RG Revolver from Germany, 1968 GCA banned their import. Did an appraisal for a guy who thought it would be worth lots. Appraised on the high end - $35 !

...this might get some feathers ruffled, but: although it was far from inexpensive, and of course, not cheaply made...one of the worst functioning pistols I ever came across was a H&K USP .45 (variant 1) that was bought NIB. It was an early one, and I got caught-up in the whole SOCOM & USP craze back then. I so wanted to love the thing, but it refused to cease stove-pipe jamming. I tried different mags, different ammo, a full clean & lube...nothing worked. Every 2nd magazine, you'd be looking at that slide stuck back, with a stove-pipe laughing at you. You could almost hear it say, "sssSSSSSuuuUUUccKKKerrr!"

I thought about sending it in, but I was a bit digusted at the hype vs. actual performance ratio. I off-loaded it quick to fund other toys.

I am willing to accept that I just got a bad egg, but years later...I'm still a bit pissed about that. Emotional I guess...

A friend of mine had a Raven .25; useless gun BUT, occasionally it would go full-auto so at least it was interesting (to say the least) from time to time.

Had the same thing happen with a Colt Python. This NIB piece's timing was so bad it spit lead everywhere. I sent it to the factory and when it came back it did the same thing.

I know this had to be bad karma as these guns are the top of the line.

A friend suggested I use it for trap/skeet, so I sold it to him defects and all. He still has it.

Although some have mentioned some "top" guns in this category, I'll have to mention a couple. How about the Jimenez and Heritage Arms offerings. The first handgun I ever owned was a little Star .25 auto. It shot to point of aim and I never had it jam on me. Looking back,it wasn't the best choice for home defense, but it worked, was cheap, and gave my bride some peace of mind when I was working long nights.

The cheapest gun I have (not counting ones given to me) is this $20 Colt Police Positive Target in .22 WRF. The tribal police at a rez I worked on were selling their old duty guns and evidence guns. I snagged a like new nickel Model 15 for $120, but before I could round up more funds everything else was snapped up. Then I got a call from one of the coppers who said they had an old Colt that "you can't get shells for anymore" and did I want it for twenty bucks. With visions of a Colt Single Action .41 dancing through my head I said hell yes.

I turned out to be this kind of sad little guy. It also has a social security number scratched on the butt and an Indian guy's named dremeled into the front strap. I shot it a few times, and other than needing a little help to lock up each time it actually shot pretty well.

It is now, literally, a wall hanger.



The worst handgun I've ever had was a Davis .22 derringer - I just gave the thing to a dog handler that wanted to use it for training. The worst rifle was a Remington .22 semi-auto with the ironic name "Speedmaster".

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

At the range Thursday, a gentleman showed up with some guns he had recently purchased to replace some that had been stolen. We didn't know what he had until after he was finished shooting and came by the office.

Two Lorcin's, a 9mm and a .45.....bought used, no less. The .45 had disassembled it's magazine at some point while he was shooting it and the base pad was missing, which he had not noticed so back out the door he went to look for it.

He also had a Rossi .38 Special that started life as what I think was a 3" barrel. Someone felt the need to bob it back to 2", and judging from the "reverse" counterbore of the muzzle it looks like they used a copper tubing cutter. A slot was whittled out and something that passed for a front sight was installed.

Rossi's are definitely not top-notch, but back in the 80's I purchased one of the M511 copies of the S&W 63. Fit and finish leave a little to be desired but it has always been uncannily accurate at any distance used and has accounted for a number of rabbits and other things. It has never managed to fire a complete cylinder double action from day one, but SA works fine.

I got rid of mine. I thought I said that in the post but guess I didn't.

Probably the closest thing I have to being a piece of junk now is an old .38 S&W Owl's Head.

Without a doubt, the absolute worst gun I've ever owned was an AMT .380 Backup pistol.

First, it was a malfunction machine. The firing pin spring had taken a set and was so weak that igniting a primer was a very iffy thing. It was a jam-o-matic. The disassembly procedure was weird, and had to involve a block of wood as a hold-open device. Also, the short barrel made the .380 even more anemic than it was already.

