The absolute WORST pistol I ever came across!

cmansguns

cmansguns

US Veteran
Gold Supporter
Joined
Mar 21, 2016
Messages
2,046
Reaction score
6,494
Location
Hanover, Virginia
Good morning....Happy Thanksgiving to all. Covid restrictions have our very large family doing no traditional gathering at our house this year...so just wife and I (and the turkey of course).

Anyway...cleaning out some old photos of sold guns, long gone and ran across a couple of pics of a late 1980's 45 acp that a guy wanted to get rid of before divorce took everything anyway so I bought it for $50 according to my old records.

It was a Llama (Spanish I think) which turned out to be a real piece of junk..could not get thru a single range session without stovepipes galore, Failure to Feed issues and it was not ammo related as any factory brand acted the same. One frustrating day I had it at a local police range, when it stovepiped on the third round and I just yelled out..."anyone with a benjamin can have this piece of junk." An off duty local detective 2 lanes over jumped on my offer and we both left the range satisficed. I think that was 1998/1999 or so.

Anyway..I don't know if he ever did some spring replacement or whatever to get that gun to function, or if it became trade fodder, but I did hear that Llama went out of business around 2005. Good riddance in my opinion.

Fast forward to 2017 or so and gun writers are praising away at the "new" Llama Max-1 1911 Handgun for just under $500.

Me?.....Not interested at all, but I wonder.....what was (is) YOUR worst firearm ever and why?

Just some turkey day ramblings, I'm not really into gun bashing but found these old picks and remembered I should have put the money towards the animal instead of the gun.:D
 

Attachments

  • LLAMA 45 ACP-1.jpg
    LLAMA 45 ACP-1.jpg
    33.3 KB · Views: 276
  • LLAMA 45 ACP-2.jpg
    LLAMA 45 ACP-2.jpg
    30.9 KB · Views: 191
  • OIP.jpg
    OIP.jpg
    13.9 KB · Views: 105
Register to hide this ad
H&R Young America. Trigger guard too small for finger, trigger pull too hard to shoot DA, cylinder too short for 22LR, spit lead out to the sides. Sights impossible to use. But kinda cool.
 

Attachments

  • HRYA.jpg
    HRYA.jpg
    121.6 KB · Views: 284
This has to be the easiest firearms-related question to answer I've ever had. This is a WWII Japanese Nambu 94, made in September, 1941. Not only was it butt-ugly, it fit no one's hand well, and could be fired without pressing the trigger. It might have been OK to commit ritual suicide with, but not much else. I still have it and keep it because it's a prime negative example of a firearm...

John

 
Sterling 400 MKII

The very first semi-auto pistol I ever bought was for off duty carry. Found the Stainless Sterling 400 MKII in a gun shop and thought the size and SS made it the perfect concealment gun. Basically a copy of the Walther. This was before Interarms Walthers became available. If you can think of or have ever heard of any type of malfunction that gun experienced it. I don't recall ever making it through a single magazine without some sort of malfunction. I can't remember now what I traded it in for but I do remember that I gladly took a loss, just to get rid of it.
 

Attachments

  • Sterling 400 Mark II.jpeg
    Sterling 400 Mark II.jpeg
    28.2 KB · Views: 166
AMT Hardballer 45 Auto. Gun would not run, even with ball ammo!! Took it to a gunsmith and he told me to get rid of it; so I promptly did.
About 6 years or so ago, I bought a new Marlin 60 22 rifle. Trigger must have been 15 pounds or so, couldn't hardly get through 30 rounds at the range. Promptly sold that one also.
Otherwise I've been pretty happy with everything else I've owned :-)
 
A co-worker and I agreed to do a 'cheap-guns' even-trade one day.

My offering was a Mauser 98 8mm that had been Bubba'ed to the extreme and was quite ugly.
He had a Llama sorta-1911 .45.
We swapped even.

I had grandiose ideas of making the Llama .45 my 'beater woods gun' and deer hunting and scouting companion.
The Llama was a complete failure. All sorts of malfunctions, and complete disassembly appeared some parts may have been crafted by a village blacksmith.
And - it was my first and worst example of finding all about 'hammer bite'. It would literally draw blood.

Of course, it went away in a trade and unlike some guns of my past - there is no missing it. ;)
 
My worst pistol should not have been a bad pistol. It was a Norinco 213 with both 9mm and 7.62 barrels. This was a proven design and China can make reliable firearms. The problem was the safety, not part of the original design, was so loose it would move randomly while firing.
 
Worst pistols I ever encountered? Browning Challenger II. Got it cheap. It simply would not get through a shooting session w/o multiple failures to feed/eject. It didn't matter what I did, change ammo, magazines, etc. Other one was a Colt Trooper Mark III in .22 LR that was a beautiful pistol that repeatedly misfired with any kind of ammunition. No rhyme. No reason. Both went down the road. No regrets. Sincerely. bruce.
 
