I've owned or handled and shot Ruger's LCP,LCP Custom LCP 2: S&W BodyGuard; Beretta Pico.
All the pistols were accurate out of the box at 7 yards, tight groupings. The Pico has drift adjustable rear site which doesn't mean anything since the damn thing won't even shoot (details below) Bottom line: If I was faced with a situation in which I needed to get a new subcompact out of the box and defend my life, if it was a frigging Pico, I'D SURELY DIE!
1/11/17 update to the problems with Pico: I just wrote the following to them after attempting and failing to use their link to generate a prepaid return label: "the return link sent me to UPS DOES NOT WORK. it is just a window to log on and when I try to log on with my UPS logon IT DOEsn't ACCEPT IT AND TheRE IS NO LINK TO REGISTER. I think this is VERY FITTING AND ON PAR with my experience with Beretta that Beretta sends me a non-working link to generate a return label for a non-working gun!"
the LCP Custom which I currently own: It's a Ruger, not a Beretta so it actually shot out of the box but hasa few stupid shortcomings: It comes with a ONE DOT NIGHT sight which is useless since the blacked out rear sights do just that in any glare or at night. Plus out of the box, BEFORE being shot the first time (only dry fired to limber up the trigger and slide) the front sight blade became loose and I took the slide off and it has to be sent back to the shop to be fixed because of the poor design, just the blade sitting on top of the blade affixed through with a crazy nut NOBODY has a tool for, not in a slot or anything so it slops back and forth across the slide at the slightest release of the nut.
But I am not sending in my only personal defense weapon to get something done THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MANUFACUTRED CORRECTLY IN THE FIRST PLACE. So I JB welded the sides of it to the slide hoping that will hold it. Then since the sights are about 3 feet out of adjustment to the left, i went to adjust the rear sight and promptly stripped out the cheap ass allen screw!
And will FIX THAT MYSELF TOO. I know it is cheapness and not me that is the problem because I have tiny allen wrench screws on my Crimson Trace lasers that i fool with all the time WITH THE PROVIDED ALLEN WRENCHes with no problem.
Well I didn't follow the return directions, so that was my mistake, BUT I still feel this way about the Pico and Beretta: There are NO articles on the internet about how bad the Pico sucks and it sucks in the second worst way, doesn't even chamber a round. It's not just "sometimes" it's "all the time" and to me that means that the gun is fundamentally flawed and somebody is going to, or all ready, has gotten killed trying to defend themselves with it because they put it in their pocket loaded out of the box for protection, like I did, ignorantly feeling safe, trusting the brand name. Anyway I sold it for a $70 loss and ordered an LCP Custom.
Also the stupid looking aluminum trigger HAS SQUARE EDGES, but my trigger finger is not square so it is uncomfortable. So I filed the corners down like a trigger is supposed to be made. But Ruger approaches such design like it is a frigging toothbrush manufacturer that constantly changes the bristles and the angle and the shape of the tooth brush and each time claiming "this is the Best, the perfect toothbrush, Ideal:" and I mutter to myself "if that was true, THEN YOU'D HAVE PICKED ONE DESIGN YEARS AGO AND, STUCK WITH IT!" That's what Ruger did with the trigger of this pistol, treated it like a redesign of a toothbrush instead of the activation mechanism for a life or death tool.
other than those issues I love the LCP Custom. Out of the box, the trigger pull and slide retraction are both superior to the LCP and the LCP II. In fact, the trigger pull and travel distance is far superior to both it's Ruger sisters, and infinitely superior to the BodyGuard and Pico. I dry fired the more pricey Kahr Arms striker-fired .380 subcompact today and I like the trigger pull on my LCP Custom . The Kahr has superior trigger smoothness and has easier smoother pull to fire it, but it has but a lot more travel to take up before firing than the Custom does. Unlike the other 3 though, both of these weapons can be taken ouit of the box without any breaking , aimed at the bullseye, the trigger squeezed and a round fired without jerking my aim off target. I cannot say that with any of the other three out of the box and cannot say that about the Pico and the Bodyguard after extensive break-in. So the LCP as far as the feel and the operation, is on par with the much more expensive Kahr.
