When is a gun "Reliable Enough"? How do you measure reliability?

[Sanch]

As a type 2 diabetic I'm familiar with the glycemic index of foods whereby it's measured from 0 to 100 where 100 is by definition, just pure raw sugar since you can't get sweeter than that!

I have been interested in the concept of "reliable enough" because of the crop of pistol caliber carbines like the Ruger PCC. I hear mixed reviews about reliability. Previously I was interested in the Keltec Sub 2000 guns but also heard mixed reviews about reliability. Many people swear by them, but I'm not sure if they are "reliable enough" for me.

If I apply the glycemic index to guns, perhaps a 3rd gen Glock or a good Combloc AK would be 100. Not that they are perfect and they can certainly have a malfunction but they seem to be the pinnacle of reliability in modern guns, at least in my limited personal experience and what the common wisdom of a lot of the internet community seems to be. And I know a lot of people hate Glocks and reliability may have decreased over time since the third gen. I'm not trying to argue Glocks and AKs are the best, just using them as an example to describe my idea for a framework.

Perhaps a good AR might fall in the 95 to 99 range. For me, using good ammo and good mags I'd rate my AR experience at around 99 on this arbitrary reliability scale with AK at 100. Personally, I prefer ARs to AKs because reliability isn't the only metric I'm concerned with. Accuracy and usability are also important the AR is vastly superior to the AK than me. I don't mean to turn this into an AK versus AR thread, the community here seems very reasonable to know both are good. I like both.

From what I've read about the Ruger PCC, maybe that falls around 80 to 90 on this scale. I'm just making numbers up. I don't mean that to be it jams 10% to 20% of the time. But I don't think the "reliability index" should refer to malfunction rate, because then the AK might be 99.999% and the AR might be 99.99% and the Ruger PCC might be 99.9% reliable. Meaning the AK might jam 1 in 100k, the AR might jam 1 in 10k and the Ruger PCC might jam 1 in 1,000. But, those numbers are not as easy to compare in that linear scale, as compared too using something like a logarithmic scale where the difference of 10 units is 100x more or less reliable.

All of these numbers are arbitrary. I really don't care if you think ARs are more reliable than AKs. It would have to be tested scientifically to know for sure. What I do care about is the question of "what is reliable enough?"

If the Ruger PCC jams 1 in 1000 times, is it reliable to use for home defense? That's pretty damn good odds that you'll survive without a jam. But the stakes are high (death). I think that's Claude Werners line, it's not the odds, it's the stakes.

My concern with the Ruger PCC reviews (And I don't mean to turn this into a Ruger bashing thread either, just using it as an example for the concept I'd like to discuss), is that it has a small break in period, and then works great for a few thousand rounds, and then starts to malfunction. So what if it's working great, flawless, and you need to use it for a self defense scenario at the margin where it starts to malfunction due to whatever mechanical reason the guns seem to be malfunctioning at higher round counts?

The Beretta 1301 is very interesting to me. Semi auto shotguns didn't catch my interest for a long time because they were thought to be less reliable. However, the 1301s are reported to be extremely reliable. Not perfect. Maybe a 95 to 99 on my arbitrary reliability index? But to the point where the liklihood of operator error by short stroking a pump action (that might be 100 on the reliability scale) exceeds the liklihood of mechanical failure of the 1301, so you're better off with a 1301.

By all accounts, the 1301 is "reliable enough" according to SMEs. The Ruger PCC, I'm not sure. It seems the jury is still out.

Rather than bash any particular gun, I'm curious to develop a mental framework for what "reliable enough" means that I can apply for the next 50 years to new guns as they come out. Does it just involve some type of standardized test like the Military SOCOM test shooting X rounds in Y time frame under Z conditions without failure? Is it purely subjective, because maybe the AR is marginally less reliable than the best AK, but most would still choose the AR because the shortcomings of the AK platform on other fronts do not make up for the very small reliability increase and quite frankly the AR is "reliable enough" so the marginal increase to reliability of the AK doesn't really matter?

What is the minimal level of reliability a gun must have for you to say it's good enough?

