Semper Fi

Paul
USMC '62 - '65

Mello2u · August 7, 2012, 11:21 PM

Quote:

waymore

Quote:

Marquezj16
oh btw, looking at your picture, when you pulled the slide back, did the round get stuck in the barrel or did you put it back in there?

The round was stuck but came out after forcibly pulling out the magazine and racking the slide. It happened the same way each time.

This raises the question in my mind whether the chamber is of proper dimensions or has some material in it causing a problem.

Marquezj16 · August 8, 2012, 05:52 AM

If the case was getting stuck, then there are other problems with the gun. unless the ammo was so out of spec.

Hope your new slide is the fix for the problems.

Quote:

Marquec and swag..... I think you guys are the only happy LC9 owners on the internet.

Yeah, it gets lonely when no one else has a good one

full case load · August 8, 2012, 07:48 AM

My LC9 has had around a thousand rounds of different ammo through it without one blip. Trust it/carry it. (That could be redundant.) Add me to the happy with it list.

Firefighter88 · August 8, 2012, 10:22 AM

I noticed in the pic of ammo it said 9mm luger. Is there a difference between 9mm and 9mm luger? I'm not a 9mm guy, but I was just curious.

Whirlwind06 · August 8, 2012, 12:06 PM

Quote:

I noticed in the pic of ammo it said 9mm luger. Is there a difference between 9mm and 9mm luger? I'm not a 9mm guy, but I was just curious.

Nope same thing.

Tactical Jackalope · August 8, 2012, 03:02 PM

I don't like that gun for a thousand reasons personally. (big hands) LCP or LC9...even though the LC9 is a little more manageable. I've never been into Ruger. Nothing bad..they just don't appeal to me.

I would definitely send it back man.

waymore · August 14, 2012, 09:41 PM

update: I received the new slide in the mail today exactly 1 week after my call to customer service. So far I would have to rate Ruger customer service a 10/10 they even sent me the tracking number for the shipment the following day that I placed the call. I plan to take the gun to the range this weekend and shot several hundred rounds through it with as many different types of ammo as possible.

waymore · August 15, 2012, 08:29 PM

update: I had a chance to unpack my new slide and found some very visible differences in my new slide from the original. I'm not sure if this happened over time or if it came this way originally but I will post some pictures so you can see. It was very obvious how much deeper the firing pin was in the original.

[IMG]

[/IMG]
[IMG]

[/IMG]

ColoSpgsShooter · August 17, 2012, 05:30 PM

I bought and fired an SR9c yesterday and noticed what appeared to be light strikes on the occasional primer. When I got home, I field stripped the fiream and the striker chamber. There was alot of debris and grease in that channel that I spent a good 20-30 minutes cleaning. I only shot 200 rounds and was very surprised with what I found.

If you did not remove the striker and clean that channel, could be a contributing issue. Do not know how many rounds you have fired although from my experience, I will probably clean that channel every other clean at the minimum.

waymore · August 18, 2012, 12:56 PM

colospgsshooter, if you look at the picture you can tell that there is a big difference between the slides and firing pin. The gun has been cleaned thoroughly and only about 300 rds through it.

waymore · August 19, 2012, 07:17 PM

Update: finally got the gun back out to range fired 20 rds Everything seemed to be going fine then pull the trigger only to find that the hammer wouldn't go all the way back and wouldn't not go forward at all. took it apart examined and even checked internal safety since couldn't figure out what was wrong. when I got home I took the slide of to examine what the problem was. I still had old slide so I put that back on and the trigger and hammer functioned like it should, but when I put the new slide back on gun it would lock up again. I figured out the problem was the firing pin blocker. It is completely locked up, has no play at all. the old slide can be pushed in as it should with the firing pin blocker spring. I can't make the blocker move at all. I'm calling Ruger tomorrow.

9mm · August 19, 2012, 07:41 PM

Sorry you got problems with your LC9, I really liked mine and hated it. 150 rounds no problems, I hated the DAO I sucked pretty bad with it. It was a nice carry peice, but the magazine disconnect and INTERNAL LOCK!!!! @_@ made me really not like it. So I sold that and stuck with the Glock 26.

If Ruger removed the INTERNAL LOCK [hate any firearm for self defence with these] I would get another. I could improve with aim over time, but that IL just kills me.

