The Ruger American Pistol is a polymer-framed, semi-automatic pistol introduced by

Ruger Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc., better known by the shortened name Ruger, is an American firearm manufacturing company based in Southport, Connecticut, with production facilities also in Newport, New Hampshire; Mayodan, North Carolina; and Presco ...

in December 2015.

Design

The pistol uses a pre-tensioned striker firing system, and is chambered in 9mm Luger and

.45 ACP The .45 ACP ( Automatic Colt Pistol) or .45 Auto (11.43×23mm) is a rimless straight-walled handgun cartridge designed by John Moses Browning in 1904, for use in his prototype Colt semi-automatic pistol. After successful military trials, it ...

. The pistol uses a Browning-type locked-breech

short recoil Recoil operation is an operating mechanism used to implement locked breech, autoloading firearms. Recoil operated firearms use the energy of recoil to cycle the action, as opposed to gas operation or blowback operation using the pressure of the pr ...

action, with a barrel cam system that is designed to reduce felt recoil. The serialized part of the pistol is a steel chassis, which is fit to a

glass-filled nylon Glass-filled polymer (or glass-filled plastic), is a mouldable composite material. It comprises short glass fibers in a matrix of a polymer material. It is used to manufacture a wide range of structural components by injection or compression mouldin ...

frame. The frame incorporates a

Picatinny rail The Picatinny rail ( or ), or Pic rail for short, also known as a MIL-STD-1913 rail, 1913 rail or STANAG 2324 rail (cancelled), is a military standard rail interface system that provides a mounting platform for firearm accessories. It was o ...

for mounting accessories.

Variants

In September 2016, Ruger announced compact versions of the pistol, again chambered in 9mm Luger and .45 ACP. In March 2020, Ruger introduced the American Pistol Competition, chambered in 9mm, and the American Pistol Compact with gray Cerakote finish, chambered in .45 ACP.

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Ruger semi-automatic pistols 9mm Parabellum semi-automatic pistols .45 ACP semi-automatic pistols Semi-automatic pistols of the United States Weapons and ammunition introduced in 2015