"Reliability"

[Fon1961]

Establishing or acquiring performance requirements would be a great and you could argue that they are objective and comparable...but without performance data I'm not sure how useful it would be.

The impact of ammo would need to be considered if there was a malfunction, failure, ect ... agreed

I'm looking for requirements and reliability vs those requirements ...I guess that would take all the fun out of debating it tho lol...

I did find an interesting (based on a quick look) comparison site ... compares several parameters between guns ...reliability not being one of them ... http://gun-tests.com

[Malamute]

Not a specific performance requirement, but interesting reading,

http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.p...ound-Challenge

[Fon1961]

Not a specific performance requirement, but interesting reading,

http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.p...ound-Challenge

It's a great thread and very interesting IMO

[TCinVA]

Manufacturers do their own internal testing on various products they offer, but that is usually trade secret stuff they don't release publicly. About the best you will get is the testing requirements for military contracts and the like, but even that has limits.

The BATFE contract for .40 Glocks was a pretty rigorous test, and yet one of the reasons the FBI is moving to 9mm is that the same weapon that won that contract has proven to be problematic in mass issue.

[Alpha Sierra]

One could suffer paralysis by analysis

Or one could be practical, purchase a pistol from a reputable manufacturer and simply go shoot. If reliability problems arise, get them fixed or sell the pistol and buy something else.

[Hambo]

One could suffer paralysis by analysis

Or one could be practical, purchase a pistol from a reputable manufacturer and simply go shoot. If reliability problems arise, get them fixed or sell the pistol and buy something else.

Roger that. I wouldn't hop on the wagon of a brand new design, but pistols such as the 9mm Glocks and Beretta 92F have shown over decades how reliable they are. Even utterly reliable pistols suffer parts breakage with use and time. Pick a proven design, buy some spares of whatever has been shown to break, and drive on.

[TCinVA]

That's about the best you can do.

[justintime]

working as a range master and seeing thousands of rounds go down range everyday, I see every manufacture fall to failures of all kinds. Almost everyday I see a multitude of different malfunctions and I fill up a coffee can a week of bad ammo from reputable but mostly garbage ammo that has failed. All I can say is practice clearing malfunctions!

[ReverendMeat]

I think instead of trying to test one pistol for, say, 10,000 rounds it would be a more informative to test 10 randomly selected guns of the same model for a thousand rounds apiece. For designs that are known to be reliable, testing more samples would be more likely to turn up more manufacturing defects/QC issues, which tend to manifest in the first couple hundred rounds.

[GardoneVT]

I think instead of trying to test one pistol for, say, 10,000 rounds it would be a more informative to test 10 randomly selected guns of the same model for a thousand rounds apiece. For designs that are known to be reliable, testing more samples would be more likely to turn up more manufacturing defects/QC issues, which tend to manifest in the first couple hundred rounds.

For a statistically valid selection, one would need at minimum 30 pistols, and preferably more then that of each model.

Otherwise we run the risk of sample bias-ten guns out of tens of thousands won't reflect the likely reliability of the production line.

We also cannot assume that a brand is reliable enough to merit not testing, as once again were introducing personal bias into the testing process.

That's an expensive enough enterprise, but we'd also have to test the magazines -as a Glock 17 with a standard capacity may not necessarily perform the same way as a Glock 17 loaded with a 10-round magazine, and folks in restrictive states need reliable data as well. 30+ magazines for each tested model of firearm will add up fast-and in the case of HK this project would require a Federal Reserve loan to fund.