SO for budget priced .380 subcompacts my top choice is the LCP CUSTOM, which is no longer manufactured and for the non-budget conscious to whom function is paramount, the Kahr .380 subcompact. In fact, I believe that Ruger took a step back in quality with the LCP II. They should have stopped redesigning at the Custom and made that the deuce the result, it looks to me after owning all three, that the LCP II has been chosen to carry the RUGER flag in the subcompact arena without anybody at Ruger even handling or firing the three for comparison before making the choice, leading me to the conclusion that the choice was made by some over-paid, mentally underequipped, ego-driven upper level executive thought he alone was qualified to make the choice of which model would carry forward the Ruger nameplate in the subcompact field. And like I said, having owned all three, it was a huge mistake. It should have been the LCP Custom going forward.
Pico is an unreliable piece of crap that comes out of the box with malfunctioning magazines and pistol and once broken in and the slide stops sticking back when manually retracting it, it then starts sticking sometimes going home! Then after all that is worn in, when I take it to the range and try to shoot it with various rounds, 95% of the time I have to manually retract the slide to feed the next round! This is my first and last Beretta firearm and I plan to call Beretta USA tomorrow and demand my money back. Other issues with it is that it has a mile long trigger pull that cannot be gotten used to and always pulls my aim off target and that is AFTER dry firing it thousands of time to make the pull much easier.
The BodyGuard is a no-go for me because trigger is the same as the Pico, the only difference is that the pistol actually works and is significantly larger than the other two brands.
The trigger pull of the LCP II is initially easier than the LCP but both can be worked in (using a high quality snap cap that is spring loaded), but both can be worked down in both travel distance and pull to an acceptable level by dry firing them 1000s of times. The LCP II's drawbacks for me is that it is slightly larger and has a sandpaper finish that I don't like the feel of AND it doesn't have 7-round mags with it. So I like the LCP, specifically the "Custom" model with the red aluminum trigger with better sights, trigger and although the LCP's don't have the last round slide lockout feature, I'm willing to give up that feature for the extra round I get in the LCP mag.
I have shot the S&W Bodyguard with the notoriously awful trigger pull and will say that the used Pico has the best trigger pull out of the box, the LCP II came in second, followed distantly by the LCP and then the Bodyguard. The new Pico which was a HUGE disappointment in this and other regards even after breaking in. But the LCP broke in the best and I have not broken in the Custom yet, but it hardly even seems necessary, which is a relief because all of the others took literally many thousands of slide retractions and dry firings for both operations to become acceptable. The Custom and the Kahr are the only ones I've found that come out of the box with these two functions operating at an acceptable level.
ALL of the weapons are a huge disappointment due to a misguided (a polite term for jackoff) design choice for the double action trigger. The trigger is so damn stiff on all of them that at 10 yards it is impossible for the pulling the trigger to pull the shot off target by at least 6 inches. So I ask all of them IF I CANNOT HIT THE DAMN TARGET BECAUSE OF THE ATROCIOUS TRIGGER, then how are these viable defense weapons at all?
Take the Pico for instance,: the slide coming back brings the hammer all the way back, but when the slide goes back forward, the hammer follows it and then you have to pull the trigger to cock the hammer (a second time) and make it fire. This design has huge negative impact on both the ease of manually retracting the slide and pulling the trigger and in my opinion is totally unnecessary.
It is said all over the internet that the double action triggers on virtually all these weapons are for "safety" if the weapon is dropped, which I think is BS.
