Review of the Ruger American Pistol in 9mm Luger.

It appears the Ruger engineers finally got their heads out of their asses. This third attempt at a semi-auto pistol isn't too bad. I prefer the Glock and M&P over it, but I think I like better than the Sig P320 so far. 4" barrel, 17 round mags, DAO trigger, modular frame that can be take out of the receiver (ala P320), and three different sized backstraps. The trigger mechanism is more straight forward than the P320 also. I can see a company coming out with a drop in kit to make the trigger better fairly easy. My wife, Erin from DCF Guns, and myself all shot it with pinpoint accuracy. Trigger broke consistantly at 5lbs, 10 oz. Ambi mag and slide releases on it out of the box. It retails for under $500.

The detractors from the gun are not terminal, but stuff I would have liked to see better. The slide is fairly thick, it has a chunky feel to it, that hasn't changed from Ruger Semi-auto pistols. Although it's a lot better than their P series shitboxes. The take-down lever is pretty obtrusive on the front and this will be an issue for holster manufacture and wear. It's a MIM part and you can see they were re-enforcing a nub doing this. The grips could use some more stippling on them for grip. I found my left hand sliding all around the gun during recoil. The trigger has a little more pre-travel than I think necessary in a DAO and the wall to break distance is excessive, over an 1/8" to break. It's doable, but screams for some geometry redoing. The magwell is pretty narrow and the polymer is thin. I found myself catching the sides with a mag when reloading. A touch more thickness and just internal chamfering would have sufficed.

All in all, pretty decent. We will see what the future holds for it. Decent gun for just under $500.