[Josh Runkle]

Reliable enough for what? Home defense? Competition? Being dropped out of an airplane? Does it need to be reliable at 14k feet in sub zero temperature or at 95 degrees in 300% humidity? Reliability and purpose go hand in hand. For example, I might only care if a competition gun ran in sub zero temperatures 95% of the time because I might never plan to be outside competing in that temperature. However, if it were my carry gun and I lived in Alaska and I worked outside, that’s a different story.

For me, reliable enough means that I set a specific purpose for the tool, and then set about performing realistic testing on the tool in a similar set of conditions.


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[Josh Runkle]

For competition or hunting, reliable enough just means whatever results you can live with and still enjoy shooting.

For carry, I still typically do the 2,000 round test. Clean, inspect, use reliable ammo, shoot 2,000 rounds without cleaning and you should have zero stoppages or malfunctions.


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[Josh Runkle]

Start here:

http://pistol-training.com


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[JRB]

I posted this in another thread before, but it's just as relevant here:



The 12 step P-F sidearm selection cycle:

Step 1 - Buy/Own a pistol
Step 2 - Take it to the range, shoot it until you trust it and feel confident; CHL permit+McHolster.
Step 3 - blahblahblahblahblahblah
Step 4 - Get a Glock 19/Beretta 92 and take a class; realize shot timer phone apps are garbage; McHolsters suck
Step 5 - Realize you shoot a Beretta 92/Glock/(Other Gun) better during the class
Step 6 - Buy six flavors of Beretta/Glock/(Other Gun) and holsters
Step 7 - 1911...oooo shiny
Step 8 - Take another class; how did I end up with so many holsters; dot torture
Step 9 - Distracted diversion to HK/CZ/Sig/M&P/[Other Gun]; sell off guns and holsters to buy more guns and holsters
Step 10 - REVOLVERS, BY GOD!
Step 11 - Carry Optics/Red Dots/All the Widgets and Gizmos
Step 12 - Flip a coin - Heads, return to step 4. Rails, return to step 1.

This is Step 3 thinking. Spend as little time on Step 3 as possible. Enjoy all the other steps.

[Hambo]

Step 3 - blahblahblahblahblahblah

[fixer]

The gun has to be reliable enough that the occasional stoppage is attributable to ammo.

[Robinson]

The gun has to be reliable enough that the occasional stoppage is attributable to ammo.

Or maybe a magazine.

I usually want a pistol to shoot at least 500 rounds with no malfunctions before I feel comfortable carrying it. A significant percentage of those rounds needs to be with hollow points. My current carry gun has never malfunctioned, but that doesn't mean it can't or never will. But I am pretty darn confident it will function properly if the need arises.

[whomever]

So here's a table of probabilities, where the first column ('P') is the probability of failure on any single round, and the 'n=' are the number of shots fired. For example, if your gun/ammo fails 1 in 100 times on average, the probability you will experience zero problems in 20 rounds is 81.8%.

P          n=5      n=10     n=20     n=40
.01        95.1      90.4      81.8      66.9
.001       99.5      99.0      98.0      96.1
.0001      99.9      99.9      99.8      99.6

So figure out how many shots you might fire in a fight, and then how reliable your gun is. If you carry a J frame with no reloads, you'd be looking at the n=5 column.

It's worth remembering that this gives the probability of getting off all N rounds with zero problems, If your gun chokes 1 in a thousand times (p=.001) and you fire 20 rounds, there is a 98% chance you get all 20 off, and a 2% chance you don't - but remember the malfunction might occur on the first round, or the last. On average, you'd get several off.

'The glass is half full' view of this is that even relatively unreliable guns are likely to work long enough to get through typical self defense cases w/o failures.
'The glass is half empty' view is that it would really suck to encounter the unlikely time when the failure happens early.

My personal sense is that sweating uber-low failure rates is like sweating over which hollowpoint is best; I'd rather have a slightly flaky gun I have shot a lot than the world's most reliable gun that I don't shoot well or haven't shot a lot. YMMV, of course.

[RevolverRob]

If you're going to carry something unreliable - it should be heavy.

Heavy is good. Heavy is reliable. If it doesn't work you can always hit him with it.