#1 most of the jerkwads reviewing on the internet don't know their arses from a hole in the ground and they plagiarize everything they write, which is usually wrong. For instance they ALL say that the H i-point C9 doesn't have a true safety, that it's only a slide lock and therefore if the gun is dropped a certain way, it can go off. But taking it apart, one will find that the slide lock lever is a cam underneath the handle THAT ALSO LOCKS OUT THE SEAR!Likewise for the small defense weapons. They all have housed hammers that are protected from being impacted in a drop. So Beretta with the Pico could have a single action trigger and follow the example Hi-point lock lever, but it would only be a slide lock because there is no danger of it being dropped and firing like is claimed. Personally, looking at the weapons, I think they made them this way merely TO CUT PRODUCTION COSTS and then lie about it. (cheaply made)
For ease of racking the slides, the LCP II & used Pico are a tie or close and relatively easy to pull, with the serrations on the Pico slide being easier on tender flesh and maybe a tiny bit easier in general to pull back.The Bodyguard isn't bad for slide retraction and the absolute worst are the LCP and the new Pico.
The LCP and the new Pico both SUCK for ease of retracting the slide,. I can't hardly do it with my left hand and I cannot lock it back with my left thumb while trying to pull it back with my right like the man showing it to me could do.
Comfortableness in shooting hand: I immediately liked the LCP and I liked the other two, that is until I got the used, upgraded Pico. The Pico is smallest, thinnest by a small margin, but I did not feel the need for a mag extension for my grip, whereas I did feel like I needed one for the LCPs. Plus, as predicted, curiously, even while being the thinnest, as soon as I had the Pico in hand I uttered an involuntary "NICE" because it didn't feel small in my hand like the other two.
Shortcomings of the Pico: the Euro magazine release is awkward; does not OPERATE OUT OF THE BOX!!!
Following is details of things I immediately found wrong with the new Pico: magazine springs sticking, not advancing when loading or feeding & the slide frequently jammed in the back position. But most of all I feel that the purported Pico "upgrade purportedly to give it an easier trigger pull and slide retraction Is totally bogus because the trigger was so stiff that six pulls fatigued my trigger finger so much that I had to rest it before pulling some more. None of the others tired out my finger like that. and the slide retraction on it is the worst of all. I say below how I fixed these issues myself.
In fact both trigger pull and the slide are so difficult that I believe the whole "upgrade" thing Beretta puts on the box is either fraudulent or a mistake, meaning that they put the sticker on the box but assembled the pistol with the pre-upgrade either on purpose because they have them in stock or accidentally because they have them in stock and not properly marked and separated.
two days of disassembling, compressing the springs by hand and dry firing and retracting the slide FOR HOURS on end worked both the slide and the trigger in to an adequate pull and got rounds to chamber. However, because I did not use a snap cap, the firing pin broke after about the first 200 dry fires.
Another drawback of the Pico is the 1-3 year warranty. It's only 3 years IF you register it within 30 days online. Ruger's is an unwritten lifetime warranty, which is good because the LCPII's hammer snapped in half and I had to send it back (I wasn't using snap caps) .
Firing the LCPII breifly (before a round cooked off and stuck in the chamber, I got a fantastically tight and accurate grouping at 7 yards of less than 3 inches and the weapon operated smoothly, but the ammo did not.
Other shortcomings of the LCPs: poor quality. And I know I am the first to say this about these popular, well spoken of pistols, but believe me, I can support my judgment:
Well, sir, the LCP 2s hammer snapped off when dry firing it 100s of times to work the trigger in. But the LCP's hammer I broke in even more without using snap caps never broke.
Copious amounts of dry firing (unlike myself , alway use a high quality, spring loaded snap cap to absorb the energy of the firing pin like a real round does) make sure my first experience on the range with the weapon will be the best possible experience because it significantly improves the travel, difficult and amount of pull required to fire any weapon. Only the LCP handled my berak-in abuse without breaking something. But apparently the LCP II's tiny 1/8" X 1/8 inch hammer can't handle the massive spring on it that makes it slam metal on metal onto the firing pin so many times. And frankly, when I saw the hammers on both LCPs i was disgusted by their appearance, that are about like a woman's small erect nipple in size, while the Pico's is robust, wider, taller and thicker where it counts, but if you dry fire the Pico without a snap cap, within 100 firings, the firing pin will shatter in 3 pieces, which isn't a flaw, just a fact, so don't do it.
