When Ruger brought out their PC Carbine takedown gun a few years back, I was quite excited. The new Ruger was setup at the factory to take mags from Rugers poly 9mm pistols but you could swap out the magazine well insert and put in a different insert that allowed you to use Glock mags. The gun ships with both the Ruger and the Glock mag insert. This is a good idea on Ruger’s part because, realistically, no one buys Ruger centerfire autos. For every SR9, Security9, or American pistol sold there are probably about 250 Glocks sold. So…Ruger plays it safe. Smart.
But since the gun is designed to accept different magazine well inserts to accommodate different magazines, it would only be a matter of time before magazine inserts for things other than Glock pistol mags started showing up, right?
Well, you’d say that, but………for a while it was a barren wasteland of innovation.
Just on a whim, I did some Googling and discovered that, indeed, third parties are now getting magazine adapters out there for other pistols. Most notably Beretta, CZ, and Sig pistols. The free market abhors a vacuum, and every swinging Richard with a 3D printer thinks he’s got the Next Big Thing…..and that is awesome. Thats how innovation works.
I’m not going to get into the conversation about why a person would want a carbine that takes the same caliber/magazine as their pistol. Thats been hashed out elsewhere. My point is, though, that if you like the Ruger PC carbine platform but wish that it would accommodate your favorite pistol magazine….take heart, you may be in luck with a little Googling.
I’m married to the Glock platform so I’m pretty happy with the OEM insert, but I’ve got a buddy who likes the .40 Beretta 96, and another one who is a CZ75 afficianado, and now they can have a carbine that matches their pistol.
Major kudos to Ruger for creating that environment for the PC Carbine….although, really, it’d be to Rugers advantage to be the ones making a variety of inserts.
It also wouldn’t hurt Ruger’s bottom line if they were smart enough to offer a PCC in .45 auto that’d also take 1911 mags (it’s not like the Marlin carbines are coming back ever, and I have it on good authority that there are at least 3 or 4 people in the U.S. with M1911 pistols), but even will Bill Sr. dead and buried, the IQ bell curve at Corporate HQ still has them struggling hard to get midway up the common sense hill.
So I’ll have to settle for the one in 9mm (the virtues of which I have extolled multiple times), and learn to live with Ruger Inc. development and marketing being halfwits instead of fullwits.
It’s still an improvement.
>sigh<
When will River release the PC in .40 S&W?
You’re a little out of date. From 2019.
https://www.firearmsnews.com/editorial/ruger-pc-carbine-now-in-40-s-w/360585
https://ruger.com/products/pcCarbine/models.html
I may be out of date but I haven’t seen or heard of any in the wild. And last I looked, they were not available from the factory.
Friend bought a .40 S&W version a year ago after liking my 9mm version so much. Quickly discovered the .40 version has a lot of issues. Ruger doesn’t advertise the fact that the .40 version is NOT approved to use aluminum cased ammo, that it does not reliably feed using anything other than 15 round or less Glock mags (in the Glock version, we never tried the Ruger mag version.) We also found the .40 S&W version to be less reliable overall. He dumped it and bought a 9mm version and is quite happy with his 30+ round Magpul/Glock/ETS whatever will stuff in the bottom reliability.
People get Ruger semi-autos before the 3rd call back?
It also comes with an mag well for S&W M&P as well.
Rugers website makes no indication that they ship with a M&P magwell.
I only looked just after they came out and that was years ago, but looking on the net it looks like they never shipped them.
Stop the presses!
Pure Vaporware?
From a gun manufacturer??
Who’d’a ever thunk it?!?
TAURUS TRIAD HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
Ruger just announced a new carbine in 5.7mm. The firearms periodicals I read only one had a writeup on testing.
Guess they needed a carbine to go with their pistol in the same caliber.
The write ups I’ve seen on the Marlins being made since the Ruger purchase all are very complementary on quality and durability.
Especially the lever guns. Might have to invest in a 45/70 Govt soon. That’s a great cartridge. I’ve shot it since I was 21 and everything I ever shot with it stays that way. It hits like a Mack truck but doesn’t tear up the meat like the higher velocity rounds do. And the nice thing is no matter where you live it will take any critter on the North American continent. I make my own ammo. And you can tailor the round to about anything.