Are these the worst pistols ever made?

[CajunBass]

I almost bought a RG 22 LR about like the one the OP pictured. It showed up at my dealers one day, some years ago, probably in a collection they bought. I wanted it for nostalgia reasons. When I was young, dumb, and broke, I wanted one desperately. I didn't have a handgun of any kind, and wanted one for those things that go bump in the night.

I was never able to come up with the $30 or so it would have cost to buy one back then. The lest expensive "good gun" I saw was a Smith and Wesson something or other (probably a Model 10) for around $100. Might as well have been a million.

I passed on that RG. They were asking something like $79 for it. Shoot it was like new, still in the box. I thought about offering $20, but I was afraid they'd take it. It was gone the next time I was in.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

If they kept it in the trunk, it was for a throw-down piece. As in: Look, I told you he had a gun!

THANK YOU Brad.....Geeze....Back up kept in the trunk??????? Gimme a break

 

[Absalom]

Family used to have an RG22.

Proof that not EVERYTHING made in Germany is good. That gun was a JOKE. Not even safe to shoot. Since destroyed on a bench grinder and thrown in the garbage where it belongs.

Actually, it might not even be "made in Germany".

Heinrich Röhm has an interesting history. He founded his company originally in Zella-Mehlis, where Walther used to be, but made machine parts, not guns. Those became part of his new diversified re-start in the West after evacuating in 1945.

In Germany his brand is more known for starter pistols and flare launchers, since handguns are much more restricted. After the GCA of 1968, the company built a plant in Miami to produce real guns for the US market. I know nothing about those, but according to Wiki the plant, RG Industries, closed in 1986.

i would suspect that unless it says Made in Germany somewhere on the gun, that's where the OP's gun was manufactured.

 

[2152hq]

I could never figure why John Clerke got involved in mfg'r those cheap little revolvers,,just a $$ maker perhaps.
But they seem completely contrary to everything else he did in his firearms and gunsmithing career.
Those revolvers don't even look like they'd meet Mattel standards.

He made some fine single shot target and Varmit rifles, the actions were his own design but based on the Winchester HighWall.
There were 2 or 3 different versions of the action itself.

He was probably best known or at least his name clicks with many as the innovator behind the 38-45acp round back in the 60's.
It was quite popular with the 1911 crowd. Commercial die mfg'rs offered their products for case forming and reloading.

The single shot rifles are often marked 'J.M.Clerke'
Earliest are w/o ser#.
Later guns are marked w/a company name of 'Serrifle',,Another corp under his name was Clerke TechniCorp.
Clerk Technicorp had some connection to the old EIG Cutlery Corp IIRC. It is somewhere in that arrangement that the cheap revolvers became a company item for sale I believe.

There is a full color brochure that was put out by Clerke that showed 3 or 4 of his single shot rifles in different forms,
Then below them on the same page is one of those chrome plated $10 cheap revolvers along with a likewise cheapy semiauto pistol.
Talk about a confusing mix of offerings..

The cheap Clerke revolvers came to be after the GCA68 went into effect which stopped their importation from Europe.
Parts continued to be imported but the those cap pistol looking frames were made in the USA and the guns assembled here.
EIG Cutlery imported just about everything they sold so perhaps that's where the importation connection for the revolvers small parts came from. Just a guess.

Colt was doing the same thing with the Astra Cub as the Colt Junior,,Importing the small parts from Spain and mfg'g the frame & assembling the gun in the USA;
A bit of difference in quality though I'd say.

I don't know when Clerke stopped offering the completed single shot rifles but somewhere in the mix of company name changes those went away. They then switched to offering bbl'd actions only.
Later still, some Rifle parts that were left over from Clerk were purchased by an outsider and also sold as 'Kits' to build a rifle. Those still show up here and there. Some parts are finished, others in various stages.

John M. Clerk was known by most as 'Bo' Clerk. Most magazine articles used the nickname instead of his real name. Lots of gun rags ran articles about him and his gunsmithing work in the 60's and 70's.
I think he ran a gunshop in SoCal (Burbank?) in that time.

