I've got just over 300 rds thru my LC9, and all have been flawless except for one. The lone malfunction was with Federal Champion 115gr FMJ, on the first round of a mag, the spent casing failed to extract from the chamber. I inspected the casing and did not notice anything out of the ordinary. Over 200 rds of WWB and the other 99 rds of the Federal have functioned flawlessly.

The extractor claw is not damaged and has strong tension. Could it just be an ammo issue? I was hoping to make this a carry gun, but this malfunction worries me some. If I put another 200-300 rds thru it, in addition to 50 rds of carry ammo, without issue, would I still be foolish to rely on it for carry?

Just my opinion mind you; but if a 50 round box of your chosen carry ammo runs through that little  pistol without any issues I say trust it.

I'm also wondering how durable that pistol is and whether or not it is designed to be put to hard use at the range, or if it is intended to be shot a little and carried a lot.

my assessment as well...have just shot over 2 boxes in a friend of mine...

Are you saying you are undergunned with a 9 ?

I guess only time will tell, but so far I am really liking this pistol, it's very shootable for a gun of it's size.  At this point I'm thinking the FTE was most likely an underpowered cartridge, as I understand this is common with Federal Champion, and shorter action guns are more sensitive to this.

'doh! worded wrong

ment i put in a couple boxes of win white/pmc in a LC9 recently...not a bad shooter at all, but not sure if it will stand up to a lot of shooting

What makes you think that, and what do you consider a lot of shooting?

I read recently that Ken Hackathorn thinks a pistol should have 1,000 faultless rounds through it before he'd consider it for carry.  

I tend to agree with him but YMMV of course.

Why not give Ruger CS a call  Captains1911 and see what they suggest?  

Good luck with your new pistol.

This is always the question with autos; how many proving rounds are enough?  When you consider the cost of good defense ammo, a 1K test is pretty extreme, however ideal it may be.
I seem to remember another gun scribe claiming 200 flawless rounds was a good indication.
BTW, if the LCP is any indication, little Ruger autos will tolerate a lot of shooting.  The guys at our club shoot the snot out of them.
Moon

Don't worry about it the gun it is good to go its a tough little SOB. I picked one up a few days back and had some issues (ammo induced) the gun fed, extracted and ejected (it threw the spent casings about 20' which should have been my 1st clue the next clue should have been the very snappy recoil) with authority but after a short time I was getting a ftfire rate of about 30%. I checked the spent brass and noticed the primers were flat and noticed some flowing on the spent primers and the primer indentations had spots of melted brass in them, and the front sight came loose in the dovetail. All in all I was pretty disgusted with it after the 1st
range session. I had used Fiocchi ammo which I had purchased a few years back by the case and had been useing it in my G-19 and I never noticed anything strange about it except it was pretty snappy, but I never pickup or check 9mm brass as I don't reload for it, but anyway in that time frame there were some recalls on 9mm Fiocchi and this may have been in it, I had no way of knowing the lot#s as I take all ammo out of the boxes and dump them in cans so these may or may not be part of the recall. At any rate I went back to the range for session #2 this time I took a bunch of PMP and Federal and I had no issue of any kind other than than recoil and snap is greatly reduced. I shot a couple of the Fiocchi right behind the PMP and Federal the diff in recoil and snap was very significant.
Before the sight came loose I was very impressed with the accuracy as I expected I would really struggle with the trigger which I warmed up to rather quickly. I shot at around 7 yards to find POI it was dead on and at 25 yards I could still shoot way better than I ever thought I would be able to (I won't tell you how good or youd call me a Liar) . It did make me wonder why I have been carrying/putting up with a full size combat pistol all these years. I like the gun and I'm going to make it work.

This alone should be a clue that it's the ammo not the gun. Repeated issues will be a better indicator of a gun issue. At the risk of being condesending, (which I am not), you're worring too much over one malfunction.