Initial thoughts:
LC9:
Just feels good in the hand, don't really know how to quantify this other than saying it feels like you are holding a well made pistol with good balance. Sites are decent but nothing to write home about. The safety and slide stop/release (depending on which school of thinking you come from) are low profile and well placed. The action of the safety is distinct; you aren't likely to have an unintended engage/disengage. Trigger pull is LONG and fairly stiff but seems consistent.
709:
Doesn't feel quite as substantial as the LC9 in your hand, even though it seems to weigh a bit more. Nothing extreme, but holding them at the same time you can feel a slight difference. It also feels a bit top heavy. Initial trigger take up is LONG, but at the end you have a nice, clean single action break with the added nicety of double strike (or triple or quadruple for that matter) backup. Safety is slightly more exposed than the Ruger, but not bad. Engagement is significantly lighter. Sites are pretty cheap looking, but otherwise quite functional.
Side by side size isn't significantly different for either pistol, though the LC9 does win by a hair in width mainly due to the 'melted edges':
The stuff that matters most:
The Ruger handles well and has a fairly aggressive checkering. The checkering felt nice initially but after 100 rounds or so I was wishing for some gloves. I HATE the LC9 trigger at the range. During live fire the trigger pull feels like a long double action revolver trigger. It also seems much stiffer at the end of the travel immediately before the break. I don't know why it felt different from dry fire, but it did. It was to the point I felt like I was jerking the trigger every time right before the break. I found I was actually making better groups with a quicker and more aggressive pull than being 'surprised' by the break. The Taurus had a long initial pull that took a bit of getting used to but a nice clean break once that was taken up. The reset was very short which was a nice change from the super long reset on the Ruger for another ugly trigger pull. For the record I had never shot either of these pistols before today. I put about a hundred rounds through each to warm up before making a go at my assessment. The shots below were from 5 yards with 5 round groups. The torso were controlled slow-fire and the head shots were as fast as I could reacquire a sight picture. The LC9 shots were without the pinky extension for fairness as I didn't have one for the 709. As a side note, the extension did improve my accuracy and trigger pull significantly with the Ruger and change over from flat plate was accomplished at the range using only a writing pen.
The Ugly:
I used both WWB and UMC bulk pack ammo. The UMC was much more consistent in both guns than the WWB. The LC9 Had 4 Fail to fires in the 200 rounds or so vs zero for the 709. It was always the first round of the mag. The first one I didn't pay much attention to, I thought it might have just been a bad cartridge. The next one I looked closely, the slide was all the way forward, but I couldn't swear that I let the recoil spring do all the work. After this I made sure I was letting the slide completely go on its own. I still had two more instances one of which was using the slide release to chamber the round. The scary part is it let the firing pin release and strike the cartridge between the case and primer, see photo below (mark is at the 12 o'clock position). I don't know if the slide wasn't all the way in battery and then pulling the trigger finished the travel, but the slide was firmly forward in all instances after recognizing the FTF (I checked every time after the first instance). The primer strike also seems a bit shallow on the LC9 (also in the below pic), but this may just be because I am used to the centerpunch of my glocks. Also, the slide release was very difficult to use on the LC9. You had to put some serious pressure on the release before it would allow the slide to go. It did get slightly easier after a couple of cycles, but still way stiffer than I would like.
So long story short: I really wanted to like the LC9. It just fits my hand better than the 709 and feels like a nice pistol, but it has some short coming that need to be addressed before I consider it a go to weapon. The FTF issue is certainly a head-turner, and I have to do something to improve the trigger before I would carry it everyday. If I can't find a fix for the trigger issue, the gun will be on the market soon. I was less accurate than I am with my glocks, but like I said this was my first time shooting both of these guns so I won't pass judgement on that yet. I was very pleasantly surprised by the performance of the 709 and it has earned a permanent spot in the armory.
