Well, it has taken me long enough to get back to discussing range time and carry of the Ruger LCR. Fortunately, my day job has been keeping me quite busy, in spite of the slow economy.
When I last posted about my experience with LCR's, I actually owned two of these wonderful pocket pistols. Since then, I sold one of them through my local gun store, and am now down to one revolver. It wasn't because I didn't like it. It all boiled down to a matter of practicality -- I tend to carry my 380 pocket pistols (because of their flat profile) much more than I do a revolver. If you have ever tried carrying a revolver in the pocket of a pair of dress slacks, you will quickly realize that the width of the cylinder will draw way too much attention. The Mika holster seems to do a better job of reducing the outline, but it will never match the concealability of a Kel-Tec P3AT wrapped in Galco horsehide.
In a recent outing to the Hole in the Wall Range in McAllen with a couple of my former CHL students, I presented them the chance to shoot the LCR and give me their own impressions. The first shooter emptied 5 rounds high and to the left of a B-27 target at 21 feet. The grouping was good, but since he couldn't see the rear sight notch effectively, he was placing the blade of the front sight way too high.
The second shooter was able to utilize the sights more effectively, but ran into a couple of different issues. The trigger was heavier than his 9mm semi-auto, so some of the shots from the revolver wandered outside the 8-ring at 7 yards due to trigger control. Another issue that I wasn't expecting was his "staging" of the trigger. He had a tendency to press the trigger partially, then return it forward, and pressing it again while aquiring a sight picture. The result was that the cylinder advanced with each partial press, causing him to skip over live rounds.
Both of these sets of issues were resolved with a little more practice, but it helped me realize that revolvers may (contrary to my former guru instructors) not be the best "beginner" handguns.
Did they like the LCR? Absolutely! They both admitted that the little "cabron" kicked more that their 9mm semi-autos, but liked the light weight of the polymer and alloy revolver. Would I recommend it to new shooters? Yes, but with the express condition that they practice with it A LOT.
Just for fun, I emptied 5 rounds into the head of a B-27 at about 10 yards just to show that it could be done. OK, maybe I did that to puff my own ego, but the LCR can be fun to shoot!
P.S. If anyone from Ruger reads this post, can you put a 44 SPL "plastic" revolver on the wish list for 2010.
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