How many rounds do you shoot to verify ammo reliability in your defense gun before using it? There was a time when I considered a test of several hundred rounds of a particular brand in a gun was necessary to verify reliability. With the current prices and availability of good defense ammo that now seems like a lot. Does it vary with the model?

Most of the break in and reliability testing can be done with ball ammo IMO. Make sure the gun is feeding well before you start burning expensive SD ammo. Then run a box or two of SD, as much $$$ as you feel like using, through the gun to make sure the profile of the hollow point bullets feeds good in your gun. If feeding is flawless and accuracy is good, I see no need to burn more ammo than that.

It's been my experience with 3rd Gen S&W's that you don't have to get a bank loan to prove to yourself your pistol is reliable. Case in point. Perhaps I'm a bit lucky and knock on wood but, I've had a 4506 since June of 1990 and it's been fed everything imaginable from hard ball to the notorious hard to feed flying ashtray and lead SWC's. To date, there's never been a failure of any sort.

My 4566TSW has only FTF once and failed to fire once and that was the ammo's problem-a dud primer. The fail to fed(FTF) was due to most likely, early break in as there hasn't been a problem since then. I'd bank my life on either and both shoot regular ammo as well as +P fodder like they were meant for each other.

I think what's equally important is to choose a couple magazines you'll be using for SD and make sure those rounds you're putting through your pistol will also function, not only your choice of ammo, but that the mags are up to the task as well.

I don't carry a gun for serious purposes until I have 500 or so trouble free rounds of ball ammo, and a magazine of carry ammo from each of the mags that I am going to use, through the gun before I count on it.

I do the same as the others have stated. Plenty of ball (couple hundred rounds), a box or three of carry stuff, making sure to work in all mags and I'm happy. My rule of thumb with defensive guns has always been: Show me a failure of any type, whether it's the fault of a human or the gun, and I'll show you a nice used gun at a great price. For what it is, it has to be 100% reliable. Period.

The reason I asked is that I have talked to a lot of new gun owners lately that have bought semi-autos for self defanse, and never fired them. The gun shops around here have mostly semi-autos in the counters with a small selection of revolvers. I think that a semi-auto is good for personal defense because it can be reloaded fast, and can carry a lot of ammo, but it needs to be reliability tested with various ammo before it can be trusted.

"I think what's equally important is to choose a couple magazines you'll be using for SD and make sure those rounds you're putting through your pistol will also function, not only your choice of ammo, but that the mags are up to the task as well."

Big, big, big deal! 3rd gen guns are usually pretty forgiving with most bullet configurations and pressure levels. The magazines are a straight forward design and well made, but every once in a while, I'll find one that will not feed consistantly with some bullet or other. There are a lot of used 3rd gen mags floating around out there, ex-police and what have you. If if find them cheap (under $20), I'll buy them and replace the spring. They are usually good to go, but I shoot them a bunch before I trust them for carry.

My latest acquisition, the 4566TSW, failed to feed one on the first range session. I had not oiled it properly as when I picked it up and the gun shop, I took it directly to the range on the other side of the shop and started trying it out. I couldn't wait to first take it home and oil it and then take it to the range but I marked that magazine thinking maybe for some reason it had caused the problem and haven't used it since.

I don't know just what may have caused that round to nose dive(Ranger T 230 gr+P) but consigned the mag for later evaluation. I've not had that problem again, whatever it was.

You'd have to either be, or hire, a statistician to figure this out. Then, the response is only given in answers like "There is a 95% chance that 95% of the bullets will work OK."

The higher you want the odds, and the higher you want the percentage of the group to be, the bigger your test sample becomes until at 100% you have to shoot 100% of the group to make that statement. Then you don't have any left.

The same can be said regarding revolvers. Just because it doesn't operate like a semi-auto doesn't mean there should be an automatic assumption of reliability.

Good information from everyone Thank You all

I've taken unfired 3rd Gen pistols out of the box at the range and used them immediately for qualification, which is about 75 rounds of generic ammo. I then run carry ammo thru each mag, to make sure that works as well.

Same goes for Beretta 92 and 8000 series.

Not trying to be a wise guy here but.....

Guns are made to work. Out of the box, load and fire it. If it works with a few shots, then it should work with all the others you put through it, be it 10 rounds or 1000.

If we worry about the gun working, then worry about spring failure in a mag. How many mags to we have to test to be sure another mag that was not tested will work?

Then if we fire the gun testing to see if it works, how many times do we fire it before the guide spring is so weakened that it no longer works?

I agree a gun needs to be test fired and you can fire it as often and as much as you want. If it handles the type ammo you plan on using with a full mag, then there is no reason to think it will not handle the second mag full.

We tend to worry about things in life that do not need to be worried about. In fact, studies have shown those carrying concealed weapons for self defense are those that are least likely to need a gun for self defense.

Yes, factory defensive ammunition is pricey...but think of the alternative to thoroughly testing your carry gun, ammo and magazines and a couple hundred bucks in ammo seems like a relative bargain.