Clerke is pronounced Clark. But most still pronounce it Clerk.
I think he died in the early 2000's.

 

[Grayfox]

I've owned two RGs in my time.

The first one was a RG .22. I bought it from a co-worker back in the early 90s for $10. I actually shot it. On average, usually 4 of the 6 rounds would fire and they were scattered all over the target.
The next week I took it to a gun buyback in Memphis and traded it for $75 worth of gas and grocery gift cards.

The second one belonged to a disabled lady friend of mine. It was a RG .38 Special LNIB that she had bought from some ex-cop she knew. She asked me to teach her how to shoot it. I examined the gun and found the timing to be way off and the cylinder would only advance if you held it at a weird angle. I wouldn't dare try to shoot this junker.
I traded her a finish worn, but very serviceable Model 10 for it.
I intended to just destroy that junker, but a dealer friend offered to buy it even after I told him how bad it was. He said there are actually collectors for these things and gave me $75 for it.
He later actually did sell it for a decent profit.

 

[ExRanger714]

To those who were kind enough to try to enlighten me above

ExRanger says "Well it took you long enough. Have you always had such a gift at pointing out the obvious"?

 

[Kurusu]

If those guns were so cheap and crappy why did a lot of cops I've known keep one, or one very similar to it, very clean, except for the bore which looked like a fired bore, in the trunk of their car for a back-up piece? These guns quite often had a fired case or two in the cylinder as well as live rounds but I never quite caught on why. I guess it was unreliable hammer-down-on-a-live-round technology.

I'll let you in on a dirty little secret. Those were not backup guns. Their purpose was to be "planted" next a gunned down suspect if found that he was not armed afterall.

Edit. I missed sigp220.45 post #36.

 

[jag312]

Bo Clerke was once asked how many of his guns were ever used. He said about 15%, How did he arrive at that number? He said that approximately 15% of his guns were returned for repair.

My nomination for the worst pistol ever made is the USFA Zip Gun. I will never understand how Doug Donnelly went from making the finest Single Action revolvers in the world to making a plastic piece of junk.

Rohm RG14. Many years ago I had a case where a woman shot her boyfriend six times with an RG14. She called the police to come over. Her boyfriend was still alive. While waiting for the police, she reloaded and shot him six more times. When the police got there, she was reloading again to shoot him another six times, just to make sure. As it turned out, the second 6 shots were sufficient.

 

[PeterDE]

I had an RG24 (I think that was the model) 22 cal. 6" barrel. It was actually a pretty good shooter, fairly accurate. Bought it in 1972 for 29.95. Had it until 1989. Moved to Upstate NY. Gave it to the local PD. I used to shoot rats at the local dump with it. Never had a problem, not even a misfire.

 

[pasound]

Davis derringer, in .38. Bought it at a pawn shop for less than $40, took it to the outdoor range and fired four rounds. Aiming just ten feet at a paper target, it put two in the ground and two over the target. Had a ball peen in my car trunk. It ended up in pieces down an abandoned gas well pipe.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

I knew a guy up in CO who dropped a loaded derringer and it discharged.
I don't recall the brand but it didn't have a Hammer Block.

 

[ExRanger714]

I'll let you in on a dirty little secret. Those were not backup guns. Their purpose was to be "planted" next a gunned down suspect if found that he was not armed afterall.

Edit. I missed sigp220.45 post #36.

Words elude me. Surely you guys aren't suggesting that a police officer would attempt to plant evidence in the event of a "bad", for lack of a better term, shooting?

 

[bgrafsr]

Words elude me. Surely you guys aren't suggesting that a police officer would attempt to plant evidence in the event of a "bad", for lack of a better term, shooting?

There's rotten apples in the barrel, even on Police Departments.

 

[bulletslap]

I had no idea of the connection between Bo Clerke and the *** Clerke revolver.

 

[ExRanger714]

I am astonished that some of you hands didn't see through my **** early on.

