Lot's of Hoopla Over Ruger's PC Carbine For SD - But

[bigloop92]

The 9mm, with HOT loads, can get the job done in a pinch.

https://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l ... tail&p=388

I wander if that ruger can handle 9mm hot loads?
If it could, on a steady diet, it could be something to consider

My book says it is +p rated...

[Archer]

All I know is, I can hit a 12" steel plate at 100 yards with the pcc9 carbine. I'd be lucky if I could hit my truck at a 100 yards with my glock.

I used to shoot milkjugs at 100 yards with a 1911 Colt Army from 1917.
That thumbnail thick front sight made lining up on them easier than with the modern thick sights, at least until it departed the gun...

I had a friend in college with the Ruger .44 Carbine. It should have been a darned fun gun but I found it a bit problematic and somewhat ammo finicky. I wanted to love it but I'll take my 92 Rossi or my 94 Winchester over it any day of the week.

I never fired the newer Ruger .44 that looked like a Mini 14. It didn't seem to last any real length of time either so I sort of wonder what the problems were with it if any. I never got to fire one of those. I doubt the 4 round rotary mag was exactly a selling point.

[Deleted User 327]

All I know is, I can hit a 12" steel plate at 100 yards with the pcc9 carbine. I'd be lucky if I could hit my truck at a 100 yards with my glock.

First, you need to practice. I can hit a 12" steel plate at 100yds with my 1911s, My Glocks, and both my SA pistols.

Hitting a 12" steel plate with a carbine, any carbine isn't anything special. I use my 20" Rossi carbine with irons to shoot bowling pins at 200yds and I have a iron sighted longslide Glock 10mm that I shoot at a 14" steel plate at 200yds with, standing two handed grip.

I shoot >90% of my firearms at 200yds or farther all the time. I find that longer range makes me concentrate on the fundamentals; 'Aim small, miss small.' It just takes practice. Just blasting and mag dumps don't prove anything but that you like to waste ammo.

[HarryAlonzo]

The Ruger PC just showed up in the Big 5 Sporting Goods Sunday flyer ($569, on sale from $599). Big 5 is a sporting goods discounter, all West of the Mississippi.

I had a vague interest in the old version, in .40, but they're hard to come by. I like my CX4. I'll freely admit that .40, like 9mm, doesn't gain any velocity from a longer barrel. I'd just as soon shorten the barrel on my CX4, if it didn't take a $200 tax stamp.

I had an opportunity to sight in a friends Ruger .44, and it refused to cycle. I gave it a good cleaning, but didn't shoot it again to see if that cleared the problem. I've read that they have a reputation for being finicky. They fell off my shopping list because I believed they would never cycle 44 Spl.

I, too, wonder why their .44 version of the Mini 14 fell by the wayside.

My apologies for the wandering subject thread.

[bigloop92]

I don't know why they discontinued it. Mine is Very accurate and a deer hammer!! In fact the should have extended the line to include a 357 magnum.

[golfish]

Lots of 'vibe' over Ruger's new PC carbine. People jumping all over it's increased performance over a semi-auto handgun. But . . . . is a 9mm carbine really that much better than a pistol?

Guys, either I'm missing more to this OP or you guys are telling me your a better shot with your glock than a 16" carbine. I just don't think I could ever be good enough with a hand gun to equal a carbine.
I put a TRS 25 on my new Browning Buckmark. I couldn't believe the difference. That's the first time that I've every shot one of my handguns with a red dot. I was hitting a quarter at 25 yards, put that same red dot on the 10/22 and I'm hitting that quarter at 75 yards. I'm sure more practice would help me with the handgun, but there's no way its going to ever equal a 16" carbine.

[GasGuzzler]

Agree.

Off topic but I bought my first TRS-25 for the latest (4th) 300BLK LEGO rifle. All the others found new homes before being shot. I wanna keep this one. Hope the cheapie dot works.

[Archer]

I'm going to be all over the map with this post.

I took my boss out several years ago with a selection of a dozen handguns. He took my 1911 Kimber and on the first shot hit a 1" black paster at least 15 yards away. He did exactly the same thing with the second shot out of my CZ-97. He's better with a carbine but he was darned good that day with a handgun.

