Why was the PC9 discontinued?

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silverlance

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I don't get it.
Guns that I think are totally moronic ideas like the Remington pump action .223/308 are still being sold, but Ruger discontinues its PC9 which is a very nice gun.

Why did they do it?

And more importantly ... where I can buy one now? I planned last year to get one this year, but now it seems production has ceased. =(
 
I had a PC40 for all of one week. When I would rock the gun back and forth, I could feel a large "clunk" in the forend as if something was broken. I've heard the little rattles a mini 14 makes, but this was MUCH more annoying. Upon calling Ruger for a solution, the receptionist (not the service tech, I talked to him later) was even trying to tell me that this was normal. Obviously, this was not the first call they had received about this problem. After doing a few internet searches, I found I was not the only one with this complaint. Frankly, when I took the gun apart, I was not that impressed with the design. Seemed like a very clunky design with all the extra weight and the recoil spring located under the barrel. Perhaps with all these calls/complaints/service requests and the fact that it was a slow seller (everybody wanted a 45 acp that never materialized; not as much interest in the 9mm or .40 cal), Ruger just decided to drop it. Well, this and an apparent lack of interest by law enforcement in the thing...
Personally, I wish they'd come out with a tube fed 44 or 357 that held about 8 or more rounds that was gas-op. I think a tube-fed lever action 44 or 357 (think of the 96/44 with a full length mannlicher WALNUT stock(not beech!!!) ) would have sold, too. The 96/44 was just downright homely!!
 
Ruger didn't design or make this gun for joe plinker. they were after LE sales (remember PC= Patrol Carbine), specificly they wanted to sell the carbines and matching P-series pistols as a set.

this market never materialized in any signifigant way.
first off the Ruger pistols haven't had all that much success re: LE sales. and the cross compatibility was just about THE selling point of the PC9/40 so, if "Ruger pistols not standard issue" Then "no reason to by the ruger carbine"

second, What sold many Departments on upping the issue of "patrol carbines" were incidents like the N. Hollywood shootout. Thus what they went looking for were rifles/carbines of the "AR class", not pistol caliber designs.
 
A Hi-Point was cheaper and a Beretta CX4 was lighter, more stylish (in some shooter's eyes), and was easier to find >10 round mags for.
 
My guess would be that it's because they didn't sell in enough quantity to recoup their investment before the amortization period expired. I could be wrong, but that seems to be the main reason in many similar cases. If a line ain't paying its way, you move the assets to the ones that are.

IMO, Ruger was counting on large LEA contracts that never materialized. The 'patrol carbine' concept didn't catch on with many primarily urban LEAs and moved almost completely away from pistol calibers post the infamous North Hollywood robbery. Likely many other assorted reasons for that, not the least of which might be that they could obtain surplused M16s and M4s from Uncle Sugar for 'way less - even gratis in some cases.

It also wouldn't help that Ruger was loathe to even consider producing a mod to allow the use of magazines from any make of service pistol other than their own. Glock, SIG and Beretta captured the bulk of the pistol contracts, and the whole basis of the sales rationale falls apart unless the two weapons share magazines as well as caliber.
 
Guns that I think are totally moronic ideas like the Remington pump action .223/308
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Remington's been making their pump action rifles for decades.

Good guns.
 
I believe that for all of these pistol caliber semi-auto carbine, the Ruger PC is the only model that is CA legal.

The rest are pistol-grip type, which is a big no-no for CA.

-Pat
 
Also, note that the gun had little "sporting purpose."

Remington, for all their faults, is good at something: they leverage a basic design into a lot of firearms. One example is the recent proliferation of 7600 variants. They can rapidly produce deer rifles, ranch/farm guns and police carbines using the same basic tooling and parts, and the variety gets more interest from civilian shooters as well.

The PC's were out on their own. They didn't share a platform with hunting/target rifles, they weren't adaptable to serious hunting, they never won great acceptance from civilian defensive firearms instructors, and they were too expensive for 9mm plinking. I wanted one until I saw the price.
 
I don't see a real gap in the marketfor the PC-9 anyhow with Beretta, Keltec, and Highpoint making pistol carbines.
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I beleive the PC-9 predates all of those, in fact i'm pretty sure Highpoint the company didn't exist when the PC-9 dropped, possibly Kel-tec as well but i'm not sure about that one. and Berretta came late to the scene anyway.

what the PC-9 was competing against for civilian sales when it first came out was the Marlin Camp carbine and surplus M-1 Carbines. come to think of it, isn't it pretty bad when the major competition for your NEW gun is a bunch of USED guns (i think the Camp Carbine was discontinued soon after the PC came out) and they STILL beat you up.
 
The reason the major competition was a used gun was because the $500 pistol caliber carbine is the answer to a question nobody asked. Ruger didn't get beat by Marlin, they got beat by lack of a market - just like Marlin did.
 
"Guns that I think are totally moronic ideas like the Remington pump action .223/308 are still being sold, but Ruger discontinues its PC9 which is a very nice gun."
silverlance

Hey those Remingtons are great rifles, and really fun.
 