A clean pistol with a dirty bore and fired case under the hammer and not a fingerprint, or, now a days some errant DNA on it including the cartridges wiped clean found in the trunk of a car, especially a cop car, screams "throw-down" or "drop gun" or, as above "ham sandwich (?)" and it's only LEGITIMATE use is to place in the hand of the wrong man after you have shot him.

 

[Kurusu]

I am astonished that some of you hands didn't see through my **** early on.

A clean pistol with a dirty bore and fired case under the hammer and not a fingerprint, or, now a days some errant DNA on it including the cartridges wiped clean found in the trunk of a car, especially a cop car, screams "throw-down" or "drop gun" or, as above "ham sandwich (?)" and it's only LEGITIMATE use is to place in the hand of the wrong man after you have shot him.

Well, smile when you say that then.

 

[mustangman]

My RG10.
I'll never ever shoot it, but I'll never get rid of it either.
My grandpa carried it in the glove compartment of his farm truck when I was growing up, 70s-80s.
Some of my fondest memories are riding around with him checking varmint traps around his peanut fields. I did the leg work on the ones that were out of sight from the truck. If I came back with a thumbs up, he'd grab that pistol and come take care of business.
I can't even imagine how many coons and possums he dispatched with that thing over the years.
I believe the electrical tape "Talon" grips are to hold it together, not for texture. LOL.

 

[desi2358]

Yes they were pretty crappy, cheap guns for sure. The intended market was people who thought they needed a gun but didn't have much money... Since mass production of guns began there have always been guns marketed for just this reason.... cheap cap lock single shots from Belgium in the mid 1800's, the cheap "Suicide Specials" of the later 1800's... lots of Belgian and Spanish revolvers and pocket pistols imported into the US to compete with domestic production from the likes of Iver Johnson and H&R for the lower end of the market.

There always has been a demand for affordable guns especially among those with less money. Use of cheaper alloys and castings got prices pretty low (and their popularity among the poorer classes meant they were more likely to show up in criminal hands too....... lots of them around so easier to buy or steal). While commonly thought of as "ghetto guns" or "saturday night specials" they were all over when I was young including out in farm country. Seems like more than a few people didn't want to or couldn't justify or afford to spend a lot on a gun that they weren't going to be hunting with and would likely just sit in a drawer or ride around in the glovebox for an imagined emergency.

I have played around with a number of these guns over the years. Most will at least function when new (or at least with just a few rounds through them), what they don't have is much durability. But most of the people buying them really weren't likely to shoot them a lot if at all (have encountered more than one, still in the box with the box of ammo they bought at the time still with it, either full or missing just a couple rounds). I guess they filled a need for an inexpensive handgun for more than a few people in their time. Certainly a better quality gun might have served them better if they really needed it but to many people "a gun is a gun". And, in many cases just the presence of a gun, even a crappy one, has been enough to discourage a criminal.

I doubt if the demand for cheap guns will ever go away though at least with all the gun forums, blogs and online articles people have a chance to be a little better educated on what guns are a good choice (and which ones are not). And the word does get out quickly on stuff that just doesn't work or is outright unsafe nowadays. But some of the "Ring of Fire" guns have been re-born under new names (Jiminez and Phoenix for instance) and are still selling........... because they are still cheaper than their competition..........

 

[mckenney99]

I'll let you in on a dirty little secret. Those were not backup guns. Their purpose was to be "planted" next a gunned down suspect if found that he was not armed afterall.

Edit. I missed sigp220.45 post #36.

Unless you got photos, video, a LIVE witness or a signed confession . . . . it never happened.

 

[dockmurgw]

I wouldn't trade mine for anything, I don't care how many of the self appointed elitist gun snobs turn their nose up at it. The first revolver for a kid with a trap line, traded muskrat pelts for it...even swap. Couldn't even begin to guess how many times it was dropped in the water, used as a hammer, or how many 22 shorts it consumed sending furry critters to my stretcher boards. Now a days its in my basement loaded with shot and used on mice that crawl around the field stone foundation.