The Ruger P-guns: The 80s are calling, they want their handguns back
Picture if you will the Eighties: The Gipper was president, Stretch Armstrong was king of the schoolyard, and Atari was cutting edge. It was also the age of the Wonder Nines: high capacity nine-millimeter pistols for everyone and their brother. And like Yakov Smirnoff and shoulder pads, Bill Ruger’s P85 is a forgotten favorite of this not soon forgotten era.
In the early 1980s, word got round the firearms industry that the largest military force in the free world, the US Army, was going to conduct a series of handgun trials to select a new pistol. The winner of the testing would possibly get a series of huge contracts to not only replace the vaunted but aging stocks of 1911 .45 ACP guns, but also a myriad of .38 revolvers for the entire military. The Army, making things easy, asked for each pistol submitted to meet no less than 85 requirements. With such a huge carrot being dangled, the firm of Sturm, Ruger started designing a new military handgun.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
