James Rummel refers to one man’s experience in carrying the Ruger LCP for a year.

His conclusion?

He’s not going to carry it any more.

It seems to be comfortable enough to carry, and it seems to be accurate enough to shoot. So why abandon it?

It’s not reliable.

That’s not good. Arguably above all else in a self-defense/carry gun, you want reliability.

He tells how he shoots a lot, and too many times he had first round jams and an inability to get off a second shot. Yikes. When you consider the questionable terminal effectiveness of the .380 ACP round, you sure better not count on a one-stop shot, especially when the gun forces that upon you. Sure he says that there are ways around that (e.g. keeping it heavy oiled), but to my engineering brain that feels like a hack and a workaround. When you consider modern guns like a Glock, Springfield XD, or S&W M&P that you can put through ugly torture tests yet still run, the level of failure and potential workarounds for the failure in the LCP? That’s unacceptable.

But granted, this is just one man’s data point and experience. I do have a friend that gave up his LCP. Two data points.

I’m still so curious about the LCR, and while it’s not the LCP, things like the above and Ruger’s other recalls on the LCP and SR9 are enough to give me pause.