What is the worst gun you ever owned ?

[Yaworski]

An FEG "Hungarian HiPower" that wouldn't go more than 10 rounds without a FTF, no matter the magazine or extractor exchange.

Interesting. I bought an FEG High Power (PJK-9HP) and never had a problem with it.

 

[Rick Sanborn]

Whitney Wolverine. Wont function worth a darn, I still own it. Cool gun to look at anyway. AMT Hardballer .45, overall junk. Didn’t keep that one.

 

[AJ]

Interesting. I bought an FEG High Power (PJK-9HP) and never had a problem with it.

Some days it is just the luck of the draw.

 

[Warren Sear]

Jennings 22LR pistol. Absolute junk.

 

[RobertJ.]

An FEG "Hungarian HiPower" that wouldn't go more than 10 rounds without a FTF

Yours may have been the exception, not the rule. I've had two that worked flawlessly, even with reloads.

 

[brendonjames65]

Interesting. More than a few posted they had defective guns that were fixed/repaired by the factory. The guns I described simply could not be fixed and were just junk. I would have been quite pleased if they were fixable!

 

[Farmer17]

I've owned over a hundred guns and I don't think I ever got a bad one considering the money spent. Once bought a Raven .25 ACP for $39.95 brand new at a gun store in the late 1980s. It jammed a few times out of hundreds of rounds but I think my thumb may have hit the slide, it was so tiny. Bought a Davis Chrome Derringer in .32 acp for under 50 bucks that couldn't hit a pie plate at 20 feet but it was perfectly reliable and very concealable and with Silvertip hollow points I had more confidence in it than the wimpy .25 autos of the day. I did have a Smith M28 .357 that dragged a little on a couple of chambers but I bought it used so the previous owner probably did the "Hollywood wrist flip" to close the cylinder. I have never needed to send a gun back to the factory or have a gunsmith repair it. If I had to pick the absolute most reliable gun it would be the Ruger 10/22. I have had at least four of them and put thousands upon thousands of all kinds of .22 ammo through them and never had one single jam.

 

[.357magger]

Yours may have been the exception, not the rule. I've had two that worked flawlessly, even with reloads.

I certainly hear what you're saying, but I've gotta go with my own lying eyes.

Conversely, I've owned an FEG AK that ran like a scalded cat with anything I ever fed it. And I fed it some really crappy steel cased smoke bombs too. Total Energizer Bunny, regardless.

But I still will never own another FEG pistol.

 

[AJ]

If I had to pick the absolute most reliable gun it would be the Ruger 10/22. I have had at least four of them and put thousands upon thousands of all kinds of .22 ammo through them and never had one single jam.

We run a "Steel Challenge" .22 Match at our local range once a month. Just about everyone using the 10/22's has jams of some sort. It does not matter if it is an out of the box rifle or a fully tricked out rifle. Maybe it is their ammo or lack of cleaning or just lack of oil, but jam they do......If you have never had one jam, then count your blessings!

 

[Holden6v8]

A tie: Smith 61 Escort and Taurus Poly Defender

The Escort: Correctly called the Jam-o-Matic, never ran

Poly: Just plain ugly and made like Mattel. A curse on Taurus' reputation which has gotten better.

 

[firefighterjohn]

The first gun I ever bought. Well, Dad bought it for me using my money since I was about 13 or 14. A Winchester Model 190 that turned out to be a jammomatic. I hated that thing. A little research online these days shows that it may have had a loose barrel nut. No such info available in the mid '70s when I bought it. Traded it in on a old Stevens clip fed bolt action .22 that was a much better rifle for me.

I hear ya, I bought a 190 years ago and it was a jammer also. After fighting that stupid long spring that went all the way into the stock, I traded it off for a Glenfield Model 60.

 

[Grayfox]

I had a RG-22 once. With luck, four of the six rounds would actually fire. But I bought it for a reason. Gave $10 for it and two weeks later turned it in at a gun buyback program for $75 worth of gas and grocery gift certificates.

The most aggravating, worst gun I ever owned was a S&W 4006. I bought that when they first came out. Yep, I fell for the hype and just had to get one. This gun shot patterns rather than groups. I fought it for two years. I tried just about every factory load as well as hand loading every bullet and powder available. Never could get it to shoot worth a damn!
Finally just gave up and traded it at a big loss just to be rid of the damned thing.