All the pistols were accurate out of the box at 7 yards, tight groupings. The Pico has drift adjustable rear site which doesn't mean anything since the damn thing won't even shoot (details below) Bottom line: If I was faced with a situation in which I needed to get a new subcompact out of the box and defend my life, if it was a frigging Pico, I'D SURELY DIE!
1/11/17 update to the problems with Pico: I just wrote the following to them after attempting and failing to use their link to generate a prepaid return label: "the return link sent me to UPS DOES NOT WORK. it is just a window to log on and when I try to log on with my UPS logon IT DOEsn't ACCEPT IT AND TheRE IS NO LINK TO REGISTER. I think this is VERY FITTING AND ON PAR with my experience with Beretta that Beretta sends me a non-working link to generate a return label for a non-working gun!"
the LCP Custom which I currently own: It's a Ruger, not a Beretta so it actually shot out of the box but hasa few stupid shortcomings: It comes with a ONE DOT NIGHT sight which is useless since the blacked out rear sights do just that in any glare or at night. Plus out of the box, BEFORE being shot the first time (only dry fired to limber up the trigger and slide) the front sight blade became loose and I took the slide off and it has to be sent back to the shop to be fixed because of the poor design, just the blade sitting on top of the blade affixed through with a crazy nut NOBODY has a tool for, not in a slot or anything so it slops back and forth across the slide at the slightest release of the nut.
But I am not sending in my only personal defense weapon to get something done THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MANUFACUTRED CORRECTLY IN THE FIRST PLACE. So I JB welded the sides of it to the slide hoping that will hold it. Then since the sights are about 3 feet out of adjustment to the left, i went to adjust the rear sight and promptly stripped out the cheap ass allen screw!
And will FIX THAT MYSELF TOO. I know it is cheapness and not me that is the problem because I have tiny allen wrench screws on my Crimson Trace lasers that i fool with all the time WITH THE PROVIDED ALLEN WRENCHes with no problem.
Well I didn't follow the return directions, so that was my mistake, BUT I still feel this way about the Pico and Beretta: There are NO articles on the internet about how bad the Pico sucks and it sucks in the second worst way, doesn't even chamber a round. It's not just "sometimes" it's "all the time" and to me that means that the gun is fundamentally flawed and somebody is going to, or all ready, has gotten killed trying to defend themselves with it because they put it in their pocket loaded out of the box for protection, like I did, ignorantly feeling safe, trusting the brand name. Anyway I sold it for a $70 loss and ordered an LCP Custom.
Also the stupid looking aluminum trigger HAS SQUARE EDGES, but my trigger finger is not square so it is uncomfortable. So I filed the corners down like a trigger is supposed to be made. But Ruger approaches such design like it is a frigging toothbrush manufacturer that constantly changes the bristles and the angle and the shape of the tooth brush and each time claiming "this is the Best, the perfect toothbrush, Ideal:" and I mutter to myself "if that was true, THEN YOU'D HAVE PICKED ONE DESIGN YEARS AGO AND, STUCK WITH IT!" That's what Ruger did with the trigger of this pistol, treated it like a redesign of a toothbrush instead of the activation mechanism for a life or death tool.
other than those issues I love the LCP Custom. Out of the box, the trigger pull and slide retraction are both superior to the LCP and the LCP II. In fact, the trigger pull and travel distance is far superior to both it's Ruger sisters, and infinitely superior to the BodyGuard and Pico. I dry fired the more pricey Kahr Arms striker-fired .380 subcompact today and I like the trigger pull on my LCP Custom . The Kahr has superior trigger smoothness and has easier smoother pull to fire it, but it has but a lot more travel to take up before firing than the Custom does. Unlike the other 3 though, both of these weapons can be taken ouit of the box without any breaking , aimed at the bullseye, the trigger squeezed and a round fired without jerking my aim off target. I cannot say that with any of the other three out of the box and cannot say that about the Pico and the Bodyguard after extensive break-in. So the LCP as far as the feel and the operation, is on par with the much more expensive Kahr.