The reason the major competition was a used gun was because the $500 pistol caliber carbine is the answer to a question nobody asked. Ruger didn't get beat by Marlin, they got beat by lack of a market - just like Marlin did.
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I know. it's still funny :D

and i think there is a caveat that needs to be made.

the "question nobody asked" least in the US was for a 9mm or .40 carbine. TONS of folks wanted a 45ACP carbine, esp if it could have taken 10rd+ mags, and would have paid the $500 for it, esp a few years after the Camp Carbines dried up.
though as noted even a PC-45 wouldn't have saved the line.
 
TONS of folks wanted a 45ACP carbine, esp if it could have taken 10rd+ mags
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Why, though?

Furthermore, if Marlin thought they would sell, I'm sure they'd be making them.
 
Lawdog had a post about the Remington pump rifles on his blog. Basically, it has the same action and operation as the shotguns that police are already trained on. Very little additional training is required and you get a .223 rifle.
 
The short answer: Nobody wanted it. It was the red headed stepchild of the Ruger offerings. OTOH, I have never seen one outside of a magazine article. Maybe nobody could buy it, even if they wanted one.

The popularity of the HiPoint and KelTec carbines shows that there's a market out there for 9mm and .40 carbines. HiPoint is working on a .45 carbine if they haven't already got one out. And lever action pistol caliber carbines have been popular for more than a century.

I'm going to go with two reasons:

1) They weren't in stores for people to fool around with. New guns out in the marketplace tend to follow people home if, and only if, they actually see them in person. Ruger didn't get them out there when the LE market turned out not to exist because the executives were either unwilling or unable to think of selling to the civilian market.

2) It was much too expensive. For 500 smackers you could get a lot more rifle with a Mini-14. For that same amount pretty much any SKS/AK variant and a large supply of ammo. Later on you could get a HiPoint for less than half the cost or a KelTec that would fold up and fit into a briefcase. At that point, buh-bye PC-9. Too expensive and too PC for its own good.
 
lever action pistol caliber carbines have been popular for more than a century.
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Any idea what the performance of 9mm from a 16" barrel is?

I'm guessing it's nowhere near .357, .41 or .44 in a carbine barrel. Very different powder. .45ACP performance is probably dubious, as well.

Good .357 in a carbine barrel is an effective deer rifle at intermediate range -- a lot faster than from a revolver.

9mm would be a fun plinking round, and good for HD, but as a cop, if I could carry 3 guns, I'd want a real rifle in my car. I'd already HAVE a pistol.
 
Any idea what the performance of 9mm from a 16" barrel is?

I'm guessing it's nowhere near .357, .41 or .44 in a carbine barrel. Very different powder. .45ACP performance is probably dubious, as well.
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Probably ordinary pressure 9mm won't be that powerful out of a carbine. OTOH, I know that HiPoints will fire +P, possibly +P+ rounds which does get between .38 Special and .357 Mag, IIRC. FWIW, the lever carbines started out using black powder loads and were probably about as powerful as a 9mm carbine today in the .38 loadings. Newer lever carbines have more whomp because there are bigger cartridges and better powders today.

Anyway, my point was not that the 9mm carbine matches a .44 Mag lever carbine but that the pistol caliber carbine has been a marketable firearms concept for more than a century.
 
TONS of folks wanted a 45ACP carbine, esp if it could have taken 10rd+ mags
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Why, though?
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well i based that comment on the folks i was around and talked to at the time the PC-9 hit the market. i figure if a strangely large amount of folks from a fairly small area comment on a new design and make the same basic comment, that it's not likely to be an isolated thing.

I ran into/knew several people that liked the concept etc but kept saying "i want it in .45, not that D@#$ dinky 9mm" of course thinking back on it these tended to be the same guys that thought "hit anything short of an elephant with a .45 = It's dead jim" and that 9mm was for european wussy men :rolleyes: obviously i am not of these oppinions... (my oppinion of the PC series being that it did nothing that I personally had a need for)


OTOH, I have never seen one outside of a magazine article. Maybe nobody could buy it, even if they wanted one.
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I don't know about anything real recent but back when ruger first brought it out, 4 out of the 5 shops i frequented in and around Raleigh NC had multiple examples in their racks.
so i'm of the thought that few have seen them more recently b/c
 
OT,but i would have rather had a m-n 44 than a ar15 at north hollywood.
 
lever carbines started out using black powder loads and were probably about as powerful as a 9mm carbine today in the .38 loadings
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.44-40 were the most popular AFAIK, and BP gains a LOT of velocity going from a 5.5" barrel to a 20" barrel. They killed a lot of deer. Not many people would get a 9mm carbine today, to hunt deer.

A lot of it has to do with what people expect from their cartridges. That's changed over time.

Kel-Tec has a more appropriate package. It's more like a big pistol than a stubby rifle, and as such, it's pretty neat.
 
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