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

[beltjones]

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.

This isn't a "let's bash pistol X" or "let's argue about whether Y is a good pistol" idea, instead I was hoping for more empirical data about the types of malfunctions you've seen and the guns they occurred in. It might be interesting to see if any patterns emerge that people weren't aware of previously.

I think the way to do it is to list the following:

Gun:
Setting:
How did it fail:
What was the remedy:
Was it your pistol or someone else's:

Notes:

[F-Trooper05]

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.

[Kyle Reese]

I'll bite.

Gun: Glock 19 Gen 3
Setting: TLG's Get SOM- 27 Feb 2010
How did it fail: Slide lock spring broke during the class
What was the remedy: JV had an extra one handy and the pistol was repaired during a break
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine

Notes- This Glock 19 had been my "standby" gun for several years, meaning it's been shot alot and maintenance (including the replacement of small parts) was sometimes overlooked. All that came to a head when I faced up the berm, locked and cleared my Glock 19, let the slide go forward and the slide proceeded to fly OFF the pistol.

Gun: PT M&P 9
Setting: NRA Range, March 2011
How did it fail: Trigger Spring broke
What was the remedy: Replace spring
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine

[orionz06]

Gun: M&P Pro 9mm
Setting: Indoor range
How did it fail: 2-3 FTE's
What was the remedy: Polish chamber/replace extractor
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine

Notes: I had a good bit of Winchester white box ammo left over from a few years ago and my USPc would have no issue with it, but the M&P did. I saved the brass from the failures and the rims were smaller, combine that with the extractor of the M&P at the time and the failure was very likely.

I polished the chamber and the problem did not occur since and I have gone through that ammo. Included in the ammo that was shot post-polish were many cases that had smaller diameter rims than the FTE cases.

[Pennzoil]

Gun: Glock 26 Gen3
Setting:2,000rd challenge / drills
How did it fail: multiple failures to return to battery
What was the remedy: New recoil spring
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine

Notes:
Bought this NIB to move into carry role and put my Glock 26 Gen2.5 into training/back- up role. Got 1100rds into the challenge and pistol would not fully return to battery on it's own power. Cleaned/inspected to find recoil spring felt extremely light. Replaced recoil spring gun is running fine now.

[Red Leader]

Gun: Rock Island GI 1911
Setting: range
How did it fail: failure to return to battery resulting in the case rim jumping ahead of the extractor. Several failures. Also failure to return to battery resulting in a 3 point jam - several when the pistol was brand new.
What was the remedy: adjust the extractor tension and shoot it more
Was it your pistol or someone else's: mine

Notes:
Once I learned a little more about 1911s (this was my first one), I checked the tension on the extractor and it was extremely tight. Once that loosened up the failures started to dissipate.


Gun: XD-45 service
Setting: range
How did it fail: Had 1 failure to return to battery and one stovepipe..
What was the remedy: break-in and new extra power AGP magazine springs.
Was it your pistol or someone else's: mine

Notes: Failures were in the first 50 rounds or so. With the FTRB, the round didn't get stripped from the magazine all the way, so just a little bump fed it. I should have cleaned it before using it. No issues after replacing magazine springs.


Gun: Jennings 9mm
Setting: out in the country
How did it fail: blew apart and the slide ejected right off the back of the gun with force.
What was the remedy: the gun kind of remedied itself - it made sure no one else had the misforture of shooting it again.
Was it your pistol or someone else's: someone else's.

Notes: my friend was firing this pistol at the time of its catastrophic failure. God was on our side - on the last few shots he was shooting from the hip. If it had been about two shots prior, it would have ejected off right back into his head.

[Joe in PNG]

Gun: CZ-52
Setting: Florida cow pasture
How did it fail: Broken trigger spring
What was the remedy: Hold upside down and shake. Later, replaced spring. Later, replaced gun.
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine

Gun: Glock 27
Setting: Regular practice
How did it fail: Slidelock with 1~2 rounds in mag.
What was the remedy: Change hand position
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine
Notes: Seems my thumb was engaging the slide lock under recoil with the gun nearly empty. I moved my SH thumb, problem solved.

Gun: High Standard Dura-matic 101 .22lr
Setting: Regular practice (every time I shoot the thing)
How did it fail: FTF after @50 rounds
What was the remedy: Clean at 40 rounds; need to figure out why it does that!
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine
Notes: Yeah, it's old. I probably need a new mag for it. I've already replaced all the other springs.

[Mitchell, Esq.]

Gun: Glock 19
Setting: Tactical Response Fighting Rifle
How did it fail: Broken slide-lock spring
What was the remedy: Replaced slide lock.
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine

[JV_]

My MP9 has failed the 2000 round challenge a couple of times. Come to think of it, the only time it passed was the first one that started at 500 rounds.

Gun: M&P 9
Setting: pistol-training.com class
How did it fail: Apex Trigger Spring Broke @ 4260 rounds
What was the remedy: Replace spring
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine

Gun: M&P 9
Setting: NRA Range
How did it fail: Apex Trigger Spring Broke @ 6205 rounds
What was the remedy: Replace spring
Was it your pistol or someone else's: Mine

I'm currently reevaluating my choice in trigger springs.

[JDM]

S&W 1911 PD
Range
Multiple light primer strikes.
My gun
It was traded away after a couple weeks of this nonsense. I'm pretty sure these were induced by the way I held the gun and the grip safety. I've spoken with the new owner a couple times and he says it runs great for him. Shame too, I really liked that piece.

Glock 20
Range
Multiple failures to return to battery
My gun
Traded for a gun that fit my hand better so I wasn't limp wristing.

Colt commander
Range
Several failures to feed.
My gun
Broke in the pistol, then it ran fine until traded.

S&W M&P .45
Range
My gun
With one particular Mag if you loaded all 10 rounds, the spring would kink and it wouldn't feed. I sent one mag back to Smith and got a new one, but the same problem happened. I traded the gun with the one reliable mag in on a third Gen G19.

Suffice to say I pretty much stick with
9mm Glocks now.