I have not always liked Ruger. In particular, the handguns they made once upon a time were some of my least favorite to work on when they were brought into the shop where I used to work. Those were all older models that are no longer in production. I’ve not had a lot of experience with Ruger’s newer line up of handguns. Until now, that is.
Yes, I got a Ruger RXM. There has been a lot of back and forth on this gun in the past 2 months. I’ve heard people say it’s nothing special, I’ve heard people say this is what Glock should be doing, I’ve heard pretty much everyone bitch about the trigger. I’m not saying anyone has been right or wrong about anything they have said. I, as I feel everyone should, wanted to form my own opinions about the RXM. There is no better way to do that than to add one to my collection.
I have owned several Glock 19 models in the past. I’ve had 3 or 4 Gen3 models and I still currently have a Gen4 in my inventory. Each has served its purpose, but each also had a number of things about it that I didn’t care for. Some of those issues Have been addressed in the Gen5 models, but I never bothered to get a Gen5 G19. There are a few things that absolutely must be addressed with any Glock. The sights are plastic and they suck. In the Gen3 model, the skinny plastic guide rod was prone to flex and warp. I never cared for the finger grooves on the Gen3/4 Glock. I’ve never been particularly fond of the grip shape and angle on Glock pistols. Possibly the most important is the fact that the Glock trigger is garbage. The rounded trigger shoe, heavy pull, mushy feel, and clunkiness of the mechanism is so bad it actually caused me to have nightmares where I could not get the trigger in my service pistol to function because the pull was just too stiff. I suffered from that particular breed of nightmare on more than one occasion, so it’s a legitimate problem.
The RXM addresses a lot of these issues. The sights are metal, the front sight being fitted with a tritium dot. I prefer full night sights. I’ve had instructors argue that you don’t need night sights, but when we did low light engagements, my full-night-sight gun fared better than the front dot or plain black sighted guns did as far as shot placement and accuracy on target. The sights on the RXM are a bit taller than the typical Glock sights, but that allows them to co-witness with a red dot should one be mounted. I had an old Holosun 407C V2 sitting in my locker, so I installed it on my RXM. The sight mounts direct to the slide, no plates or spacers. The gun comes with locator pins to fit RMR, RMSc, and Delta Point Pro footprint optics. The pins simply index into small holes to line up with the pin sockets on the bottom of the operator’s chosen optic. Installation was easy and just to be sure, I slipped off the back plate and pulled out the extractor pin an spring to ensure there was no interference from the mounting screw on the ejection port side of the gun.
The RXM works on a design similar to the Sig P320, P365, Springfield Echelon, and kind of like the Zev Tech OC9. It’s a serialized “chassis” that holds all the fire control parts that can be swapped from frame to frame without need to fill out a 4473 for each frame. This is why in the picture attached to this article my gun is in a black frame and not the grey one you see in all the youtube review videos. Hopefully Magpul will release a full size frame in the future and I can run my RXM in a Glock 45 configuration with full size frame and compact slide. The Magpul-manufactured grip is nice. It has a grip more like a 1911 with no hump in the backstrap like the Glock traditionally has. It allows the pistol to point more naturally for me and it makes presentation and red dot acquisition much easier than a typical Austrian Tactical Tupperware gun. The texture is Magpul’s signature pattern and it reminds me a lot of my Shadow Systems DR920 Combat that I carried when I was at my last agency. It does have a bit of a molded-in magwell, which makes indexing and rapid reloading easier without having to add an extra piece of hardware to the firearm.
One of the things I did with every Gen3 Glock I ever got was change out the guide rod with a stainless steel unit. I still have the one I took out of my last Gen3 before I traded it for the Gen4 I currently own and it was a direct fit into the RXM. It may work just fine with the factory guide rod, but old habits die hard.
The trigger on the RXM…is a trigger. To me, it feels better than a factory Glock trigger. it is a flat faced shoe, which definitely helps the feel of it. It has been described as a rolling trigger and as being mushy and having no wall. I like it better than the trigger in the Sig P320 that I built. It is a bit of a long trigger, admittedly. The unit I have does have a wall despite what many reviewers have said. The issue is its a thick wall. The trigger stacks, then it travels a good ways past the first real point of resistance to get to the break. While I’m sure I can fix that problem with a spring and a connector, I want to try shooting it first. I want to see how the factory trigger feels with live fire. I don’t like dry firing the P320, but when it has live rounds in it, the trigger suddenly feels good because there is a reaction when the trigger is pulled rather than just the underwhelming sensation of the striker being released. Proper live fire changes the feel and dynamics of a gun, so I want to try the trigger as it came from the factory. It definitely feels like the advertised 5-ish pound pull, which is far better than any of my Glocks were when I first unboxed them. Every Glock I have ever owned came out of the box with a heavy trigger.
The Ruger RXM is a great little gun. It improves on an excellent design and has potential for future expansion of the line utilizing the modular capabilities of the fire control unit design. It is a Glock Gen3 at heart, and Glock Gen3 parts fit. I have a custom Mil-Spin back plate on the slide and a Gen3 guide rod installed, and I would be willing to bet some of the Gen3 trigger bits on the market will fit and could improve that trigger if I decide it needs it. The mounting of optics is straight forward and the irons co-witness. This is a good gun. I have watched break-ins and burn-downs and if my unit runs as reliably, this may become a regular carry option for me. At $200 less than a Glock, with the reliability it has put out in so many reviews, and the modularity…it’s hard to beat. I won’t buy a PSA Dagger because I don’t believe in spending my money on a gun I can’t trust my life to and I believe that is the closest competitor for the price. The Ruger RXM is confidence inspiring. I’m glad to have it in my collection and look forward to putting it through it’s paces on the range.
Grey Matter Guano 