Your idea of the most disappointing firearm..
- Thread starter RonJ
- Start date
biquer
Member
Magnum Research BFR 45-70. Lots of promise of purported quality. A frame screw was permanently loose after one brief range session. It was returned to the distributer via local dealer. Lots of money tied up for 7 weeks getting them all to make a decision. Got full refund and will stay away from MR in the future.
DeadWhiteGoose
Member
- Joined
- May 23, 2011
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Wow, so mini-14s are a no go? I had thought about getting one in place of an AR. Just felt it looks classier and less ruthless. Now I dont want to
Definitely get the AR. Set up correctly, they are a wonderful shooting platform.
williamlayton
Member
For the money and the Name :
1970's/80's Colt Mustang in .380.
Blessings
1970's/80's Colt Mustang in .380.
Blessings
If its "less ruthless" you want, get a KelTec SU16 or one of the hunter special camo ARs. Both also use standard AR mags.
I hear people claim "well these latest ones are accurate" but I assume that is just relative to the garbage they've been peddling for years
Roundsworth
US Veteran
The Walther P22 has the potential to be a great little gun. After I fired a few boxes of ammo through mine, I had no problem identifying the deep, ugly gouges in the slide where the disconnector(?) made contact. I found out, after I bought the gun, that this was a common problem. Aside from that, I was impressed. I got rid of it and bought a new Bearcat, which is another story. Bill Ruger was a mastermind with his numerous investment casting procedures. My Bearcat failed, due to the cylinder stop not engaging the little projection on the hammer. I took the gun apart and discovered that all the parts appeared to be cast and thrown together, with no evidence of handfitting. That's okay, I guess, but the tolerances are really big, which allows parts to be drawn from a bin and put together with no worries. My plan was to fix the cylinder stop, which I did, and do a little stoning on the moving parts. The components just flopped around in the receiver. Stoning anything would have made it worse.
Soooo....after my long-winded response, the P22 and Bearcat could be great guns with some tweeking. Cheers!
Soooo....after my long-winded response, the P22 and Bearcat could be great guns with some tweeking. Cheers!
StatesRightist
Member
Actually relative to what they are sold as, carry/ranch rifles. They were never sold as a precision battle rife. Comparing a Mini-14 to an AR is like comparing an Accord to a Shelby Mustang and complaining the Accord is a terrible car because it's not as fast as the Mustang.
*** does not apply to the mid-90's and before Mini-14's...I know they were inaccurate. I'm referencing the redesigned ones.
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Not to be a know it all but the Mustang did not come out until 1986.
Glock 22. My department "upgraded" from the Glock 17 in 2001 and we spent over 10 years regretting it. We have had so many issues I could not even convince the powers that be to go back to the excellent Glock 17 (Gen1-3). No more Glocks, but now we issue M&P's and couldn't be happier. I wouldn't trust a Glock 22 to prop a door open reliably.
I'd make the claim that a carry/ranch rifle needs to be more accurate than a battle rifle. One get used to kill smallish animals from a distance and protects the life of a lone person. The other provides cover fire with a bunch of other people helping out.
Lets not forget that Ruger did try to compete with the M16 with the AC556, so they also tried to claimed it was "a precision battle rifle."
A gun like the Mini14 or Mini30 need not be a 1/2 MOA tack driver, but I'd expect it to be significantly better than a Hi-Point 9mm carbine running cheap FMJs.
I had a Mini 14 for awhile. A barrelled action of one was left on a shelf of a house that I bought in 1986. I sent it to Ruger to be reblued and while it was there had them to check it for accuracy. Even back then I heard stories of their inaccuracy. When it returned I put it in a stock that I had bought at a gun show and took it to the range. It shot pretty well -- until the barrel heated up. Once the barrel heated up its groups opened up significantly. I think that a lot of the complaints about their inaccuracy stem from shooting them with a hot barrel. It didn't take much to heat it up either. My vote for the most dissappointing gun would be the Remington 742 that I once traded for. I never could get that rifle to shoot well. I carried it around to more than a few gun shows before I finally traded it off.