The acronym *** was invented for this pistol. I sold it right away for a loss with the caveat that "...it needs some work." One of the requirements I have for all my guns is that they must work as intended. This one most certainly did not.



AMT has had better projects than this one, for sure.

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

had an RG-22 bought for protection when working very tough public housing. first pistol and shaved lead like a mother. moved up to a taurus copy of S@W that also was wildley out of time. Sold it to a friend with the understanding he"d send it back to factory for fixing but got twice what he paid for it in a trade. somebody done somebody wrong. again.

I have been very lucky I bought a Raven many years ago. Wouldnt hit the broadside of a barn at arms length. But it was fun to play with. I even bought my Father one. I also purchased a Taurus 357 about 25 years ago. It has worked perfectly for me and has been very reliable over the years. The Cheapest was the Raven but still a fun gun.

My cheapest was a Jennings J-22, paid $35 for it and gave it to my Dad. He loves it.

My worst was just about every Ruger handgun I ever owned, what junk.

Worst I ever had was my first double action revolver . . . a used RG .38 Special snubbie.

That sucker keyholed targets at ten yards and it had NO accuracy at all. As a starving college student and newlywed, it was all I could afford for protection as an emergency (night call) kerosene heating oil truck deliveryman.

Finally the trigger spring broke so I took it into a decent gun shop to see if it could be repaired. The store was packed and I was embarrassed soI waited until things slowed down a little, then pulled it out and quietly asked the owner if he could fix it.

Loudly he exclaimed, "It's a ____ RG!" Everyone turned to look. He went on, "Son, if you want to tell someone you threw away twenty bucks stick the twenty in the barrel and chuck it in the river!"

Tail between my legs, I slunk out of the store.

I've NEVER bought anything but quality firearms ever since.

T.

BTW, I eventually took a heavy hammer to the RG and made it totally unusable, then disassembled the parts and threw 'em away in different locations so no one could ever get hurt by that ***.

I replaced it with a 3" Model 65-3 and never looked back!!!

My dad has a .22 Short revolver with absolutely no markings on it so I can't even bad mouth the manufacturer. The cylinder and barrel don't exactly line up. As far as I can tell it has no springs, everything but dropping the hammer is done by hand. Everytime he talks about firing it I say let me put my vest on and hide behind the car. That little thing is the worst firearm I have ever seen. At least he didn't pay for it.

...and they work! Learned this in the service from one of these same manuals.
One reason why even if guns were outlawed, many of us would still have them! And this ain't the worst...look at the STEN!

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The Last Standing Knight

The worst I ever owned was an RG single action Peacemaker style .22. It wouldn't keep 5 shots in 6" at 10 yards. It was given to me, and I sold it for $50.

I didn't know what a "Clerke" was until today while I was poking around on GB. Somebody recently tried to sell this:

For parts. Bidding started at $0.01. Some things just aren't right. -S2

For quality, the worst gun in my collection, but a long ways from the cheapest, is a Liberator 45.

But it has genuine Diamond grips! I bid $.0.05

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Still Running Against the Wind

i had a compact jennings in 380, it pretty much fired when it wanted to. It had the longest trigger pull ive ever seen in any gun and literally fired about half the time i pulled the trigger. I was complaining about it and talking about the problems i was having and a guy said he would give me 150 bucks for it....................

Did you warn him about it or just follow The Steve Miller Band's advice and take the money and run?

I guess there's an advantage to being a "gun snob." I have not been stuck with any real lemons, although there were a couple of guns that I have had some concerns about. I no longer own them. The only "cheap" gun I ever owned was a Charter Arms Bulldog, and it always worked perfectly. It was probably a mistake to sell it.

Oops. Forgot about my Charter Arms AR-7, which was reliable at jamming. Perhaps a good gunsmith could have changed that, but I didn't know one at the time.

