Is anybody here into Ruger pistols?
 

I'm not, but the reason I ask is because I've watched a lot of movies that feature the P89 and/or P90, and I don't know how to tell them apart. I've starred at pictures of each until my eyes are falling out of the sockets, and I spot no visual differences. The only difference I can see is when the magazines are ejected (the P89 is, of course, double-stack, while P90 is single-stack). That's how I was able to figure out that Skeet Ulrich's Ruger in "Jericho" was a P89. Otherwise, I never know the difference.

There are a lot of pages on IMFDB where I'm never sure which one's which. Can anyone help? Here are pictures for comparison:

KP89
http://www.imfdb.org/images/0/0f/RugerKP89.jpg

P90
http://www.imfdb.org/images/d/d0/RugerP90Side.jpg

Usually, the way to tell a .45 apart from a 9mm counterpart (i.e. SIG 220 vs. 226) is the presence of the bulges on the frame, which indicate whether it takes a double-stack magazine. But Rugers don't even have that.

the ejection port:
kp90's is smaller and taller than the longer of the kp890

I'm no ruger expert but it looks like from those pictures that the kp89 has a lanyard ring while the P90 does not. Also the KP89 and the P90 magazine release switch are different.

The baseplates are different too, but I've seen P89s with the baseplate seen on the P90, as well as lanyard rings on both versions. The top of the hammer is also jutting out on the P89, while the P90s is concealed by the taller slide, and in a profile view like this, that's the only noticeable difference.

I've seen these guns in real life, and they are chunky bastards, which is why there need not be magazine bulges, and in all honesty, the only way I can tell them apart is by the size of the gun and the slide markings. All Ruger did here was scale up their P89 to take .45 ACP rounds, and so the guns are very hard to distinguish.

I heard about the Ruger's AR-15 and it was pretty good. Just another piston driven AR.

Alright, thanks for the responses. I'll have to take these differences into account for the future.

BTW, I found out that the lanyard rings and the magazine base plates are NOT good ways to tell the P89 and P90 apart. Both are a result of manufacturing changes over time, not differences in models. Both P89s and P90s can have them, depending on date of manufacture.

The best difference seems to be the one pointed out by YourNameHere - whether or not the top of the hammer jutts out past the top of the slide. Other than that, the only way to tell is by the type of magazine (single or double-stack) when it's ejected, or the size of the bore.

Said it already. :D