The concept of a pocket pistol is as old as handguns. In the days of percussion, and even during the 200-odd years of flintlocks, many small handguns were made that were sort-of pocketable, if you had large pockets. Through the years technology got better, and though pockets got smaller, the concept of a hand-size pistol matured until today we find some remarkably tiny handguns with relatively outstanding power available.
One of the very newest and hottest of these is the Ruger LCP, a 380 introduced to an eager crowd at the SHOT Show early in 2008. Reports are Ruger received well over 100,000 orders for the gun by the end of that weekend.
A gun that creates that much stir naturally interests the Gun Tests staff, and we obtained two of the very first issues of the LCP. And we matched it up against the nearly identical Kel-Tec P3AT. The two guns are so nearly identical that the Ruger might have been a clone of the Kel-Tec.
Design
The design features a polymer frame containing an aluminum subframe to which the mechanism is attached. It utilizes a steel slide with locked-breech barrel, and is double-action only. The guns have no safety lever. Neither gun stays open after the last shot, though the Ruger may be manually locked open. Both may be fired with the magazine removed. They are hammer-fired. Cycling the slide, as when chambering a round, moves the hammer about half-way back in its travel. A long, soft pull on the trigger then brings the hammer all the way back and drops it onto the spring-loaded firing pin. The hammer drops only once, after which the slide must be cycled to recock.
Both guns had a trigger movement of one inch, measured at the tip. The Italian-made magazines (one per gun) held six rounds. The Ruger’s mag had numbered witness holes on both sides; Kel-Tec, right-side holes, and no numbers. The mags were very easy to load. Both magazine releases were square buttons located on the left side of the frame. The Ruger’s was a touch larger and at a different height, so the magazines would not interchange.
The sights were pathetic on both guns. The integral front blade was wide enough, but stuck up on 0.030 inch above the surrounding metal. The rear notch was similarly shallow. This was clearly one of the compromises that made these guns so suitable for pocket carry. There’s nothing to catch on the clothing.
Both guns have six lands/grooves with right-hand twist. Takedown for the guns is identical. A small pin with a large head protrudes from the left side of the slide. With the gun unloaded, press the slide rearward slightly and lift out that pin using a small screwdriver or knife blade. Then ease the slide forward off the frame. The recoil spring and the barrel may then be removed for cleaning. Reassembly is similar, with only the need to press downward against the pin-retention spring while reinserting the pin. The Kel-Tec required slight movement of the barrel to align all the holes.
With both guns disassembled we tried interchanging parts. Very few of them did. The barrels would not, because of differences in the diameter of the muzzle ring. The slides did not. We could put the Ruger slide with its barrel and recoil spring onto the Kel-Tec and lock it in place, but it looked like the slide ended up too far rearward. Closer inspection showed us the Ruger’s slide was an eighth-inch longer at the back. The Kel-Tec slide would not fit the Ruger because of a difference in frame design at the front. We thought the recoil springs would swap, and they did, but the Ruger’s two concentric springs were a quarter inch shorter than the Kel-Tec’s. We made no attempt to shoot either gun with mismatched parts.
To read about the differences between the two guns as well as our recommendation, purchase and download the ebook Top 380 ACP Pistols & Gear, Part 2 from Gun Tests.
