Speed readings.

Brought both Rugers to Marion County Fish & Game yesterday to do some chrono testing. Halfway there, I realized I'd forgotten both my camera and my phone. I drove on anyway, only to arrive to the reminder that the range is closed for mowing on Thursday mornings, so I turned around and drove home to get the picture-taking equipment.

The chrono work with the Ruger American yielded some surprises. The 115gr American Eagle FMJ ammo was as slow as I'd feared:

LO: 1101
HI: 1165
AV: 1134
ES: 64.00
SD: 19.84

You start getting 115gr bullets down below 1100fps, and that seems to be the threshold at which clean ejection is a problem in a lot of pistols. This stuff probably would have been a horror show in the Canik or the Steyr, or the Ruger 9E, for that matter, at least when new.

So the PPU, with its much more dramatic muzzle blast, was much hotter, right? I would have sworn on a stack of bibles it would be...

LO: 1065
HI: 1147
AV: 1119
ES: 82.12
SD: 23.57

Color me surprised. I guess it's just slower-burning powder causing all the sturm und drang out at the end of the barrel? All twenty rounds fired functioned fine through the firearm.

For the LCP II, I brought along some 90gr Sig Sauer V-Crown JHP ammo and a box of Sellier & Bellot 92gr FMJ. The V-Crown's velocity numbers were about average for the defense ammo I've tested in this gun, being a little faster than the Gold Dots and a little slower than the Critical Defense:

LO: 806.9
HI: 896.8
AV: 849.3
ES: 89.92
SD: 33.88

Those velocities were a little more scattered than I normally expect from Sig Sauer ammo, too. I'll likely try another box from a different lot, just to see what kind of difference that makes.

The Sellier & Bellot FMJ posted the stoutest numbers I've yet seen from a .380, other than some 90gr GDHP out of the Sig P250. (And the P250 Compact's got another .75" of barrel length over the Elsie Pea Too.)

LO: 927.0
HI: 996.5
AV: 964.7
ES: 69.53
SD: 19.10

I need to get off my butt and shoot some jello. It seems like if one is of the "Carry FMJ for maximum penetration" school when it comes to mousegun calibers, then more velocity would be better velocity.

Recoil was, as they say, brisk but manageable.

I fired off the remainder of the box of S&B, for a total of sixty rounds through the LCP II that day. The pistol experienced two more failures to return to battery. (#697, #704)

It occurs to me that maybe I want to contact Ruger about the recommended recoil spring replacement intervals on these things. I mean, if this were an Officer's Model 1911, it'd be about done with its second recoil spring.

For the LCP II, this makes 736 rounds fired since the gun was last cleaned or lubricated with eight failures to return to battery (#128, #158, #245, #600, #628, #630, #697, #704) and one failure to feed (#540). 1,264 rounds to go.
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