Home»Miscellaneous»Ruger LCP

Picked up an "Elsie Pea" a couple weeks ago, and finally got a chance to take her to the range. I put 50 rounds of PMC practice rounds, 25 rounds of Hornady Critical Defense rounds, and 65 rounds of Magtech practice rounds through her. Out of 140 cartridges fired, I had zero failures of any kind. zip, zilch, nada. Off to a good start!

I have made a few modifications to the gun. First, I installed a Hogue grip. I could immediately feel the tactile difference over the stock grip alone. It provides a much wider, deeper, and significantly more contoured surface on which to grasp. It's also made from a tacky rubberized material, which feels very nice in the hand and helps to soften the kick during recoil.

I also replaced the stock guide rod with one made from stainless steel. Apparently the stock rod is made from a softer metal, and tends to mar easily from friction against the recoil spring. Other than that, it's mostly aesthetic. It does look kinda cool.

Along with the rod, I replaced the stock 9lb recoil spring with a stiffer 13lb version. The slide is a little more difficult to pull back manually, but this spring set does deaden the recoil enough to be noticeable. A very good trade in my opinion.

Despite not having a single failure to feed, I don't want to take any chances with a carry gun. So during its post-range cleaning, I polished the barrel's feed ramp and outer chamber with my dremel and some flitz. They're both now as smooth as glass with a mirror finish.

Lastly, I painted a white dot onto the front sight. The stock sights, while better then the gen 1 version, are still relatively wimpy. They're milled directly from the slide material, and have the same finish. In other words, they're dark grey in color. Trying to get sight picture in dim light, on a dark object was next to impossible. The added white dot provides lots of contrast and greatly improves my ability to quickly gain sight alignment and sight picture on a target.

Having shot a friend's LCP (first gen) before purchasing my own, I initially resigned myself to consider this pistol as strictly a carry gun. It was too jumpy, too hard to keep hold of, and the grip too uncomfortable to enjoy shooting at the range like my other pistols. But with these modifications, "my" LCP felt like a completely different gun. I no longer had difficulties maintaining a secure grip on the gun after firing off a round. The hard 'kick' during recoil was all but gone, and now definitely manageable. And my DIY white dot sight hack worked out as planned too!

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with this little pocket gun. Not only does it appear to be completely reliable, but with a few mods, it's much more enjoyable and even fun to shoot. And as you can see from the targets below... pretty darn accurate too!

UPDATE Nov 8, 2014: installed Galloway's Sweet Pea trigger. The Sweet Pea is machined from a solid hunk of aluminum and has a wider face and less pointy edge compared to the stock, plastic trigger. These were the primary reasons i wanted to give it a try. Haven't been to the range yet so we'll see if there is a felt difference. While I had the firing mechanism removed from the frame I also lubricated the trigger bar with TW25B grease. Trigger pull is now noticeably more smooth and no longer feels gritty. As an extra bonus, the annoying 'click' of the hammer catch smacking against the hammer when the trigger was pulled to its most rearward position is GONE! Not sure if this is a result of the new trigger, or the grease work, or both - time might tell.