A different take on reliability - Guns you've personally seen fail

[gtmtnbiker98]

Gun: G19
Setting: AFHF
How did it fail: Improper assembly of slide stop
What was the remedy: Corrected assembly issue
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Someone else's


Gun: G34
Setting: AFHF
How did it fail: Light primer strikes
What was the remedy: Dirty striker channel, cleaned per factory spec.
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Someone else's


Gun: M&P 9 Pro
Setting: Sanctioned Match
How did it fail: Failure to extract
What was the remedy: Replaced extractor and sold the POS
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine.

[gtmtnbiker98]

Obviously there's a million examples that I could pop off, but here's the most recent...

Gun: SIG P226 X-Five
Setting: USPSA match
How did it fail: Multiple stove pipes
What was the remedy: N/A
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Someone else's

Notes:
Last Sunday at a USPSA match a guy had a somewhat new P226 X-Five and I counted at least five stove pipes throughout the course of the day. The guy was a big SIG fan and he was pretty bummed to say the least. I'm not sure what he did to remedy the issue, but I should see him again next week and I'll be sure to ask him.

Oh, the curse of the internal extractor.

[turbolag23]

Gun: Glock 23
Setting: Range
How did it fail: Slide locked open after every shot
What was the remedy: Installed slide lock spring properly
Was it your pistol or someone else's: mine

Notes: Installed #3.5 connector and didnt get the slide lock installed properly

Gun: Glock 27
Setting: Range
How did it fail: Multiple off center primer strikes
What was the remedy: work in progress, recoil spring, extractor next?
Was it your pistol or someone else's: mine

Notes: Purchased gun used 2-3k rounds later having multiple off center primer strikes, less frequent after recoil spring replaced, extractor looks pretty worn, will see if that fixes issues.

[Frank B]

Gun: Glock 30
Setting: Andy Stanfords Combat Week Austria 2003
How did it fail: Broken slide-lock spring
What was the remedy: Replaced slide lock spring later / proceed with my backup G19
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine


Notes: The gun was still working, but it was really hard to rack the slide.

[YVK]

Kimber 1911, 5 inch, external extractor model
Range.
Failures to eject.
Sent to smith, corrected, recurred at 5K rounds, traded at a loss and with full disclosure.

P7M8.
Range.
Two failures short time apart: broken firing pin bushing, broken drop catch safety spring, at approx 7.5K.
Pistol continued to fire with a broken bushing until I disassembled it. The drop safety spring prevented gun from cycling.
Repaired/replaced under HK warranty, I was/am the owner.

SW1911, 5 inch.
AHFH class.
Multiple failures to feed (fully return to battery) from a slidelock reload.
Gun wasn't mine, don't know what caused it.

Kahr, 4 inch steel model, don't know exactly the name.
John Farnam class.
Turned into a single shot, failure to extract and feed.
Not my gun, don't know the cause.

Saw another Kimber not work in a class, but wasn't close enough to know what went wrong.

[mlk18]

Gun: Glock 22
Setting: Summer Firearms Refresher
How did it fail: Multiple varied malfunctions
What was the remedy: See below.
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Department owned

Notes: 2 year old Glock 22's (approx. 3,000 rounds through each). Agency issued sidearms. Had multiple failures by multiple guns at a summer qualification. Had to replace several parts on over 90% of the guns, every gun needed a new striker assembly and guide rod / spring. We have since replaced numerous parts during routine inspection and maintenance, usually on Glock's dime. Interestingly enough our G23C's and G22C's have not had the same problems.


Gun: Ruger P89DC
Setting: Private Shooting Range
How did it fail: Extreme sub-par accuracy and approx. 10-12" off POA
What was the remedy: Returned to Ruger, they replaced with new pistol and no explanation.
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine

[jslaker]

Gun: S&W Sigma Series
Setting: Georgia State DNR Range
How did it fail: FTE
What was the remedy: Return to manufacturer; extractor replaced.
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Friend's father.

Notes: This gun belonged to a buddy of mine's dad. Partway through our range trip, he started experiencing constant FTEs and asked me to look at the gun. Locked the slide back, immediately saw that the extractor claw was broken off entirely. He was feeding brass cased ammo at the time, Monarch from Academy, IIRC.

Gun went off to S&W, they replaced the extractor sent it back to him.

Gun: S&W Sigma Series
Setting: Georgia State DNR Range
How did it fail: FTF
What was the remedy: Return magazines to manufacturer, replaced.
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Friend's father.

Notes: Same gun as before, next range trip. He began experiencing stoppages almost out of the gate. I looked at the gun again for him, and saw that the mode of failure this time were FTFs, apparently caused by the rounds nosediving badly in the magazine during feeding. Magazines went back to S&W, and were replaced. I don't believe he had any problems after that. I do know that he remarked that he wished he'd gone ahead and spent the extra $150 or so to buy a Glock as he'd only owned the gun a few months at that point.

[Pennzoil]

Gun: Glock 19 Gen3 (2 pin frame)
Setting: range playing with Burris Shotcam
How did it fail: Repeatable failure to feed
What was the remedy: +10% wolf magazine springs or remove 7oz Burris Shotcam
Was it your pistol or someone else's: mine

Notes: Got pictures and video of this one. I used multiple magazines even a new one and still had issues till I got +10% springs.



Good thread.
Looks like I need to add a spare slide lock and slide lock spring to my spare parts kit when I go to Glockmeister this week.

[BNg47]

Fusion Firearms Tact-5 (1911) in .40 S&W
-----------
First range visit was 710 rounds, of which roughly half were failure to feeds and failure to ejects.

Thumb safety could not be put in the "safe" position.

Slide failed to lock back on last round at least 60% of the time.

Gun was later converted to 10mm and problems were fixed by me.

[TCinVA]

I'm not impugning anyone's integrity, but you only need to read through the 2000 round challenge thread a few times before you start to get the sense that either very few guns ever have problems, or people have selective memories when it comes to how their pistols perform.

It's true that a number of people do have selective malfunction remembrance syndrome, but if you look through that thread the majority of the pistols reported are 9mm Glocks, M&P's, and P30's...probably the three best handgun options on the market at the moment. Even at that, there are plenty of malfunctions reported.

My P30 has, so far, not experienced a malfunction of any sort. The M&P I reported in the thread has encountered problem, one failure to extract and several failures to fire (bad Russian ammo that wouldn't fire on a second strike or from another gun)...but none took place within the 2,000 round challenge period.

I'm not skeptical about what we're seeing in the 2,000 round challenge thread to this point as it's consistent with what I've seen in similar threads on other boards and overall is consistent with what I've seen on the range.

As for what I've seen break, darn near everything. I think the only weapons I have not witnessed a malfunction with are the P30 and the HK45...and I've only seen a few of those weapons in classes compared to everything else.