SO for budget priced .380 subcompacts my top choice is the LCP CUSTOM, which is no longer manufactured and for the non-budget conscious to whom function is paramount, the Kahr .380 subcompact. In fact, I believe that Ruger took a step back in quality with the LCP II. They should have stopped redesigning at the Custom and made that the deuce the result, it looks to me after owning all three, that the LCP II has been chosen to carry the RUGER flag in the subcompact arena without anybody at Ruger even handling or firing the three for comparison before making the choice, leading me to the conclusion that the choice was made by some over-paid, mentally underequipped, ego-driven upper level executive thought he alone was qualified to make the choice of which model would carry forward the Ruger nameplate in the subcompact field. And like I said, having owned all three, it was a huge mistake. It should have been the LCP Custom going forward.
Pico is an unreliable piece of crap that comes out of the box with malfunctioning magazines and pistol and once broken in and the slide stops sticking back when manually retracting it, it then starts sticking sometimes going home! Then after all that is worn in, when I take it to the range and try to shoot it with various rounds, 95% of the time I have to manually retract the slide to feed the next round! This is my first and last Beretta firearm and I plan to call Beretta USA tomorrow and demand my money back. Other issues with it is that it has a mile long trigger pull that cannot be gotten used to and always pulls my aim off target and that is AFTER dry firing it thousands of time to make the pull much easier.
The BodyGuard is a no-go for me because trigger is the same as the Pico, the only difference is that the pistol actually works and is significantly larger than the other two brands.
The trigger pull of the LCP II is initially easier than the LCP but both can be worked in (using a high quality snap cap that is spring loaded), but both can be worked down in both travel distance and pull to an acceptable level by dry firing them 1000s of times. The LCP II's drawbacks for me is that it is slightly larger and has a sandpaper finish that I don't like the feel of AND it doesn't have 7-round mags with it. So I like the LCP, specifically the "Custom" model with the red aluminum trigger with better sights, trigger and although the LCP's don't have the last round slide lockout feature, I'm willing to give up that feature for the extra round I get in the LCP mag.
I have shot the S&W Bodyguard with the notoriously awful trigger pull and will say that the used Pico has the best trigger pull out of the box, the LCP II came in second, followed distantly by the LCP and then the Bodyguard. The new Pico which was a HUGE disappointment in this and other regards even after breaking in. But the LCP broke in the best and I have not broken in the Custom yet, but it hardly even seems necessary, which is a relief because all of the others took literally many thousands of slide retractions and dry firings for both operations to become acceptable. The Custom and the Kahr are the only ones I've found that come out of the box with these two functions operating at an acceptable level.
ALL of the weapons are a huge disappointment due to a misguided (a polite term for jackoff) design choice for the double action trigger. The trigger is so damn stiff on all of them that at 10 yards it is impossible for the pulling the trigger to pull the shot off target by at least 6 inches. So I ask all of them IF I CANNOT HIT THE DAMN TARGET BECAUSE OF THE ATROCIOUS TRIGGER, then how are these viable defense weapons at all?
Take the Pico for instance,: the slide coming back brings the hammer all the way back, but when the slide goes back forward, the hammer follows it and then you have to pull the trigger to cock the hammer (a second time) and make it fire. This design has huge negative impact on both the ease of manually retracting the slide and pulling the trigger and in my opinion is totally unnecessary.
It is said all over the internet that the double action triggers on virtually all these weapons are for "safety" if the weapon is dropped, which I think is BS.