Marquezj16 · August 19, 2012, 08:16 PM

Wow, you have no luck...when Ruger gets it right for you might be better off trading it for someting else. I surely would not trust any gun if it ever failed like that.

waymore · August 19, 2012, 08:39 PM

Marquez I agree with you. don't see any way that I'll be able to have any confidence in this as a carry piece. and this sure isn't a range gun.

afone1 · August 19, 2012, 08:49 PM

That's why I just stick with my 100% reliable J-Frame. No jams, no FTF's, no problems. Easy to clean and maintain too.

BrittB · August 20, 2012, 02:26 PM

Wow, I've had two of them and they both worked flawlessly. Bummer about the trouble but once it gets worked out, you'll have a great pistol.

waymore · September 1, 2012, 04:49 PM

update: had a Ruger customer service rep call me back and left a voicemail for me saying that they will either send me a new ruger LC9. (This will be number 3) or I can pay for an upgrade on a different model. By the time I got a chance to listen to the message they were no longer open so I will call back on Tuesday. I'm kind of curious how they will calculate the difference on the gun MSRP or what they are actually selling for.

I definitley do not want another LC9 but not really sure what else I want in their Line up. I guess I will do some browsing on their website. kind of stinks that I have to eat the money I spent on holsters, clips, etc but no way I want to waste any more time on another LC9.

rrockefe · September 4, 2012, 12:59 AM

I don't think anybody should accept FTF on any brand of ammo. That's just a convenient excuse for poor design and trying to work around it. Those guns should go back to Ruger without question. They did make a redesign on the firing pin which addressed this problem early in the year.

I sent mine back for the excessive length trigger pull after I called customer service. They said they would check it to spec and if it was out of spec they would refund my shipping expense. When I got it back the rework order indicated they had replaced the trigger bar and the firing pin. The trigger pull was improved to the point that I decided to keep the gun. I requested reimbursement for shipping since it was obviously out of spec and they complied without a problem, even though it did take a long time. Several forum posts during that time period indicated they also had the firing pins replaced during factory service even though they had not requested it nor had any problems with light strikes. I also had no problem with this at any time. So, clearly, they were replacing the old pins whenever they serviced a gun.

My trigger pull is longer than I prefer, but I can now shoot it without it banging up my finger on the trigger guard. It used to draw blood once in a while before I sent it back. I recently got a trigger pull gauge from Dillons to check my pistols and found this one goes off at around 6 1/4 lbs.

Throughout this experience there has never been a failure to go bang, or eject. Probably by now I have a couple thousand rounds through it.

August 5, 2012, 10:29 PM	#26
comn-cents Senior Member Join Date: June 18, 2008 Location: Pac.N.W. Posts: 1,804	That looks like a pretty good dent in the primer from your firing pin. Try different ammo like others have suggested. If it was a light hammer strike I don't think it would look like that. __________________ Be Smarter Than A Bore-Snake!

August 7, 2012, 08:31 PM	#30
Vermonter Senior Member Join Date: October 17, 2010 Posts: 962	new slide fix Man if only I had waited months and months for them to decide to send new slides to customers I might have had a functioning pistol in oh I don't know about the best part of a year. P.S. I really hope that fix works out for you.

August 7, 2012, 09:54 PM	#32
dbluefish Member Join Date: July 6, 2012 Posts: 16	LC9 Just to add that i am a happy camper with my LC9. Fired Federal 147gr ball to familiarize myself with the weapon(maybe a couple of hundred rounds)and no FTF or FTE. Then went to Hornady Critical for my carry weapon, ran another 100 rounds, no FTE or FTF. I trust it. Even when i dont fire it I clean it periodically just to satisfy mt anal half. On dry fire? I use the plastic molly, gently inserted when the hammer comes back(gun cleared, mag cleared, double check)and one can fire to their heart's content. Vermonter, I lived up there for 30 years and still miss it but the snow, not so much. FL has better weather since for my Harley. Semper Fi Paul USMC '62 - '65

August 8, 2012, 07:48 AM	#35
full case load Senior Member Join Date: October 10, 2010 Posts: 166	My LC9 has had around a thousand rounds of different ammo through it without one blip. Trust it/carry it. (That could be redundant.) Add me to the happy with it list. __________________ live and let live

August 8, 2012, 10:22 AM	#36
Firefighter88 Member Join Date: July 3, 2012 Location: Oklahoma Posts: 71	I noticed in the pic of ammo it said 9mm luger. Is there a difference between 9mm and 9mm luger? I'm not a 9mm guy, but I was just curious. __________________ Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they don't get it wrong.