 

[LVSteve]

I hear ya, I bought a 190 years ago and it was a jammer also. After fighting that stupid long spring that went all the way into the stock, I traded it off for a Glenfield Model 60.

Ah, the Glenfield 60. Out of the guns I own that I have fired, this is the worst. The previous owner had not cleaned it in years and I seem unable to get all the .22 LR soot and junk out of the trigger mechanism. "Gritty" does not cover the feel of the trigger. Disassembly of the trigger mechanism looks a bit daunting, so any advice on getting the crud out would be welcome.

Of my unfired (by me) guns, the prize goes to a Mannlicher 1895 carbine I picked up in a job lot. It is a typical long rifle cut down to carbine length and rechambered in 8x56. Straight pull guns are supposed to be quick and easy to operate, but this one is far from that. Seems there are some tweaks I should try with the extractor to make it work better, but that's a project for another day.

 

[Daimler1989]

over the last 40 years, I had quite a number of guns (which isn't easy over here in Germany because of our prohibitive gun laws). Bought and sold some again to have room on my license for another one. The only one I traded in to be allowed to buy another was a 9mm 1911 Randall Service, because I could not sell it to anyone. This pistol would never function flawlessly, FTF, FTE, FTC, all kind of malfunctions you don't expect from a then 1000 D-Mark gun (back in 1988). After half a year of frustration I found out that there was a .45 ejector installed, but after fixing that, the problems still were the same. Traded it after one year with the gunsmith I had bought it and got a Steyr GB, which I now own for 35 years, and had exactly 3 (!!) malfunctions in that time (fired about 15000 rounds since then). Compared to that the Randall was a piece of c....

regards from Germany
Ulrich

 

[Inusuit]

My first handgun. Iver Johnson Trailsman 66. I wanted a Ruger Single Six, but Dad an IJ when he was a kid and insisted. I think $39.50 or so, circa 1960. Gun was apparently not designed for a teenager to put hundreds of rounds through it. Started failing to index. Back to the factory twice, not fixed. Dad finally let me trade it for a used Ruger.

 

[SteveA]

Commando Arms .45 carbine. Looked like a Thompson and used grease gun mags. It would hit a 50 gallon drum, but only if you were inside said drum. Jammed about every 3 rounds as well. Traded it at Pat's Pawn & Gun in Ogden, Kansas on my 21st birthday for a Dan Wesson .44. Close to an even swap as I recall.

 

[BRL40]

Wow you guys got some really sad stories to tell so I'll add mine.
Was into 1911's for a while and figured a cool little Derringer in .45ACP would be a nice addition since I had plenty of ammo.
Ordered a American Derringer Corporation model and finally the day arrived so I raced to the gun shop to pick it up.
Beautiful looking gun.
The dang thing keyholed out of both barrels and the lands were so shallow I couldn't get them to grab even .454 diameter bullets.
What a disappointment.

 

[Banjo 10-79]

First gen S&W Sigma 40, the Glock n Wesson. Bought it for a song when a local agency was transitioning from the S&W Model 66. Worst trigger ever, reminded me of a staple gun. Only paid $200 for it with 3 standard capacity magazines during the Clinton ban. Made money when I sold it but I should’ve bought the 66 for $150 back then. One of my biggest didn’t buy regrets.

 

[DWalt]

Mine is an oddball. A Davis-Warner "Infallable" in .32 ACP. It's one of those guns that prompts warnings not to shoot it because the bolt (it does not have a slide) can come out in firing and hit you in the face. Despite that, I did attempt to shoot it. It jammed nearly every shot. And is about the weirdest-looking gun you will ever see. But I still have it mainly because it is so unusual in its design and examples are very scarce and almost never seen. It was once the pride of my fairly extensive collection of early 20th Century American-made pocket pistols. The Warner Infallible

 

[dsf]

Volquartsen Evolution - their entry into centerfire rifles. Picture an overgrown Ruger 10/22 with an (almost) AR 15 bolt head that takes AR 15 magazines.

First 3 or 4 trips to the range the bolt head broke during the 1st mag. They sent me a new bolt head each time, then the whole bolt body fractured and was dead stuck. Sent it back, they fixed it .... until it broke again.

Sent it back again, waited forever. Called and got a "gun, what gun?" response. They found it, said it couldn't be fixed and replaced it. Sent it back - with a broken stock. Replaced the stock with a laminated avocado green layered laminated that still stunk of bonding material.

The gun works now, but what I just described took almost 2 years.

Aggravating as heck. I guess it all worked out.