There has been some confusion in this thread regarding the discontinued Ruger PC9 and the recently released Ruger PCC 9 mm carbine.
I have both the Hi-Point TS995 and the Ruger PCC. I will be looking to sell the Hi-Point.
The Hi-Point is a fun plinker but I would consider the Ruger PCC to be vastly preferable especially if use in a self-defense role is considered.
The Hi-Point has some less than desirable features for a self-defense weapon, IMO. The biggest limitation of the TS995 by far are the single stack magazines. The only non-Hi-Point magazine that will not void the warranty and reasonably expected to be reliable are the 20 round Red Ball magazines. But these being single stack stick way out of the bottom of the receiver. They would make it very difficult to shoot from a low prone position. Otherwise, you are stuck with 10 round Hi-Point magazines which I have found to be inconsistent in quality of manufacture and function. There is also a little shelf or lip inside the magazine well of the TS995 that the magazines will hang up on if they are not inserted perfectly plumb and square with the magwell which could be catastrophic if a rapid magazine change is called for.
Other problems with the Hi-Point are a crudely designed charging handle that is always wanting to unscrew itself, a quite mediocre trigger, and a poorly placed and crudely designed safety lever. The Hi-Point does have last round bolt lock on empty magazines but if you need to manually lock the bolt back, you need to push a knurled collar on the charging handle into a circular cut out on the left side of the dust cover. I find the charging handle rather awkward to release from this lock and the bolt will fail to chamber a round if it is not pulled back to the extreme limit of its travel. The safety lever is a thin piece of stamped metal which is hard to find without looking, and I (with larger than average hands for an adult male) find it impossible to disengage without shifting my firing hand grip on the pistol grip. The magazine release button is well-placed, however, and works well. The charging handle of the TS995 is not reversible from left to right side like it is on the Ruger PCC.
Other aspects of the TS995 which are not as critical, but less desirable than those of the Ruger PCC are sling mounts that only accept a 1" wide sling and can only be mounted on the right side of the carbine, and an accessory rail that is a piece of polymer screwed onto the top of the dust cover, rather than a rail milled on the top of the receiver like the Ruger. The Hi-Point iron sights are crude but work reasonably well, but the protective side wings of the rear sight extend much farther forward than they need to and can interfere with placement of some larger RDS sights in front of the iron sights.
The recoil characteristics of the Ruger PCC are pretty comparable to those of the TS995 IMO. Both have very heavy bolts with a blow-back action. I do not mind the recoil of either in the least, but I suppose some might. The take-down feature of the PCC makes it very easy to clean the barrel and chamber. In comparison, take-down of the TS995 is rather laborious. Take-down has not seemed to affect zero on my PCC so far. The PCC accepts Glock magazines which is an enormous plus. The trigger, while far from match quality, is reasonable and better than that of the TS995. I am quite sure that there will be aftermarket trigger options appearing for the PCC soon, and Brimstone Gunsmithing has told me they hope to start offering trigger work on the PCC trigger group by the end of the year. I have had no failures to function with the PCC thus far with any commercial 9 mm FMJ ammunition I have tried. I have had multiple failures to feed with the TS995 which I believe to be primarily magazine-related. The PCC also comes with several butt stock spacers that allow for very easy adjustment of length of pull. The PCC uses the same cross bolt safety button as the Ruger 10/22 which I find intuitive and easy to disengage, although a left-handed shooter might not like it as much.
The PCC is not perfect, by any means. The front sight is a non-adjustable blade. The rear sight, while adjustable for windage and elevation, do not provide for consistently reproducible click adjustment. You basically loosen a small Allen screw, slide the sight left or right, or forward or back on the ramp, and tighten the screw. The magazine release button is situated on the left side of the receiver at the magwell. This makes it difficult to do a very rapid magazine change by dropping the empty while simultaneously reaching for a loaded magazine. There is a very short Picatinny rail segment molded into the front of the polymer handguard at the 6 o'clock position, but it is designed in such a way that many rail mounted accessories will be too long to fit on it. The sling swivel studs are molded into the handguard and stock, however, and accept any standard quick attach/detach sling swivels. There are no accessory slots on the handguard of the Ruger PCC apart from the short Picatinny rail segment.
In comparison to the AR platform, I find releasing the open bolt on the PCC to be easier and faster. Unlike the Ruger 10/22, the bolt can be released by pulling back on the charging handle and letting go. This function can also be switched to the left side if desired. A definite drawback of the PCC to the AR platform is lack of accessory mounting locations on the fore-end if this is an issue for you. But aftermarket options, while pricey, are starting to emerge like the Catalyst Arms hardpoint accessory mounting system already cited, and this aluminum M-LOK compatible handguard by Parker Mountain Machine:
http://www.parkermountainmachine.com/store/p395/PMM_Ruger_PC_Carbine_MLOK_RAIL_BATCH_2_PRE-ORDER!!!!!!_ETA_11/24/18.html
I would be perfectly happy to use the Ruger PCC 9mm carbine with a red dot sight mounted for home self-defense, especially if you already own a Ruger or Glock pistol that will accept the same magazines. And with the Glock magazine adapter you have the option of a 31 round magazine capacity. The accuracy of the PCC seems a bit better than that of the TS995 in my hands. This Sunday I had the opportunity to shoot at some steel at 100 yards with the PCC using Blazer Brass 115 grain FMJ. I had a fixed magnification 3X Nikon scope mounted that I had zeroed at 45 yards, and I was using a pure guess for a hold-over based on a ballistic calculator and getting hits consistently on a 6" diameter plate.
I would encourage you to find someone with a Ruger PCC that would allow your wife to try it before settling on an AR type PCC. I bought mine recently from KY Gun Co. for just under $450, bought a SIG Romeo 5 RDS on-sale for $120, shipping included for both. That and four Glock 17 magazines on-sale from the Bone Frog Gun Club for $16 each and I am still under $650.
because the newest Ruger handgun anyone in the family has is a first gen P95.
