Let’s not forget the all time worst firearm, at least in the number of users it killed, the issue M16 from the last part of the 60’s. It was far worse than is generally known or admitted.

I had a AMT Backup .380 in the 1970s. used only FMJ and never had a problem

For. Me it is the Glock 19 ,spent shell in the face and I had the inner workings rust out twice.My G23 didn't rust but the rail cracked and once in a while I would get spent shells eject back tword me.I kept the 23 and sold the 19 for an sd9ve never looked back.

I'm the guy that you might've heard of.
I traded my S&W model 65-3 with a three inch barrel for a Kimber Solo at a gun show.

I knew nothing of their somewhat problematic reputation. The idea of a 9mm pocket gun might have played on my hurt feelings over the AMT Backup from years earlier.
I loved the way it felt in my hand and after all, it was a Kimber....right?

My first clue came when I stopped off at the range on my way home. I really didn't want to admit what I had done. So I fired up the Kimber Forum when I got home.
OMG. The more I read the the dumber I felt.

Imagine the look on my son's face when I pulled it out of my pocket and tied it to the trout line on our next fishing trip.

1970's Arminius .22 revolver, made in Germany. Came apart in my hand as I was shooting it. No damage to my fingers, I threw it into the Scioto River...no regrets.

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OGCA Member.

Right now, I feel blessed that my AMT Back-Up has never, not even once, had a malfunction of any kind! Now granted, I've only fired about 150 rounds through it, but it was enough to show me that it'll go bang every time, and that I can feel comfortable in carrying it as a back-up.

Edit: As far as my worst, I almost forgot about this one: An RG .22 single-action revolver, given to me by an acquaintance in Seattle. Cheap pot-metal construction, it just screamed cheap. It did work, though, and I wound up selling it for fifty bucks.

Won a Clarke .32 revolver in a poker game. Won is not really accurate in this sense. Saturday Night Special would be generous. AND a Llama 1911. First time I pulled the trigger it spit out the extractor.

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Time wounds all heels

My dad had one of these and years later I was looking for instructions on how to take it apart for cleaning. I found a article somewhere that said “simply shoot it. It will fly into pieces soon enough!”

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Possum—The other white meat!

Did you contact Glock Customer Service ?


Did you contact

I have a French MAB 22lr that is that way. Shoots a foot low and a foot left at 7yds. It is a fixed barrel blowback design like a PPK. I think the barrel may be bent.

Funny that the Stoeger and Erma 22LR Lugers have both been mentioned as someone's worst guns. I have one of each and they both work fine. A little ammo-picky but no more so than most other semi-auto 22LR pistols I've owned or shot.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

My story involves a Whitney Wolverine. I located one and purchased it for $300.00. It too was basically a single shot disguised as a self loading pistol.

It looked so cool, and the history of the gun was incredible, but I was never able to shoot a magazine without some type of jam, failure to eject and/or feed.

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I am a sheep dog!
1601 (ret)

This is all very funny to me! My worst gun ever was a kel-Tec 9mm that I sent back to the factory. Supposedly they fixed it. Jammamatic. So I took it to the range. Still jammed. I could not unjam it and long story made shirt it's history a long time ago.

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Come and take it!!

When I was 16, I found a new Ruger Bearcat at Monkey Wards. Price was $40. I didn't have that much. When I did get the money, the Bearcat was gone. One of my mom or dad's friend, can't remember after all of these years, offered to sell a new .22 single action "just like the Ruger." Well, it wasn't. It was a Kimel that looked a bit like a Ruger Single Six. It was one that if you were in a barn and fired it, the bullet probably wouldn't hit the wall it was pointed at. I looked at the rifling and it was so light, I was afraid to clean the barrel, in case the rifling just disappeared. All pot metal and later the frame cracked, above the cylinder. Should have kept it and waited for a gun buy-back.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

I made the mistake of buying a new Winchester 94AE .45 Colt with crossbolt safety back in the ‘90’s. After firing a few rounds the crossbolt fell out. The LGS sent it back to the factory twice to correct this problem. Less than a box of ammo through it and 25 years later it’s still in the back of my gun safe.

Another one where I got really lucky I guess. I got one 2nd hand and it fed and it shot 115gr RN, 124gr HP, and 147gr HP without a hiccup. Maybe yours was an earlier one and mine a later version?

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

I liked my Kimber Solo but it's not very forgiving. If you grip isn't solid---and a few other things go just so---it won't function. I traded mine off for a Glock 26, which won't misfeed even if I completely limp wrist it. When I need a gun the size of a Solo I just carry a J frame.

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Psalm 27:2

The worst pistol ever is the Clerk's 1st. The one on the bottom. It sold new in 1972 for $15! One might get 75 rounds through it before the firing pin gets deformed and will no longer function. There's a seam down the top of the frame where the two sides are.pressed together. It makes the RG 23 above seem like a well made pistol!

Yeah, I think a weak grip or "limp" wrist are the cause of a lot of people's problems with small guns. Especially ones where you can't get more than a couple of fingers wrapped around the grip - like the Solo. A lot of people have the same issue with 380 pocket pistols.