The last thing you want to have happen is find yourself in a defensive situation and your gun/ammo/mags not function flawlessly together.

I don't have any magic number. If I can run a box of Brand A SD ammo thru it without problems, I'm satisfied. If there's a gun versus ammo problem, it will show up. I don't go from Brans A to B to C etc. looking for a problem. If I'm happy with A, I load it up. In reality, I've never had an issue with any particular ammo brand. Call me lucky, I guess. But Glocks and the 4566 are know to feed just about anything that fits the chamber.

I've never had any experiences that led me to believe that an extended break in regime is necessary. My experience has been that if I'm having functioning problems with the first magazine, I'm probably going to continue having problems regardless of the round count. Thousands of law enforcement handguns are put into service with little or no break in. If modern autos required a lot of shooting in order to function properly, we would hear about LEO's being killed or wounded by the hundreds. I'm probably more concerned about the gun-ammo combination working well together than about breaking in a gun.

I usually get my butt handed to me for this, but this "breaking in" is whooie by manufacturers who don't make a quality product. Microscopic roughness on machined edges and all, when I fork over $1500-2000 for a top of the line 1911 (or whatever), that sucker should work. I'm paying for a finished product, not some half-finished one. I don't expect to have to call a tow truck every 100 miles in a new car, or if I did, it would be right back in the dealer's lap.

"It needs to loosen up." Then maybe the tolerances are too tight to begin with. If Brand so-and-so says it needs a 500 round break in period, the gun should come with 500 rounds or be fired 500 times before it's shipped out.

As much as people either love or hate Glocks, they work right out of the box and don't cost a fortune.

Don't go overboard here. If ALL YOUR MAGAZINES will handle GI hardball ammo then you should advance to the SD ammo testing.
A Magic Marker is great for identifying magazines. Keep a record of every problem in your range notebook and resolve it.
Be methodical. Be scientific. And keep a rangebook for every pistol.
Find what works and stick with it. This ain't brain science or rocket surgery.

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Fuego

Boils down to...Auto: many rounds. Revolver: few rounds. I've seen fail-to-feeds, stove-pipes, fail to go into batterys, fail to extracts, etc from Smith autos, Berrettas, Sigs, Glocks, 1911s, HKs. I have never seen a revolver fail to function due to the gun vs the ammo. I know I know, any mechanical device can fail. Just sayin'.

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Jon

Interesting thread, good information from a lot of you gents, I mentioned this in my 3914 thread about my own personal standard of testing the pistol that you intend to carry and run several hundred rounds of the type of ammo that you intend to use, how many rounds?, some of the old experts recommended a minimum of 500 rounds with zero malfunctions as the standard, one of this gents, the late Ray Chapman recommended that with any 1911, he was the master with this weapon and I was fortunate to have attended his academy back in '89, I graduated from his instructor course and we burned 45 acp ammo by the tons, I was in the Marines then and that is why I was able to afford the cost of the school and the ammo, even our highly customized Marine MEUSOC 1911's had problems.
I only carry two autos when I carry concealed, my smith 3914 which has passed this test with 147 gr hydra shok ammo and my Colt officers model 1911 which I use 230 gr hardball, or 185 gr silvertip this little colt has been reliable with this type of ammo, we used to use 45 acp silvertip ammo in the Marines to shoot pepper popper steel targets for practice to keep the splatter to a minimum at close range and I used my officers model to practice every now and then so she has more than enough rounds through to prove her reliability, I can't say the same about my 4 other colts.
But it's really up to the person to set up whatever standards for reliability, if you carry concealed, carry what gives you confidence.
Off the soap box...

My experience with my 457, 3914, and early square trigger guard 4506 is that they are all as close to perfect with regard to reliability as ANY autos ever made. The Glock and Model 92/96 Berettas are equally as reliable.

My long time love of 1911 Colt's, primarily Government models includes the knowledge that they are not particularly reliable until they have had some smith work, on the ramp primarily, and at least 1000 rounds of hard ball through them. They get better with age and will work better with 10000 rounds or more. My primary shooter, a Mark IV, Series 70 has easily 30000 rounds thru it. It is still not as reliable as any of the Smith models listed above. One should know and practice clearing a jam, be it stove pipe, nose first, failure to extract, double feed, or any other cause with any auto before you carry it as a personal defense piece.

Summary- carry the most reliable firearm you can, with the best performance ammo, newest magazines, shoot it often with the ammo you will carry........and train for the worst. If you have one failure, it will never be a '100% gun again.

I shoot 150 to 200 rounds of FMJ Ball ammo then shoot a box of carry ammo, then carry the gun.

Most people will say 250 to 500 rounds. To be truthful, I tend to cheat on those numbers with pistols such as Glock, while I tend to do far more work with say, a 1911. Fire enough to be comfortable with the reliability of your pistol.

A good wheel gun dont screw up. Smiths are all I have. If I went auto it would be a Glock.