I bought one of the Charter Arms AR-7's back when I was in my late teens, early 20's and had more money than sense, bought it because it was "neat"... it actually worked real well till I had about 1k rounds through it, then it would randomly go full auto till the magazine was empty. Made it interesting sometimes... I traded it off for a 1952 GMC halfton "Mud truck" that the guy had removed the rear fenders and welded huge combine wheels and tires to the old split rims. I ran an exhaust stack and a snorkel for the intake, welded the doors shut, cut the top off the cab and we used to drive it through the ponds thereabouts...

Gotta go with these. Some of the others that have been discussed here sound special in their own right, but I've never even seen ads for them, let alone the guns themselves. I must have walked through a lot of years with my eyes closed.

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David Wilson

The least expensive gun I ever bought cost me $15 at an auction. It was a pre-1884 Belgian large frame revolver made by N. Simonis in Liege (11 mm Belgian Ordinance cartridge) that had a broken trigger return spring. I've never fired it because of a dearth of ammunition, but I sure learned a lot about fabricating and tempering trigger return springs. It had a 90% carbona blue that was the main reason I bought it.

The worst gun I ever had was an AMT 7" Longslide Hardballer that would not feed and/or eject three straight rounds and whose accuracy was terrible. After about $100 in parts and about 50 hours of working on it, it was sufficiently reliable to use it as a pin gun.




Buck

Anybody else thinking of the Terminator about now lol?

1973-Olympic Arms .32 auto. Probably made for the Spanish army during the Spanish Civil War. Kind of built like a 1911, in that it had a barrel and trigger. If you aimed at something about 30 feet away, it would shoot 15 feet in front and down to the left-I fell in love with the .32 round-the gun was just a curiosity.

That's DISGUSTING!!!! Ewwwwww!
Just seeing that made my teeth itch.

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The Last Standing Knight

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Liberator 45. General Motors cranked them out for pennies each. And the bore was not rifled. It was said it likely would not hold together long enough to fire more than the five rounds that came with it.
Now today the collectors value is quite high, but that is a lot different than manufacturing cost.

What Gunhacker said! The RG is right up there at the top. Another honorable mention would be the Arminus revolvers. I saw one of these fired at a range that had a bit of a timing problem. One shot and the front of the frame along with the barrel departed down range. The shooter wanted to know where he could take his gun and get it fixed! You just can't get good pot metal like this anymore. Then let's not forget the Lorcin automatics. Had one of these given to me (.380 auto). Traded it to a dealer to avoid the three day wait in the state where I lived at the time. He gave me $5.00 for it. Let's not forget that these guns have a very important place in the world of firearms. Does the term "throw-down" ring any bells for anyone?

Back in the day I bought an H&R .22 revo. it came with a bianchi leather holster for $20. the holster was worth more than the gun. From what I gathered at the time those guns were problems I worked on it spent ~$20. in parts but the gun was a lost cause to me. I traded it for a NIB Leinad not the best but definitely worth the $40. & holster.

The other cheapness was a TEC-9 that wouldn't shoot more than 200 rounds before braking the c-clips that retained the action and firing pin. After a few months I got a really nice trade for it.

Raven rg davis and colt

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WILL WORK FOR AMMO!

What's wrong with the Liberator? It's the only gun that takes longer to load it than it took to manufacture. And they aint cheep anymore!
I had a Davis .22 mag. dbl. Derringer. It fired most of the time. Stolen out of my car and I got it back. Killed two snakes. I sold it for more than I paid for it. IT WAS A JUNKER.

i GAVE my son a 25 cal jennings...dang if he didn't SELL IT to a navy buddy..$150.00 !!

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SWCA#2208
KK4EMO

The worst most disappointing pistol I own is a Colt New Frontier 22lr. The grip frame over hangs on one side, tool marks, sharp edges that will cut your fingers, a eight pound trigger, and the action feels like it is full of sand. A classic example of poor QC.

The only reason it is still in the safe is because it has the prancing pony on the side and there are those who will pay a premium for the name.

My worst gun was a Davis .32. It's the only gun that ever blew up in my hand. May have been a ammo issue, not sure. Wood grips splintered in my hand. Cought a piece of brass casing in my nose and another in eyebrow.