I have never had that problem with any gun I've owned or shot. I have a very stiff wrist and a firm grip. Probably due my stiff joints - all of my joints including my wrists - and thick sausage-like fingers.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

I always thought those Clerks looked like a toy capgun.
The fact that they are cast potmetal (not even close to the quality of Zymak) and derived from a starter pistol tells you pretty much
all you need to know about them.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

I’ve been a gun snob since big enough to set on old mans knee. He pointed out to me at an early age the characteristics that define a good gun. In my early years I dickered in single barrel shot guns, 22 rifles and military rifles. Most handguns I got were low end 22s and the usual break top H&Rs, ect. But I knew what I was getting and never had interest in shooting them. My worst gun was a SIG Mosqito 22lr. This is when they were 1st out and $400. I had to have one, and extra magazines. Those were a stain on SIG and pretty soon everyone was complaining about them. I believe price dropped about half and shops couldn’t sell them.

I once had a Rossi 3 inch 38 spl in stainless steel. It looked good but shaved lead . The cylinder could be wiggled while locked up for single action fire. No one would attempt to repair it. The dealer that I traded it to sold it for parts.

Interesting posts throughout this one! Some guns get a bad reputation they deserve (RG, Davis, Clerke among others), some seem to suffer from highly variable quality control (or lack of!). In the years I spent working in gun shops we had issues with some brands, got to the point where certain guns were listed as "DO NOT BUY" if someone brought one in.... if an employee wanted to take a chance on it they could go outside with the customer and make their own deal.

I bought a few that way myself, mainly as cheap trading material for gunshows. Always test fired them though, didn't want to sell something that didn't work and must have been lucky as most worked okay. If they didn't they went in the parts gun box with known broken guns I picked up for parts or possibly to repair. Still have a stash of parts and projects to keep me busy whenever I do finally retire lol.

Reading through these reminded me of a gun I forgot to mention in my earlier post. I like to play around with derringers and as others have mentioned the cheap Davis and Cobra ones are known for horrible trigger pulls. I always attributed that to hasty (built to a price) construction and have worked on a couple I owned to get the triggers down to a manageable weight. Even so they weren't much more than close up range toys, maybe useful as a last ditch, "get off me!" hideout in a pinch. While I could get them to group after some work I had one in 38 that absolutely would not stabilize a bullet out of the top barrel..... It came out of that barrel so unstable it was either tumbling in flight or would go sideways upon impact................ In retrospect, for a hideout gun, it might have worked better that way.....

I had the original single action AMT Backup 380. It was reliable with hardball. I later got the newer double action version. I don't think it ever fired a magazine of anything without a jam of some type.

A little Charter Arms 22LR snubbie. It would keyhole at 3 yards with anything.

A Charter Arms 38 snubbie. After shooting one cylinder it would jam on the second. Just lock up.

Davis 32 derringer. It actually fired but it was just too scary being so obviously cheaply made out of pot metal. I don't know how accurate it was because I can't imagine anyone expecting it to hit anything beyond 5 yards.

645 - totally unreliable. I bought it as a duty gun but it never served. I traded for a 4506 when they came out thinking it would be better. Nope! They were both very early models of both versions so maybe they got better. Their Gen 2 9s always worked well for me.

There was a really cute 22 rifle that looked like a 30 carbine that was horribly unreliable. I don't remember who made it. But that wasn't a pistol.

I imagine there were more I don't recall at the moment.

This describes almost exactly the very worst gun I've ever owned: Taurus M-94 22LR, horrible trigger pull--extremely heavy, gritty--felt like gravel was in the action. Traded it off ASAP!!

Don

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Laus Deo! <><

I nominate my H&R 22 caliber Premier 2nd Model. Bought it on an internet auction so I had no idea how small it was. The trigger guard is so small your finger always get caught when you fire it. The trigger pull is so hard that a good shot is impossible in SA or DA. I keep it as a reminder to do better research before any purchase and especially when buying on the internet!

OK, my worst pistol was an Auto Ordnance 1911. It would not function right FTF, FTE, you name it. Changed ammo types. I put a new extractor in it. changed recoil springs a few times. Well, it started running good! I sold it, and bought a Sig1911.
Worst revolver was a Charter Arms Pitbull .40. Cylinder starting binding when firing. Sent it back to them. It was sent back to me supposedly fixed. Was a little better. Sent it back again. They finally sent me a new 1. Was better, but not good enough. So, I decided no C.A. for me. It went BYE-BYE! Bob

Agreed. I inherited a Jennings/Phoenix from my fathers estate. Wouldn’t feed, when I navigated past that the trigger would not release the hammer, but cocking the hammer would. It’s in my junk drawer waiting for a gun buy-back program.

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Member NRA, KSRA, & USCCA

No question about it. I, too, was suckered in by all the ads in Shotgun News and the fact that the MA State Police were issued them as back-up guns for a while. I bought mine brand new from Lew Horton's Southborough MA warehouse for chump change via a "kitchen table FFL" friend of mine.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I never got to try it out before economic disaster hit me in the form of divorce and 25 years of A&CS.

