GUNS & AMMO
American Defender: Ruger
American Pistol Review
R
uger’s new full-size, striker-fired, polymer frame
pistol is a rugged gun ready to serve in all capacities. If you are a gun enthusiast or if you simply
want a gun for sport or self-protection, you are living in
probably the best time in history because the selection
of guns is greater now than ever. And Ruger has just
added another choice with the introduction of the Ruger
American Pistol. If you are one who doesn’t think another polymer handgun is necessary because there are
enough to choose from already, consider that for every
model on the market today, there are people who find it
to be the best one for their needs. While the differences between brands and models are sometimes subtle,
most people who grasp a particular handgun find that
it either feels good in the hand, or that it doesn’t. And
while some people like a particular feature on a gun,
others despise it. So having a large selection of guns to
choose from makes it more likely that each shooter will
find a gun he likes. To assure that the Ruger American
Pistol suits as many shooters as possible, the engineers
and designers at Ruger spent a great deal of time studying the likes and needs of shooters and requested input
from law enforcement and military trainers from around
the country.
Features
Although not obvious, it is not a typical polymer frame
gun. Instead, the nylon-filled grip frame houses a modular chassis that contains the fire control group and has
rails on which the slide reciprocates. The chassis is
made of precision-machined steel with a black nitride
finish that is extremely hard and corrosion resistant. And
because it is the part that has the serial number on it,
there is the potential to replace the grip frame and slide
to modify the size and contours of the gun. Presumably,
Ruger or another company will eventually offer such
conversion kits, but that is speculation at this time. The
grip frame has different sized wrap around grips that are
easily swapped out to fit many different hand sizes. The
9mm version has three sizes, and the .45 ACP version
has two. These one-piece grips include not only backstraps, but also side panels so that with each one, trigger
reach and size of the palm swell change. The front and
back straps are heavily textured with diamond-shaped
bumps, and the sides are stippled to help obtain a non-
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