#1 most of the jerkwads reviewing on the internet don't know their arses from a hole in the ground and they plagiarize everything they write, which is usually wrong. For instance they ALL say that the H i-point C9 doesn't have a true safety, that it's only a slide lock and therefore if the gun is dropped a certain way, it can go off. But taking it apart, one will find that the slide lock lever is a cam underneath the handle THAT ALSO LOCKS OUT THE SEAR!Likewise for the small defense weapons. They all have housed hammers that are protected from being impacted in a drop. So Beretta with the Pico could have a single action trigger and follow the example Hi-point lock lever, but it would only be a slide lock because there is no danger of it being dropped and firing like is claimed. Personally, looking at the weapons, I think they made them this way merely TO CUT PRODUCTION COSTS and then lie about it. (cheaply made)
For ease of racking the slides, the LCP II & used Pico are a tie or close and relatively easy to pull, with the serrations on the Pico slide being easier on tender flesh and maybe a tiny bit easier in general to pull back.The Bodyguard isn't bad for slide retraction and the absolute worst are the LCP and the new Pico.
The LCP and the new Pico both SUCK for ease of retracting the slide,. I can't hardly do it with my left hand and I cannot lock it back with my left thumb while trying to pull it back with my right like the man showing it to me could do.
Comfortableness in shooting hand: I immediately liked the LCP and I liked the other two, that is until I got the used, upgraded Pico. The Pico is smallest, thinnest by a small margin, but I did not feel the need for a mag extension for my grip, whereas I did feel like I needed one for the LCPs. Plus, as predicted, curiously, even while being the thinnest, as soon as I had the Pico in hand I uttered an involuntary "NICE" because it didn't feel small in my hand like the other two.
Shortcomings of the Pico: the Euro magazine release is awkward; does not OPERATE OUT OF THE BOX!!!
Following is details of things I immediately found wrong with the new Pico: magazine springs sticking, not advancing when loading or feeding & the slide frequently jammed in the back position. But most of all I feel that the purported Pico "upgrade purportedly to give it an easier trigger pull and slide retraction Is totally bogus because the trigger was so stiff that six pulls fatigued my trigger finger so much that I had to rest it before pulling some more. None of the others tired out my finger like that. and the slide retraction on it is the worst of all. I say below how I fixed these issues myself.
In fact both trigger pull and the slide are so difficult that I believe the whole "upgrade" thing Beretta puts on the box is either fraudulent or a mistake, meaning that they put the sticker on the box but assembled the pistol with the pre-upgrade either on purpose because they have them in stock or accidentally because they have them in stock and not properly marked and separated.
two days of disassembling, compressing the springs by hand and dry firing and retracting the slide FOR HOURS on end worked both the slide and the trigger in to an adequate pull and got rounds to chamber. However, because I did not use a snap cap, the firing pin broke after about the first 200 dry fires.
Another drawback of the Pico is the 1-3 year warranty. It's only 3 years IF you register it within 30 days online. Ruger's is an unwritten lifetime warranty, which is good because the LCPII's hammer snapped in half and I had to send it back (I wasn't using snap caps) .
Firing the LCPII breifly (before a round cooked off and stuck in the chamber, I got a fantastically tight and accurate grouping at 7 yards of less than 3 inches and the weapon operated smoothly, but the ammo did not.
Other shortcomings of the LCPs: poor quality. And I know I am the first to say this about these popular, well spoken of pistols, but believe me, I can support my judgment:
Well, sir, the LCP 2s hammer snapped off when dry firing it 100s of times to work the trigger in. But the LCP's hammer I broke in even more without using snap caps never broke.
Copious amounts of dry firing (unlike myself , alway use a high quality, spring loaded snap cap to absorb the energy of the firing pin like a real round does) make sure my first experience on the range with the weapon will be the best possible experience because it significantly improves the travel, difficult and amount of pull required to fire any weapon. Only the LCP handled my berak-in abuse without breaking something. But apparently the LCP II's tiny 1/8" X 1/8 inch hammer can't handle the massive spring on it that makes it slam metal on metal onto the firing pin so many times. And frankly, when I saw the hammers on both LCPs i was disgusted by their appearance, that are about like a woman's small erect nipple in size, while the Pico's is robust, wider, taller and thicker where it counts, but if you dry fire the Pico without a snap cap, within 100 firings, the firing pin will shatter in 3 pieces, which isn't a flaw, just a fact, so don't do it.
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