My buddy just bought a brand new Ruger P345 and we had some problems at the range today.

The pistol will fire on the first round, eject the casing, cock the hammer, load a fresh round and then when you pull the trigger the hammer will fall but it wont fire the new round.  Then you can pull the trigger again double action and it works.

Basically after the first round we had to pull the trigger twice in order to get it to fire the second round.

He did'nt bring the owners manual with him so I did'nt get a chance to see if this was something basic in the operation of the pistol that we were doing wrong.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I own one and I didn't encounter this problem. Mine functions flawlessly. My suggestion is return it to Ruger for  repair. I know that's not what you want to hear and it is a bummer to get a new gun that doesn't work but Ruger will fix it for ya at no charge.

Did he dry fire it without the magazine in the pistol?

I have no idea, what would that do ?

It will damage the firing pin.
http://www.rugerforum.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/005171.html

I am not at all familiar with that particular pistol, but this can’t possibly be right.

Just a wild guess, but I’m wondering if the firing pin safety is not properly disengaging when the pistol is being fired single action, but is disengaging when fired double action.

If you want to, try this with an unloaded pistol:

Point the pistol straight up and drop a pencil in the barrel, eraser first.  Pull the double action trigger (causing the hammer to cock and then fall) and hold the trigger back – presumably the pencil will be propelled out the barrel by the firing pin strike.

Still holding the trigger back, cycle the slide to simulate loading a fresh round.  Then release the trigger, which should now put you in single action mode (hammer cocked).  Replace the pencil and pull the trigger – the pencil should again be propelled out the barrel.

If the pencil isn’t propelled out, the firing pin isn’t hitting it.  You then need to figure out why.  

Ultimately, though, I think the pistol is going to have to go back to Ruger.

however with the pencil test you must remember to insert the mag into the pistol.  if you dry fire without the mag inserted you can damage the firing pin.  dry firing with the mag is safe in the p345.

If you dry fire a P345 without the mag installed it will damage the firing pin and you will get misfires.  It will fire sometimes and sometimes not.  On the pencil test angle the muzzle slightly up not straight up and make sure the mag is installed before doing this.  I would send the pistol back to Ruger, from what I understand they have very good customer service.  If this was a display gun it's possible it could have been dry fired without the mag many times.  When I bought mine the pin that holds the hammer in place wasn't seated all the way allowing the hammer to set at an angle and I had to take a wood dowel rod and push the mag out of the pistol.  Once I seated the pin I haven't had any problems with my P345.  Before I fired the P345 I read about the problems with the mag disconnect and I read about some problems with the built in gun lock, so I removed both of them.  I have a little over 500 rds through it and it works flawlessly and is accurate.