Now, in the age of modern pocket plastic, I just want to get rid of it... but no one wants one... not even an unfired-in-box time machine version. Every shop in MA has at least one used one in stock that hasn't sold in 10+ years.

So I'm waiting for a good, lucrative moonbat gun buyback. It's either that or dump it on GB with a large warning: NO REFUNDS!!!

Kimber....Solo. Jam -O- Matic. Different magazines, multiple types of ammo, replaced the recoil spring, doesn't matter. Bought it in 2013 second hand. Always meant to send it in to see if it could be fixed but it's still sitting in the back of the safe.

Doesn't always work out that way. I bought a brand new S&W Bodyguard 38spl. It was a stinker right out of the box. Timing issues, wouldn't lock up. Trip back to the factory, no joy. It was worse when I got it back. Finally, the owner of the LGS said it wasn't fixable. Took a bath, but traded it in against a Model 36.

Same experience with with one of the early Auto Ordnance 1911s. Couldn't get through a single magazine w/o a failure of some sort or a part failing.

Another poor excuse for a firearm was a Walther TPH I had. First time out the DA trigger action broke ( a small pawl or hook on the hammer broke off). Got that fixed and then the SA started not working (sear broke). Gave up.

Some cheap-***** .380 I took away from a female friend a year or so ago before she got hurt with it. She had a partial box of 9mm ammo someone had given her to got with it (wrong ammo, obviously). I discovered the thing was loaded, and the magazine wouldn't even come out. I managed, with great effort, to run the rounds in the mag through it to get it unloaded. Still haven't been able to get the magazine out of it. I need to take a smoke wrench to it and fix it so it can't be a danger to anyone.

Mentions of the Clarke and/or RG revolvers sparks more recollections....

No, I never owned one, but do recall as a young officer taking one off of a thug along with a quantity of drugs.

Don't immediately recall if it was an RG or Clarke, but it was a .22 cal. model.
Except - some ghetto 'gunsmith' had opened the chambers just enough with a drill to accept .22 WMR ammo, and the ammo therein was that with the bullets cut off with what looked like wire or side-cutters in order to allow the cylinder to turn.
Heaven only knows what would happen to it should it have fired.

And it had the near-mandatory-for-the-time electrical tape wound about the grip frame holding the cracked little plastic grips in place.

As my years on the street went by, stuff like this was replaced my Bryco, Jennings, Haskell (forerunner of Hi Point), Lorcin, Jimenez, Llama and then an occasional Taurus and real Hi Point thrown in. Rifles, especially when SKS's were cheap, were abundant.

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Ret'd LEO
SWCA #2275

"Drese" 32 cal auto, brought back from WWII. Even with the safety on it could go off. Was given to me by a cop friend who shot himself in the leg with it. Made me promise not to load or shoot it. Naturally the next day I tried it and it about got me. I was 14 at the time. Still sits around as a conversation piece.

The parts to fix a Dreyse may be at Numrich.

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Release the Kraken

The MAX-1 I had ran more reliably than any others excepting my Colts,

I did use Colt and Wilson magazines so that may have been a factor.

No I bought them used.

My brother managed to jam up a gun that way. I was able to remove the floor plate and take out the magazine guts and cartridges. The magazine then had enough give so that I could pull it out, but with difficulty. I don't remember what it was although I think it was some old communist bloc pistol.

For me, three guns stand out -- and they were at opposite extremes of the handguns scale. One, a Sterling 400 Mark II -- never fired more than two shots without a jam, even after 3 trips back for factory service. No big surprise, really....

But the second one I still can't explain. A box-stock Colt Gold Cup .45 I bought second-hand but as-new. Got it for a good price, and then I found out why -- it was no better than the Sterling, and even though 2 trips back to Colt improved it a little, and it was quite accurate, I never could rely on the darned thing to feed. I've had all manner of cheap-o 1911 Gov't Model clones, and every one was better than this Colt was.

The third was another 1911-based gun, Springfield's first version of the Officer's ACP. It lacked both reliability and accuracy, and the takedown procedure was a royal pain.

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Pisgah

Same exact thing happened with the Alameda County Sheriff's Department in California

I have never had much love for Colt revolvers, my friend purchased a real nice looking 22 in what looked like a detective special, 2 inch barrel. It would not shoot 5 shots in a row, group size about 6 feet at 10 yards. He tossed it into a lake after trying to shoot a can that was floating about 15 yard off to the starboard,he could not hit it! 20 years later went to a gun show in Nevada and there was a brand new one in the box for $2,000, all tied up with plastic ties so you could not work the action! I asked why so much money? The Colt Collector said "they did not make very many so they are rare"! I can see why.

I sold a lot of guns to Law agencies. Many of the chiefs and sheriffs had been on the job since returning from WW2. One thing they all would mention was the arms race they were in with punks. Up into 70s the cops would take lots of junk small revolvers and 25acp autos from street thugs.
Then they shifted to Ring of Fire , Tech 9 type junk. Now there is so much money in dope the bad guys are running Glocks and assault rifles. What is worse is they have no hesitation to use them.

...and they'll look you in the eye and say, "It's not personal, just business."

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Release the Kraken