August 5, 2012, 10:47 PM	#27
waymore Senior Member Join Date: August 20, 2009 Posts: 103	Comn-cents, it may be the ammo but I had two different boxes of the Remington with me and that all I had in 9mm. both boxes of ammo caused the failures in the LC9 but did not give any problems to the SR9 or sig SP2022 when I fired the rest of the 2 boxes. It could be that the gun is just very picky about ammo.

August 5, 2012, 10:57 PM	#28
FloridaVeteran Senior Member Join Date: July 26, 2012 Location: Central Florida Posts: 399	Relative to Comm-Cents's reply, everyone I know claims that Federal has the softest primers. That's why I 100% successfully use Federal primers in my light-hitting CAS revolvers - never a FTF in 1000s of rounds. FWIW, my reloading buddies also say that CCI primers are the "hardest." I use Winchester primers for my harder-hitting rifles, and I use a lot of CCI ammo in my rimfires, but the latter is because rimfire guns have harder-hitting hammers (which is why they recommend you don't dry-fire them). Recommend you next try Federal ammo (the primer is silver colored, not gold). If that doesn't work flawlessly, then I recommend you send the gun back.

August 7, 2012, 07:01 PM	#29
waymore Senior Member Join Date: August 20, 2009 Posts: 103	I called Ruger customer support over lunch and explained the issue I was having. the guy I spoke with told me the gun shouldn't be doing what it has been even with the ammo I was using. He is sending me a new slide in the mail said it should be here in a week. overall happy with the service the whole phone call took about 15 minutes and the guy I spoke with was very pleasant to deal with. sounded to me like this guy has heard a lot of these issues with the LC9. he told me some adjustments have been made with the new uppers.

August 7, 2012, 09:43 PM	#31
waymore Senior Member Join Date: August 20, 2009 Posts: 103	sorry about your experience Vermonter. I hope this does work or else sounds like I'm in for the same road you traveled. I guess after enough failures they figure it's more cost effective to send out a new part than deal with sending the whole pistol back and forth. I went to the guns shop today where I bought the pistol from and told the dealer my story. he was astonished that Ruger was sending me a new slide in the mail, told me he's never heard of them doing that.

August 8, 2012, 03:02 PM	#38
Tactical Jackalope Senior Member Join Date: December 5, 2010 Location: Miami, Florida Posts: 6,429	I don't like that gun for a thousand reasons personally. (big hands) LCP or LC9...even though the LC9 is a little more manageable. I've never been into Ruger. Nothing bad..they just don't appeal to me. I would definitely send it back man.

August 14, 2012, 09:41 PM	#39
waymore Senior Member Join Date: August 20, 2009 Posts: 103	update: I received the new slide in the mail today exactly 1 week after my call to customer service. So far I would have to rate Ruger customer service a 10/10 they even sent me the tracking number for the shipment the following day that I placed the call. I plan to take the gun to the range this weekend and shot several hundred rounds through it with as many different types of ammo as possible.

August 15, 2012, 08:29 PM	#40
waymore Senior Member Join Date: August 20, 2009 Posts: 103	update: I had a chance to unpack my new slide and found some very visible differences in my new slide from the original. I'm not sure if this happened over time or if it came this way originally but I will post some pictures so you can see. It was very obvious how much deeper the firing pin was in the original. [IMG][/IMG] [IMG][/IMG] [IMG][/IMG] [IMG] [/IMG] [IMG][/IMG]

August 17, 2012, 05:30 PM	#41
ColoSpgsShooter Junior Member Join Date: August 2, 2012 Location: Colorado Springs, CO Posts: 12	Clean the striker channel? I bought and fired an SR9c yesterday and noticed what appeared to be light strikes on the occasional primer. When I got home, I field stripped the fiream and the striker chamber. There was alot of debris and grease in that channel that I spent a good 20-30 minutes cleaning. I only shot 200 rounds and was very surprised with what I found. If you did not remove the striker and clean that channel, could be a contributing issue. Do not know how many rounds you have fired although from my experience, I will probably clean that channel every other clean at the minimum.

August 18, 2012, 12:56 PM	#42
waymore Senior Member Join Date: August 20, 2009 Posts: 103	colospgsshooter, if you look at the picture you can tell that there is a big difference between the slides and firing pin. The gun has been cleaned thoroughly and only about 300 rds through it.

