RUGER LITE RACK LCP
New .22 polymer pocket pistol
IN 1897 JOHN Moses Browning was granted a patent for a small 7.65mm (.32 calibre) pistol. The Belgian firm of Fabrique Nationale d’armes saw its potential and marketed it as the Pistolet Automatique Browning Modéle 1900 .It became so popular that in many parts of the world ‘Browning’ became synonymous with ‘semi-auto pistol’ and soon dozens of competitors were marketing similar pistols.
Five years later FN released the Pistolet Automatique Browning Modéle 1905 chambered for a 6.35mm (.25 calibre) cartridge which was small enough to be carried concealed by anyone but an under-dressed nudist! It was another instant hit and was copied by gun makers everywhere. Because the 7.65 pistols could be carried in a coat pocket, they had become known as ‘pocket pistols’ (Taschenpistolen in German). Shortly after the introduction of the Modéle 1905 it, and its small brethren, were baptized ‘vest pocket pistols’ (Westentaschenpistolen).
While small 7.65 and 6.35mm pis
tols were immensely popular with European civilians, police and military officers in the US, they never replaced the snubbie revolver as the preferred concealable handgun. But as I explained to my daughter as she grew up, “Nothing remains the same .... everything changes eventually” and the popularity of ‘pocket pistols’ in the US has grown exponentially in the last few decades.
While never as popular as their larger calibre cousins, there has always been a demand for .22 calibre pocket pistols and such well-known gunmakers as Walther, Taurus, Colt, S&W and Astra have offered them. One of the more popular was Beretta’s Model 71 which, I’ve been told was and still is, a particular favourite in South Africa.
Just before the 2020 SHOT Show, Ruger announced a new addition to their line of Light Compact Pistols (LCP). While all previous LCPS have been chambered for the .380 ACP (9mm Browning Short) this one followed the beat of a different drummer by being chambered for the .22 LR cartridge and has a number of features that make it much more user-friendly than similar tiny pistols.
Like the other members of the family, the Lite Rack LCP II’S (let’s just call it the Lite) frame is made of glass-filled nylon with alloy inserts to provide additional strength, and includes rails that the slide reciprocates on. The slide is machined from alloy steel and features a blue finish.
Its most notable feature is the Lite Rack System which includes dual slide grooves, cocking ears at the rear of the slide and a lighter recoil spring. Combined, these features allow the shooter to get a firm purchase on the slide and ease cycling it by hand. This makes the Lite Rack System ideally suited for new shooters and those who struggle with racking traditional slides (e.g. young, female or elderly shooters or those with disabilities).
The Lite’s trigger mechanism features a neutrally-balanced sear with significant engagement, strong spring tension and a hammer catch to help prevent the hammer from contacting the firing pin unless the trigger is pulled through a complete stroke. Cartridge ignition is by means of an internal hammer which I feel provides more reliable primer ignition on subcompact pistols than does a striker.
THE LITE USES Ruger’s Secure Action fire control system that combines the smooth trigger stroke with the short crisp feel and positive reset of a singleaction. It has a ‘single strike’ trigger mechanism which means that if you have a misfire, or are dry firing an unloaded pistol for practice, it is necessary to partially retract the slide to reset the hammer before you can pull the trigger again.
The magazine release button is in the ‘proper’ position. Unlike many of its contemporaries, in addition to the safety on the face of its trigger, the Lite has both a manual safety and slide hold open catch located above the left grip panel where they are easily operated. While it is a device that I personally do not approve of on a pistol designed for defensive purposes, the Lite has a magazine safety which prevents it being fired unless the magazine is fully inserted into the grip.
Another nice feature is the magazine’s extended floorplate, which provides a comforting ten round capacity while allowing a full, three finger grip that improves ergonomics and recoil control. Texturing on the grip’s sides, front and back straps allows a firm purchase.
To improve feeding – a common problem with tiny .22 pistols – the Lite’s barrel tilts down as the slide reciprocates which brings the chamber closer to the magazine.
While sights are perhaps redundant on a pistol designed for close (and very close) range defensive purposes, those on the Lite are quite visible and are angled so as to prevent them from hanging up on something when the pistol is drawn from concealment. And speaking of concealment, Ruger ships each Lite with a very practical pocket holster while allows you to carry the pistol in a trouser pocket
THE LCP II IS IDEALLY SUITED FOR NEW SHOOTERS AND THOSE WHO STRUGGLE WITH RACKING TRADITIONAL SLIDES
without any ‘signature’ while its suedelike exterior clings to the lining of the pocket allowing the pistol to be easily drawn. I was very pleased to see Ruger include it as this sort of rig is my preferred style of holster when I carry a small pocket pistol.
Ruger kindly provided me with a Lite Rack LCP II to evaluate for Magnum’s information-hungry readers (well you are, aren’t you?). The parcel service delivered it to my door on a fine spring morning and after unpacking it – and verifying that it was unloaded – I showed it to my wife Becky. After examining the demure Ruger she commented, “It’s a cute little thing, isn’t it?” Groan…
AS WITH ALL of Ruger’s firearms that I have tested over the years, the Lite displayed first class materials, construction and assembly. All the controls were easy to operate without moving the pistol around in my hand and, according to my trigger-pull scale, the sear tripped with exactly 2.3kg of pressure.
My good friends Richard Cole and Dick Jones helped me on the range and we began by running fifty rounds of Winchester’s 40gr Dynapoint .22 LR ammunition through the Lite to test its functioning. As .22 pistols are well known for being ammunition sensitive, we were quite pleased to see that, except for two failures to feed and one to eject in the first ten rounds, the little
Ruger gobbled up rim-fires and spat out the spent cases with boring regularity.
The three of us agreed that trying to shoot little groups from a rest with the Lite would be a poor way to judge its performance – to say nothing of damaging our fragile egos – so we decided to limit test firing to running an offhand, combat-type drill on a pair of targets from seven metres.
Holding the pistol in the low ready position, on a signal the shooter lifted it and fired one magazine (ten rounds) on the right hand target. He then performed – or tried to – a speed reload and engaged the left hand target with ten rounds. He then inserted a fresh magazine into the pistol and repeated the drill a second time for a total of forty rounds expended by each shooter.
While the little Ruger lacked somewhat in the ergonomics department, the controls could be operated as expected, the trigger-pull was quite respectable and the sights, well, they are also small, but to be perfectly honest about it (we gun magazine writers will do this on occasion!) at the ‘reach out and touch someone’ distances you are likely to employ this pistol, sights are almost superfluous. In fact, we were all able to keep our forty rounds, bar a few fliers, inside the targets’ A and B zones which we felt was more than respectable performance.
Towards the end of our offhand test-firing, when the Ruger had become fairly fouled with powder residue (as do most .22 auto-loaders) we experienced two failures to eject.
WHILE I WOULD hesitate to recommend a .22 pistol as a primary defensive weapon, under certain circumstances they do make sense. If you need a small pistol for ‘deep cover’ they fit the bill because the First Rule of Defensive Shooting instructs you to ‘Have a gun!’. The Second Rule of Defensive Shooting tells us ‘Better yet, have two guns!’ and many law enforcement officers utilize small .22s as backup guns in case their primary weapon malfunctions, runs out of ammo or is snatched by a bad guy.
Lastly, if for whatever reason you have trouble handling a heavier recoiling pistol, a .22 makes sense because the Third Rule of Defensive Shooting states that ‘Only those shots that hit the target count!’. Think about it.