I had an Armalite AR-180 years ago, and though it was fun to shoot I couldn't group as well as I can with my Mini-14. The mini is not near as accurate as an AR, but it is reliable. I wouln't shoot at targets more than 100 yards away though.
As far as Smiths go, it's gotta be the Sigma series. I know some folks here on the forum love them, but they are not for me. They had great promise, being the first potentially viable competition for Gaston's "perfection", but QC on the earlier ones was poor, so they lost their potential place in history.
As far as Smiths go, it's gotta be the Sigma series. I know some folks here on the forum love them, but they are not for me. They had great promise, being the first potentially viable competition for Gaston's "perfection", but QC on the earlier ones was poor, so they lost their potential place in history.
ol' geeser
Member
I have a 180 series Mini-14....first run 200th year....bought new in '76, probably has 6-7000 rds. thru it by now and it has never failed to "deliver the mail" within 150 yds. or so.
My 197 (I Think) prefixed Mini 30 is a hog killin' machine inside of 100yds. Heavily wooded river bottom is perfect for it....anything past 150 yds. the 270 comes out to play
My 197 (I Think) prefixed Mini 30 is a hog killin' machine inside of 100yds. Heavily wooded river bottom is perfect for it....anything past 150 yds. the 270 comes out to play
Gunslinger808
Member
Those AR 7 .22 survival rifles that pack into the stock.
Tried Two different ones and both had terrible extraction problems.
These are the old ones from the mid 80s, I have no idea if the newer Henry's are any better, and have no desire to find out.
Tried Two different ones and both had terrible extraction problems.
These are the old ones from the mid 80s, I have no idea if the newer Henry's are any better, and have no desire to find out.
sigp220.45
US Veteran
Mine was a Browning BuckMark .22 rifle. My two sons both got CMP Garands, but my daughter had no interest in one. We trooped down to Sportsman's Warehouse and she picked out the Browning. She was about 10 at the time, and liked the thumbhole stock and the fiber optic sights. She called it her "space gun". It wasn't cheap - around five bills.
All was good until we shot it. No matter what ammo we tried, enough stuff was ejected from the action that it was painful (and probably dangerous) to shoot.
I sent it back to Browning. They sent it back. It did the same thing.
I sent it back to Browning again. They sent it back to me again. It did the same thing again.
In one of my many phone calls to the folks at Browning I was told that when you hold a pistol action next to your face you were going to get splattered.
For the record I once draped a piece of paper over the action and fired one round. There were holes in both sides of the paper.
By this time my little girl was bravely acting like she still liked her space gun, but it was just to keep from hurting my feelings.
I finally sold it at a loss with full disclosure and got her a nice, older 10/22.
She's 18 now, and not really an enthusiastic shooter. I hold the space gun at least partly responsible.
All was good until we shot it. No matter what ammo we tried, enough stuff was ejected from the action that it was painful (and probably dangerous) to shoot.
I sent it back to Browning. They sent it back. It did the same thing.
I sent it back to Browning again. They sent it back to me again. It did the same thing again.
In one of my many phone calls to the folks at Browning I was told that when you hold a pistol action next to your face you were going to get splattered.
For the record I once draped a piece of paper over the action and fired one round. There were holes in both sides of the paper.
By this time my little girl was bravely acting like she still liked her space gun, but it was just to keep from hurting my feelings.
I finally sold it at a loss with full disclosure and got her a nice, older 10/22.
She's 18 now, and not really an enthusiastic shooter. I hold the space gun at least partly responsible.
I bought a couple of those, in .357, .44 mag, and .45 ACP (I guess that makes 3, and not a couple!) I liked them, and mine didn't have the light strikes problem that many experienced with this model. I ended up trading them when I decided I wanted to focus on 1911s (mainly) and semi-autos in general, rather than revolvers. I also decided that I didn't want to own a gun with a built-in lock. I know they can be removed, but I don't like the design, and that is something that can be categorized as a MAJOR disappointment in S&W's product line.