I've more than once shot handguns at clays and pieces of clays placed on the bank at 50-60 yards on the burms of various pistol ranges. Hitting them isn't all that hard. As I mentioned above we used to shoot filled milkjugs at 100 yards with .45 ACP 1911s. The old 1911 Army (pre A1) was easier to hit at that range due to the smaller sights but we could generally get hits with the modern Springfield as well.

Yeah a carbine is going to be more accurate than a handgun almost always. However the one way a pistol is going to be superior to a carbine is when it's what you have to hand because the carbine isn't there.
Practice with almost any gun is going to improve your abilities with most guns. Pushing the range on your guns is a good way to get to know what is possible out of them.

The 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP caliber carbines (AND .38 SP or .44 SP or ANY of the powder puff cowboy action loads for that matter) are fun but the improvements in accuracy are going to be mostly in the ability to hold them stead in a 3 point grip and the increase in sight radius and/or optics over the sight radius of a handgun. That said the Ruger sight radius on their PCC is about half what's available because they stuck the rear sight on the barrel in front of the action so the sights stay with the barrel when it's taken down. Most red dot style sights aren't going to line up with the existing iron sights either so it is probably an either irons or optics but not cowitnessed sort of thing.

With those same pistol defensive calibers listed above the increase in energy on target is going to be modest. Maybe still significant but very modest compared to the increases you can expect out of .357 Mag, .44 Mag, (.454 or .480) or perhaps even 10mm. What this really means is that in a handgun you are probably wasting a lot of energy in powder burned outside the barrel in the magnum calibers. They are a bit hot in a handgun (or the powders a bit slow) and they gain significant oomph in a longer barrel. With ANY of these rounds you are also going to bleed energy faster than with a more modern rifle round using a streamlined bullet. (I know .30-06 has been around for a hundred years with pointy boat tailed bullets but that's still more modern than round or flat nosed chunks of lead from straight walled cartridges.)

There are endless arguments, online and in print, about barrel length vs. caliber and what's really best for a given caliber. The truth is there are so many variables that the same ammunition out of the same type of weapon is going to perform at least a little different depending on the environmental conditions and the 'best' is going to change based on so many little factors that one day isn't going to match another exactly. Ballistics by the inch has attempted to make a stab at some of this but their sample sizes are typically so small as to merely muddy the waters.

A friend of mine picked up the Ruger PCC recently. He wants it for short ranges, where he can share magazines with a defensive handgun and for the fun of plinking with it. Even he laughs his posterior off at the folks online claiming they want it so they can use it to replace their AR-15 with it. He did say that when he did the conversion from Ruger to Glock mags he managed to dump out all the parts in the trigger pack. Got it together and then was looking for his bolt hold open and found it on the ground between his feet. Seems the pins in the trigger housing will fall out if you tip it sideways and don't notice.

Another friend got one specifically because it had a threaded muzzle and he figured to be able to use it with his 'multi-caliber' suppressor. Turns out he was hitting low after attaching the suppressor. After experiencing this twice at the range and having the gun stop from buildup he figured out his 'multi-caliber' suppressor was set up with a .308 primary baffle that was supposed to be swapped out when switching to larger calibers. So in addition to learning that lesson we now know the little Ruger is a bit of a tough cookie in that it appears not to have suffered harm swagging .355 plated lead down to .308 or .314 or so...

I've considered building a AR-15 to use 9mm or 10mm as a fun gun. The Ruger is probably cheaper than doing that 'right' with a dedicated handgun caliber receiver. (ESPECIALLY so in 10mm or .45 ACP BTW.) IF Ruger actually comes out with the carbine in 10mm or with conversion kits to swap calibers I might bite on one for the fun of it.

[Archer]

Agree.

Off topic but I bought my first TRS-25 for the latest (4th) 300BLK LEGO rifle. All the others found new homes before being shot. I wanna keep this one. Hope the cheapie dot works.

I just picked up a Romeo 5 as a cheapie dot to try.
Not certain it's going to make the cut. IF it doesn't however then it's going to have saved me a heck of a lot of funding since it's unlikely the Aimpoint would have suited me any better at all.

Outside of cowitnessing the iron sights and possibly a weight hit I'm sort of reaching the stage where I'm considering a 1-4 or 1-6 scope beats the dot sights all hollow.

[golfish]

I just picked up a Romeo 5 as a cheapie dot to try.

Please lets us know how you like the new Sig red dot. The price was almost down to 100.00 over the holiday weekend.