Ruger has always been desperate for the much-vaunted military/police contract ever since they threw their hat in the ring with the P85 thirty years ago. Unfortunately, Ruger has just never been able to crack that particular nut. Other than a small (5000~) contract to the US military, they have been, by and large, virtually unheard of in the LE and military handgun market.
Which makes me wonder…who the heck were these for?
These are the first ‘restricted’*** P-series mags I’ve ever seen. I mean, they were obviously made during the Clinton Assault Weapon Ban era, but when they were made they could only be sold to cops and troops. And, as I said, Ruger had virtually no representation in either group. I guess they made ’em “just in case” some department on a (very) tight budget adopted a P-series gun.
Anyway, found a lot of them on Gunbroker and they showed up today. Soup to nuts, I think it was about $15 ea. which is a good price for a factory magazine.
But, it’s kinda cool…I’venever seen a restricted P-series mag before.
*** = See, kids….back in the Bad Ol’ Days, new magazines were limited to a 10-rd capacity unless you were one of the Only Ones. Existing mags shot up in price since they were grandfathered in. And all the new magazines that held more than 10-rds had to be marked in this manner so the nice federal agent would know you had broken the law by being a peon-in-possession. Did anyone ever get federal jail time over it? Beats me. The one time a federal agent asked me about the restricted Glock magazine in my gun case I told him I was shooting at a range with a buncha cops and we musta mixed up magazines. Suited him.
Don’t forget: Bill Ruger (spit on his memory) sold out his customers and gunners in general when was a vocal proponent of the mag limits……
I’ve boycotted Ruger for 30 years because of that. Now that Bill is dead and the company is run by competents, I would consider them again
Yeah, I remember that. And during the Billy Ruger years there was not very much they made that I wanted. (I didn’t start picking up P95s until long after he’d died.) Since Rugers’ death, the Ruger company has really come into their own. I have no doubt that if Billy Ruger was still alive we would not have half the cool new products that theyve come out with.
Ruger really gave up some market share to support that political idiocy. No one I encountered then had anything good to say about him, or bought any of his guns.
I only bought one after that, and it was a NIB police trade-in, so he wasn’t getting a piece of that transaction. It was a gun that he wasn’t selling to the public, which is why I bought it. A SS/folding/GB/mini-14.
Sold it later to some collector in Tx, still NIB. I had in mind to give it to a friend who was going to buy a liveaboard sailboat. He finally got a boat, and died shortly afterwards. Sigh…
Not to Change the topic (partially), but WRT inexpensive ‘deep-six’ pistols, have you taken a look at the Canik TP series pistols? They’re stupid-cheap (sub-$300), and I just discovered you can repurpose M9 mags to function perfectly in them (just needs an additional small notch cut).
I only mention it because I got a metric butt-load of old beretta mags years ago that need a new lease on life, and 92FSs still aren’t particularly cheap.
Not sure why I would go for a sub-$300 pistol when Im getting the Rugers at $200 a pop. At this point, I’m getting used Glocks at $300 a throw, so for my needs the Canik is a step backwards economically.
And buying Caniks puts money in the hands of the islamist Turkish government that has carried out repeated pogroms against Greeks, Jews, Armenians and Kurds.
Oh Lawd, here we go…….
I’ve read that you can do the same thing with Beretta mags to fit Ruger 9mm’s.
Buds has a bunch of police trade in Beretta 92S for 300. I think they use the same magazine as 92FS. So your Beretta mags in a Beretta for same price as the Canik.
The S uses a heel release mag catch, they went with the American style thumb release in the SB for the USGI trials – so the S uses a different magazine.
Well, by Bill Ruger’s standard, those must have been for dishonest men. Because “No honest man needs more than 10 rounds in any gun”.
Maybe Wisconsin State Police? They carried P89’s at one point and I think upgraded to P93’s.
Still the bad ole days here in NYS. . . no mags allowed that hold more than 10 rnds. . no grandfathered “pre-bans” either. . .
Nypd tested a few hundred of them in the early 90s. Might be from that lot.
The Ruger was an acceptable choice for NYPD officers, who had several guns to choose from. However, it appears virtually none of them chose it.
