Range Report - Sig 239 and Ruger SR9

Since Lissa's other half has posted a TDY to Charlotte for months, it seemed like a good excuse to meet up at the range for some shooty goodness and recoil therapy. Labor Day morning turned out to be a perfect time, since things were a bit slow, and the nice folks at Manchester Firing Line spent quite some time with us. Ultimately, Lissa chose two auto-loading pistols to try out.

Sig-Sauer P239 in 9mm:


This is a nifty, compact 9mm pistol. Small enough for shooters with smaller hands, but with enough mass so that recoil is very manageable. The pistol and its single-stack, 8 10 round magazine are Massachusetts legal (spit), and are quite impressive.

The trigger is crisp, with very little take up. Note: I only shot single action; the pistol supports double action as well, so you can carry concealed without a round in the chamber [UPDATE: Sevesteen in the comments points out that you need a round in the chamber. That's what I get for blathering about something that I didn't try. Note to self: next time, make sure you try both single and double action.]. I'm told that the DA pull is a loooong one, but forgot to try this, so I can neither confirm nor deny it.

The sights are interesting - a white dot on the front sight is very easy to pick up. The single white dot on the rear sight took a little getting used to to figure out how it was supposed to align. However, this was me, and after 3 or 4 shots, it was pretty obvious where you were supposed to sight.

Recoil was modest, which was surprising in a pistol this small. I was expecting something snappier, and it wasn't at all. If you shot defensive +P ammunition, I wonder if you'd get more recoil.

At the risk of sounding boring, this is exactly what you'd expect from a Sig - solid, reliable (not a fail-to-feed or fail-to-eject hiccup in 100 rounds), controllable, and accurate. If I were looking for a small pistol for CCW, this would be on the short list. The only problem was that Lissa liked shooting this so much that I only got a few rounds in.

Ruger SR9 in 9mm

I like Ruger pistols quite a bit, so the idea of a Ruger auto-loader was intriguing. I have to say that I liked this pistol. Not sure I'd get one though. Let's go through the pistol and all the good things it offers and then come back to that.

It's noticeably larger than the Sig P239, which gives room for eleventy bazillion (OK, 17) rounds in its (Massachusetts non-compliant - spit) double stack magazine. If you're left handed, it has a safety and magazine release on both sides, which I guess would be nice.

The trigger was fine, with very little take up. It has a trigger safety (one of those safety-in-a-trigger thingies that are supposed to prevent accidental discharges). Seems a bit of overkill with the regular safety, but whatever.

I was surprised at how much recoil it had. Not overpowering by any means, but it seemed more than the Sig. Given how much bigger it is than the Sig, this was not at all expected. Note that the recoil is still modest - nothing like .40 or .357, just more than I was expecting based on the pistol's size. Your mileage will definitely vary here.

The sights were disappointing, not because they were bad, but because they could have been so much better. I have to admit to being a huge fan of the 3 dot style sights (one on the front sight, and one on each side of the rear sight). White dots on black sights are way easy to pick up when you're in a hurry, so this is a big improvement over older style sights. The SR9 has a three dot sight, but the rear sight dots are small and seemed dim (harder to see than the front one). Every time I lined up on target, it seemed like a missed opportunity for Ruger, at least to me.

Not that it hurt accuracy, which was better than mine. I found my groupings improving the more I shot: I probably put 60 or 70 rounds through it, and improved every time, so I expect that I'd get used to it. However, I don't think that I should have to get used to it. Certainly this could have been as good as the sights that come on Glocks - it seems a bit of a missed opportunity.

Reliability was excellent, without a single glitch in 100 rounds or so.

I was definitely making frineds with it. So why wouldn't I get one? Clearly it's not because it wouldn't do the job. It's a combination of little things:

1. I'd need to replace the sights, not because they don't work, but because they were a bit annoying. Literally every shot had What IS it with these sights running though my mind. It's a distraction. Your mileage will vary here.

2. It's big for a CCW pistol. If you're getting something this big, why wouldn't you get one of the compact .45 ACP pistols?

3. Why does it have so much recoil, for such a small caliber in a big pistol? This was initially a distraction, but only initially, and in the end didn't matter much to me. 

But that's just my preferences. I wouldn't feel short changed if I had to carry this.

While we were at the range, Big Bore Bill was a couple lanes down, shooting his 500 Smith and Wesson. He ended up with quite an audience, lighting off what in effect were revolver based flash-bang grenades. Interestingly, he said that one reason he reloaded (other than it dropped the price from $3 a trigger squeeze) was that the factory loads were too hot for the range. Yowzer.



Oh, and the standard disclaimer:

I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.

I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.

I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting. Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.

And oh yeah, shooting things is fun.

UPDATE 8 September 2009 10:01: Lissa's report can be found here.