When it comes to firearms, there are not many names bigger in the industry than Remington. While a recent court ruling has caused the company some serious financial woes, it does not change the fact that their firearms have one of the best reputations in the market. Today, we look at the Remington RP9 and how its stacks up as an EDC, defense, or survival go- to gun.
Market
The RP9 is a mass-market gun. Being from the “Glock” style, it is the type of firearm that everyone is used to. The gun is easy to use and with a price tag of $400-600, it falls into the mid-price range for pistols. This means that it is a gun that most people could own. However, I would caution new users (especially users who know their trigger discipline is weak), this gun does have a trigger safety, which can make you dangerous to yourself and those around you if you do not have self-control. 6 out of 10.
Usability
This firearm is easy to use, by anyone. Click in the mag, rack the shell and you have a live firearm. This makes the RP9 great for personal carry, home defense and survival use. There is no upper rail, so it does take a bit of work to attach a flip up sight or a red dot on the pistol. However, the irons are effective and they have drift adjust-ability, which will work for people who know how to use irons. As a very easy to use gun, this firearm earns a 9.5 out of 10.
Utility
As noted above, this firearm preforms well in all the scenarios that we are testing it for (EDC, Home Defense and Survival). With a total size of 7.5″ x 6″ (with mag in) x 1.5″, the RP9 in a nice full sized firearm. The RP9 weighs in at 26.4 ounces.
Since the RP9 is a common size, it makes it easy to find a holster. Even with the laser attachment, I found several companies that had standard or “light” custom holsters for this firearm. With the trigger safety, it is important that you have this gun in a holster, not just tucked or stashed in your back, as something could enter the open trigger guard and fire the weapon.
The RP9 has an 18+1 doublstacked mag, which allows it to have one more round than the Glock 17, which is nice. There are also pinned 10 rd “California complaint mags” (though the court has thrown out the 10 rd law as of this writing).
At 10 feet both testers fired within a 3″ pattern, at 20 feet I was at 4.5″ and the other tester maintained a 4″ patter. With the laser installed, the pattern at 20 feet was reduced to 1.5″-2″. This earns the RP9 a solid utility score of 8 of 10.
Accessories
Being from the same style as the Glock, you can find a lot of aftermarket parts. As noted, the iron sight dovetail at the back is not really large enough to mount a red dot or flip-up without machining or mount plate. Mags are middle of the road in price, and are readily available to pick up (though shop around: there are a lot of people gouging right now during the crisis).
The lower rail is well made, the cheapo laser sight I added to it just to test attached very easily. After a search, I did not find any extended mags to add to the gun, but since it has an 18+1 standard mag, this is not really a problem. The accessories for this are out there, it just takes a little looking, 6.5 out of 10.
Cool Factor
This is a Remington, one of the big names in guns. However, that is like saying, “This is a pair of Levis, the king of jeans.” It doesn’t really bring the “cool” that Walther, Sig, Glock, or Armalite bring to the counter. It is a “Glock” style gun, so there are literally millions of similar guns on the market. This leads to it being reliable, but not exciting. With no real exceptional features to speak of (other than the larger standard mag) this gun earns a 5 of 10.
Overall Score
The RP9 is a solid gun for a moderate gun owner. I do not really like trigger safeties, but that is just because I personally like bar safeties. If you know you have trouble with trigger discipline, this is not the gun for you. For experienced users, it is a nice, moderately priced firearm for your collection. As you would expect from Remington, it comes in with an above-average score of 35 of 50.
If you are looking for an EDC, this gun is nice. The large mag well allows for you to have more shots than most other standard mags on the market. It is also light enough that it is comfortable to carry. For those using this for home defense, I do worry about leaving a loaded firearm with a trigger safety around, and if you want to use a firearm retention device, like the strongbox, it will not fit with the laser on it (standard it does fit). This means you must have some sort of retention device if you have kids in the house and you are using it for home defense. (You should always have a retention device with kids in the house anyway.)
For a survival gun, this will not add a lot of weight to your pack. This makes it nice to keep in your BOB or INCH. The 9mm ammo weights more than 22 ammo (which is what I prefer for BOB), but it also packs more of a wallop. So it really comes down to accuracy vs. stopping power. The mags are lightweight, so they also do not add much weight to your bag, which makes this an excellent survival carry.
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