MyDads38 said:
AMT Hardballer 45 Auto. Gun would not run, even with ball ammo!! Took it to a gunsmith and he told me to get rid of it; so I promptly did.
About 6 years or so ago, I bought a new Marlin 60 22 rifle. Trigger must have been 15 pounds or so, couldn't hardly get through 30 rounds at the range. Promptly sold that one also.
Otherwise I've been pretty happy with everything else I've owned :-)
Click to expand...

I might have thought the AMT Hardballer was junk too, except! One of my Sgt.'s bought one at a gun show in Calif. in 1987 or 88. He had problems with it too. We kept telling him to lube it. Finally he put 30 wt. motor oil on it. Ran like a champ, and after about 500 rounds the gun worked as advertised with just regular gun oil.
 
I bought a AMT Backup in .380.
What it really was is a single shot cleverly disguised as a semiautomatic. I never fired 3 rounds without experiencing 2 jams.

I had a .38 derringer that I carried in my uniform jacket pocket for a BUG. I'm not sure of the brand but it was cheap.
During a foot pursuit it fell out my pocket causing it to discharge putting a round through a plate glass window. Down the sewer it went.
My story was that the escaped suspect must have fired a shot at me...and I'm sticking to it.
 
Oddly enough it was a Walther PPK/S from Interarms back in the 80s. No matter how much work went into it, smoothing the feed ramp, new springs, changing ammo, new magazine, etc. it just was a Jam-O-Matic. Could NOT get through a single magazine without some form of jam. Yes, it was the James Bond pistol. Yes, it was pretty enough. But it was a death-trap as a carry pistol IMHO and I am absolutely happy that I got rid of it (with full disclosure) to some guy at the range that always wanted a "Bond Gun". BTW, two of my all time favorite handguns are my Walther P99AS and my PPS Classic.
 
mauser9 said:
Thought you were going to say it was a Raven or Jennings.
Click to expand...

I’ll say it then. Back in the mid 70’s I swapped a cheap KMart camera flash unit to a friend for his Raven 25. It must have had a 15 pound trigger pull and wasn’t accurate over 10 feet. I didn’t have high expectations but only shot one box through it. It was so poorly made I wasn’t sure if it would make it through one box.

About thirty years ago o bought a 32 Davis Derringer and still have it. It’s better than the Raven but not by much. I keep it because it’s a novelty.
 
Last edited:
As I have posted, was down at Walker AFB at Roswell.
Got into Jack Shooting with borrowed guns.
The Troops started yelling Buy A Gun!
What? You got money, go buy a gun.
So I bought an imported 22 Convertible Single Action.
One with steel cartridge sleeves, pot metal cylinder.
***! After 2-3 outings, took it back, took a hit, traded for a Ruger.
 
The type of malfunctions described by the OP direct my thinking toward a magazine problem (possibly damaged or poorly formed lips allowing cartridges to disengage too early, causing stovepipes). Of course, with the Llama pistols it can be difficult finding factory magazines, so testing this theory becomes more difficult (ordinarily I would just try a few other magazines).

Llama pistols have been around for many years, and there have been periods with quality issues. Not unusual for many manufacturers; some of us remember the years S&W was under Bangor Punta ownership and sent out some real clunkers! I remember when the police department I worked at decided to issue revolvers for the first time (we had to buy our own before 1974), and I was handed a brand new S&W Model 19-2 that would not function in double-action and the hammer would not stand at full cock on single-action. Took about 3 hours of very careful stoning and fitting of the lockwork (as well as polishing internal surfaces) to get it to work as intended.

I've seen a brand new Browning Hi Power go full-auto on its first visit to the range. I once sent a Colt Python back to the factory to correct its repeated failures to index and lock-up in double-action mode (Colt was very nice, fixed the Python and sent it back with new presentation-grade grips in a walnut presentation case).

My point is that anything manufactured in mass quantities will always result in a few quality control issues. I've owned a couple of cars that qualitied as lemons, too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

chief38
Nominations for the worst company you have dealt with
2 3
Replies
47
Views
1K
Golddollar
Golddollar
rwsmith
Durned if I ever saw such hard, tight primers!
2
Replies
37
Views
811
CactusCapt
C
chief38
I HAD FORGOTTEN JUST HOW MUCH I LIKE THIS WINCHESTER RIFLE!
Replies
19
Views
4K
Empe
E
Old Corp
Beretta M96 .40 S&W
Replies
7
Views
461
BE Mike
BE Mike
Fishinfool
A Day At The Gun Show - A Couple Good Finds
Replies
11
Views
1K
Fishinfool
Fishinfool

Latest posts

Back
Top