The Ruger RXM was here over a year before this range trip. It's shown here with the stock barrel and a magazine test involving new magazines from X-Tech Tactical.
For practice and sustainment, I took the Ruger Ruger RXM pistol received in December 2024 to the range on a fair December day – in 2025. I shot CCI Blazer Brass 115 grain FMJ and opted to shoot the FBI Instructor Bullseye course. I used a B-8 target.
The course is meant to weed out applicants to instructor training; those who are accepted have to shoot it again during the course. Failing is a way to get sent home.
I'd used the RXM on a number of projects throughout the year and even installed an after-market barrel - which I found changed point of impact but wasn't obviously more precise than the factory barrel.
Image from a firearms instructor coursebook.
As to the course of fire, you can shoot the course one-handed or with two hands. The score for passing with two-handed shooting is higher than for those who shoot it “bullseye style.” The total possible score for the course is 300 points. For thirty rounds fired, you score the target as printed. To pass, you have to make 260 points when shot with both hands.
For one-handed shooters, passing is 240.
The course is as follows:
25-yards, 10 rounds, 4 minutes.
15-yards, 5 rounds, 15 seconds. Do this twice.
15-yards, 5 rounds, 10 seconds. Do this twice.
I elected to shoot it one-handed. It’s a target precision course, let’s test that.
My slow fire score, with a hit nicking the top of the repair center, was 77. My timed fire (15 second time limit) was 87/100. For rapid, I shot an uncharacteristically high 98/100. The total was 87%, a 262.
Clearly not the best target ever fired, but it easily passes the standard for two-handing shooting in the instructor course.
It always helps to shoot a course twice, the 2nd time with a different gun, to see if it’s good day/bad day, the score was a one-off fluke or if there’s just any difference. The second target was shot with a GLOCK 44 22 LR, using Winchester-Western bulk-packed 36gr. HP ammo. I also shot this course completely one-handed.
The 264 on this course came from a slow fire score of 83, timed fire score of 88 and a rapid-fire score of 93, or 88%.
What did it prove? That I was shooting the RXM well enough that, after a year of use and experience, I would carry it. It’s still working without stoppages and I seem to be accurate enough with it.
But before I left the range, I posted the “Old West Shootist’s Challenge” target (found here, explanation here). Shot at “ten paces,” determined by the Tactical Professor to be about 25 feet from the target, and to be shot one-handed, it’s meant to replicate a reputed challenge made by someone who knew Hickok.
There’s a five-inch square representation of an old envelope with a one-inch square representation of an old postage stamp in the middle. You shoot it bullseye style with six rounds. Every round has to be inside the “envelope” image and at least one of the rounds has to hit the “stamp.”
With the RXM, after the bullseye warm-up, I put three rounds in the stamp with another nicking the line on the stamp. All six were in the “envelope,” covering about 1 3/8”.
I don’t think Hickok would be impressed, but I was happy with it.
- - Rich Grassi