P345: extreme makeover: Ruger's 2x4 grip days are gone!

American Handgunner, Jan-Feb, 2005 by John Taffin

In spite of all the dozens of articles written over the past several decades concerning the age-old debate of 9mm vs. .45 ACP vs. .40 vs. .357 Sig and now with the new player thrown into the argument, the .45 GAP the fact still remains true. The .45 ACP is simply the best defensive cartridge ever chambered in a semiauto. For years this perfect cartridge was always linked with the best semiauto, 1911. Just as Elmer Keith spent a lifetime extolling the virtues of the .44 Special and then the .44 Magnum, Jeff Cooper has done the same for the .45 and the 1911.

My experience with the .45 ACP chambered in the 1911 extends backward nearly a half-century, with that first government surplus 1911 I bought for $7.50. Yes, those really were the days! In spite of my long experience with semiautos, my nighttime, easy-to-reach, always-loaded, beside-my-bed handgun has been a revolver, starting with a Colt Single Action .38-40 in 1956.

Over the years it's been replaced by such DA revolvers as the 1917 S&W .45 ACE the Colt Python .357 and currently the fixed-sighted .357 Magnum S&W Model 65LS, the 3"-barreled Ladysmith. Since my lady might also need to call upon this revolver in the middle of the night, I see no problem with the use of a Ladysmith.

Change Is Painful

Now everything has changed. For the first time in nearly half a century there is no longer a revolver beside the bed. That change has come about because of--shudder--modern technology, combining the latest Ruger .45ACP and what is known as a Trusted Technical Tool. Something has to be pretty special to make me change. I don't like change. I don't like learning anything new. I just want everything to stay the same. I should know better. My wife forced me to begin using a computer for writing nearly 20 years ago. She then pushed me into trying a voice-activated computer and, as painful as it was to learn, it has made my life so much simpler.

Our esteemed editor, Roy Huntington, is really quite pushy, and he exercised his pushiness by "encouraging" me to enter the modern age by using a digital camera. I did not want one. My 30-year old Nikons suited me perfectly and I knew exactly what to do to come up with good images. Don't change me. Leave me alone. I don't need anything new.

Said editor is not only pushy he is also sneaky and somehow he enlisted the aid of my wife and I soon found myself being squeezed from two directions. The next thing I know I am digitally-challenged and painfully learning how to take pictures, put everything into the computer, and burn the images on a CD. All this just so we could have higher quality pictures and a better and better magazine. Imagine that! I had to suffer so readers could benefit. Don't tell Roy it has all been worth it, as a digital camera saves me so much time and energy--not to mention money. I have finally learned some change is really worthwhile, which brings us to the real focus of this article, believe it or not.

The Great Change

I keep coining back to the simplicity of the 1950s. In those years, Smith & Wesson meant double action revolvers, Colt was tied to the 1911 and the Single Action Army, while Ruger made only single actions. Then came the first Ruger DA revolvers in 1972, followed by the first semiauto, the P85 in 1987. Four years later, the P90 arrived as a .45 ACP DA semiauto. It was big, it was not nearly as svelte as the 1911, and it was, well, sort of clunky. It was not a handgun deserving of ivory stocks and engraving, but it shot well, and it worked. Always. Instead of a classic handgun, it was a marvelous working tool. Col. Charles Askins even opinioned it was best .45 Auto ever offered.

Over the years Ruger has worked at reducing the size and removing the clunky feeling of their semi-autos. To do this it was necessary to replace the alloy grip frame with one crafted of polymer. Even this required stages of development and a comparison of the new .45 ACP P345 with the 9mm P95 reveals the latest to be constructed of much thinner polymer around the slide and magazine well.

What we now have is a nine-shot, double action .45 from Ruger with a grip frame greatly reduced in size when compared to the original P90. In my hands, at least, this results in a comparatively soft shooting .45. By that, I mean it fits well and feels good in my hands with very little felt recoil.

Safety Features

Firearm companies have been hammered to the point of incorporating every possible safety feature in their product. More than 20 years ago Ruger began placing product use warning labels on the left side of the barrel of every firearm they made. It goes without saying the P345 also has a warning label, however it's made more palatable by being smaller and placed at the top of the left grip frame.

Looking at the top of the slide we find another safety feature with a very small bar marked "LOADED CHAMBER INDICATOR." When the chamber is empty, this indicator is flush with the top of the slide, and when a round is chambered the front end of the indicator sticks up slightly with a red dot showing on each side. Of course, you have to remember all it really is, is a "Case in the chamber" indicator, so you still need to check to make sure what's-up.