August 19, 2012, 07:17 PM	#43
waymore Senior Member Join Date: August 20, 2009 Posts: 103	Update: finally got the gun back out to range fired 20 rds Everything seemed to be going fine then pull the trigger only to find that the hammer wouldn't go all the way back and wouldn't not go forward at all. took it apart examined and even checked internal safety since couldn't figure out what was wrong. when I got home I took the slide of to examine what the problem was. I still had old slide so I put that back on and the trigger and hammer functioned like it should, but when I put the new slide back on gun it would lock up again. I figured out the problem was the firing pin blocker. It is completely locked up, has no play at all. the old slide can be pushed in as it should with the firing pin blocker spring. I can't make the blocker move at all. I'm calling Ruger tomorrow.

August 19, 2012, 07:41 PM	#44
9mm Senior Member Join Date: January 9, 2011 Location: Land of the Free Posts: 2,834	Sorry you got problems with your LC9, I really liked mine and hated it. 150 rounds no problems, I hated the DAO I sucked pretty bad with it. It was a nice carry peice, but the magazine disconnect and INTERNAL LOCK!!!! @_@ made me really not like it. So I sold that and stuck with the Glock 26. If Ruger removed the INTERNAL LOCK [hate any firearm for self defence with these] I would get another. I could improve with aim over time, but that IL just kills me.

August 19, 2012, 08:16 PM	#45
Marquezj16 Senior Member Join Date: April 3, 2011 Posts: 2,088	Wow, you have no luck...when Ruger gets it right for you might be better off trading it for someting else. I surely would not trust any gun if it ever failed like that.

August 19, 2012, 08:39 PM	#46
waymore Senior Member Join Date: August 20, 2009 Posts: 103	Marquez I agree with you. don't see any way that I'll be able to have any confidence in this as a carry piece. and this sure isn't a range gun.

August 19, 2012, 08:49 PM	#47
afone1 Senior Member Join Date: February 26, 2011 Posts: 120	That's why I just stick with my 100% reliable J-Frame. No jams, no FTF's, no problems. Easy to clean and maintain too.

August 20, 2012, 02:26 PM	#48
BrittB Senior Member Join Date: March 8, 2011 Location: Oregon Posts: 554	Wow, I've had two of them and they both worked flawlessly. Bummer about the trouble but once it gets worked out, you'll have a great pistol.

September 1, 2012, 04:49 PM	#49
waymore Senior Member Join Date: August 20, 2009 Posts: 103	update: had a Ruger customer service rep call me back and left a voicemail for me saying that they will either send me a new ruger LC9. (This will be number 3) or I can pay for an upgrade on a different model. By the time I got a chance to listen to the message they were no longer open so I will call back on Tuesday. I'm kind of curious how they will calculate the difference on the gun MSRP or what they are actually selling for. I definitley do not want another LC9 but not really sure what else I want in their Line up. I guess I will do some browsing on their website. kind of stinks that I have to eat the money I spent on holsters, clips, etc but no way I want to waste any more time on another LC9.

September 4, 2012, 12:59 AM	#50
rrockefe Member Join Date: August 15, 2007 Location: Surprise, AZ Posts: 42	I don't think anybody should accept FTF on any brand of ammo. That's just a convenient excuse for poor design and trying to work around it. Those guns should go back to Ruger without question. They did make a redesign on the firing pin which addressed this problem early in the year. I sent mine back for the excessive length trigger pull after I called customer service. They said they would check it to spec and if it was out of spec they would refund my shipping expense. When I got it back the rework order indicated they had replaced the trigger bar and the firing pin. The trigger pull was improved to the point that I decided to keep the gun. I requested reimbursement for shipping since it was obviously out of spec and they complied without a problem, even though it did take a long time. Several forum posts during that time period indicated they also had the firing pins replaced during factory service even though they had not requested it nor had any problems with light strikes. I also had no problem with this at any time. So, clearly, they were replacing the old pins whenever they serviced a gun. My trigger pull is longer than I prefer, but I can now shoot it without it banging up my finger on the trigger guard. It used to draw blood once in a while before I sent it back. I recently got a trigger pull gauge from Dillons to check my pistols and found this one goes off at around 6 1/4 lbs. Throughout this experience there has never been a failure to go bang, or eject. Probably by now I have a couple thousand rounds through it.