NYPD did wind up with a few hundred. I haven’t seen one on the streets in about a million years tho.
While the P85 type Ruger Autos never saw major adoption by the American military save for an order of 5,000 that went to tank & automotive command, their .22 caliber pistols have seen fairly extensive use .
Interestingly, I believe the Ruger .44 DA revolver were issued an NSN at one time; I need to look that up.
From what I’ve read the Ruger P90 .45 ACP was more popular though only in small departments. Come to that I don’t remember any large departments using .45 ACP in the 90’s.
I know that Massad Ayoob equipped his department (Grantham, New Hampshire) with it. Even taking the part timers and spare guns it was maybe a dozen max, but it did encourage as lot of small departments.He almost went with the Sig P220 but when he he tested it, it would not feed the CCI 200gr (flying ashtray) JHP. They then went to the Ruger P97 I don’t know if they sill use it.
A few years back I picked up a P94 for a song. The guy at the LGS said it was one of a batch of police trade-ins from Puerto Rico that they had in stock. This one came with a couple of the restricted magazines. So far it’s chewed up everything I’ve put in it.
I remember hearing long ago Ruger’s biggest P series sale was to the Turkish military, ~25,000 guns.
JGsales a while back had some for like $179 but they were rough to the point of no more bluing left on them, looked to be military trade ins.
The cops (and prison guards) must have loved the mini-14s back in the day, there seems to be quite a few trade-ins available.
https://www.sportsmansoutdoorsuperstore.com/category.cfm/sportsman/used-firearms/brand/ruger
You say that the mags were made “just in case” some department on a (very) tight budget adopted a P-series gun buy. As far as I can find out Ruger where one of the few not to offer special Law Enforcement pricing. So a Glock would not have cost you any more if you take the price of say five spare mags into account (three to carry, three to rotate into carry) at that time Glock $15, Ruger $30+.
I don’t know about Ruger offering or not offering law enforcement pricing, but I do know that at least on one occasion they tried to give the guns for free to a department and were turned down.
I guess that says it all right there ‘…how about we just GIVE you the guns, would that be alright?…’ No, we’re good. LOL
Yeah, no kidding. Free guns for your department and you take a pass… thats gotta sting.
Even the UK government managed to gave away some SA80 rifles once, I forget who had them but a year late the only thing used was the
SUSAT sight which was fitted to a M16A3.
I’ve just found out the the UK 43 Commando has doped the SA80 for the Colt C8 which they are claiming has more power. A senior source in the Marines said: “It is the same caliber as the SA80, but has greater punch and is easier to handle. I wounder how they do that same ammo and a shorter barrel.
The SA80/L85 series of weapons are regarded as some of the worst designed combat rifles made by a non-Third World country.
Which was why they could only give it away once and they only keep the sight.
They offed a lot of them with ammo etc for free to some Third World Country’s (most were British Commonwealth) almost all turned them down and payed for AK’s instead. You know something very bad when Third World Country’s would not have them for free and spend their money instead.
Massad Ayoob has said on many occasions that Ruger 9mm semi-autos are or were the number one brand in most police training academy (I think now Sigmas have over taken Rugers).
Nowadays few departments ever send anyone to academys and the recruits pay for them self. Rugers were the cheapest gun that could do the job 100% all of the time. When they join a departments, even if it’s one where they have to buy a sidearm, they soon sell the Ruger for something that “looks better” as there is (as Ayoob says) no pride of ownership in a Ruger.
That may be where the restricted mags come from though recruits were not meant to have them I bet a lot did, or got them when they joined the department and it was OK.
I remember a comment by a cop that ran the High School explorer program off duty. ‘The Ruger P-85s never break and they always shoot.’
The bottom line: the function of a firearm is to put mass x velocity on target in a safe reliable manner. If a $200 Ruger does it as well as a $2000 Gold Cup and the crap is hitting the fan, I’ll use whatever is close to hand. And 10 P-series with my LMI’s is better than passing around one Colt.
The Maryland State Police, adopted both the P-series pistols and the matching PC carbines to benefit from common magazines and ammunition.I do not know if they were 9mm or .40S&W from the date I would guess it was the .40S&W.