Guns That Delivered Way more than Expected

[Doc_Glock]

In the spirit of the recent disappointing and meh threads: have you every been surprised by a gun being a lot better than you ever imagined?

A few for me:

Glock 44: I expected this to be a typical .22 dog. I now have nearly 4000 rounds through it and 11 stoppages. This is with all sorts of ammo and I hardly keep it clean. Mean rounds between failure is 362, which is killer as far as I am concerned for a .22, and the thing is just fun as hell to shoot.

HK VP9: This is a strange pistol that seems to elevate my skill level instantly to 110% of what I am currently capable of.

Ruger Blackhawk .357: Wait, it doesn't have to be painful to shoot .357? This is pleasant even.

Just about any rifle: You mean I can align the sights and just get hit after hit at 100 yards on steel? Rifles are the easy button for a pistol shooter.

[Casual Friday]

Colt 6933. It just flat out runs.

[mtnbkr]

Ruger LCR: Great trigger, easy to shoot, less felt recoil than a comparable j-frame with the same ammo. I wouldn't consider buying a lightweight j-frame for carry.
Polymer80 Faux Glock: The fact that it works...

Chris

[Stephanie B]

Resnipered Mosin 91/30 with a PU scope. The rifle, which apparently had been chosen by random, had once been an issue sniper rifle. As a result, the trigger is very nice. I took two teenagers (who later went Army) shooting with it and some other rifles, including a Savage Mk.II .22, a Krag, a Springfield, a Garand, and a Interarms Mauser (.30-06). They shot everything, but they kept going back to the Mosin. They shot that enough to bubble the finish on the handguard.

Desnipered Mosin 91/30 PEM. By the time I bought this one, I had some idea what to look for. This rifle had the welded plug that indicated that it once held a PEM mount. It's accurate, has a pristine bore and a good trigger. I put a Mojo peep sight into it. If I was going out on a hunt in shitty weather, I'd take this rifle. The price of the rifle was the same as all the others in the bin ($125).

Enfield Mk.4 (Pakistan made), I shot this both in a service rifle match and a three-gun match. Loads of fun to do both. The service rifle math was fun; everybody else had nice shooting pads and shooting jackets, most had M-1As from Springfield. I had a mover's blanket and, as it was summer, I wore a t-shirt.

[FPS]

Another vote for the VP9

[Joe in PNG]

Beretta 92D Centurion, picked up for $300 at a gunshow.

Colt 9mm WC LW Commander- I can suck at longer distances now!

[AKDoug]

Ended up with an XDM40 as a gift. Being that it was a gift I ran the shit out of it. It was my interim gun between 1911's and going to Glock. Ran that pistol in two RedBack One classes with zero issues. Even won a patch as the most accurate shooter in one of those classes. Shot thousands of rounds with it in local steel challenge shoots and practical pistol shoots. I replace the firing pin retainer roll pin with a better one and that's the only maintenance I've done with it. Not a single failure with it at any point. I am way more accurate with it than my Glocks, but not necessarily faster. I ran it at a time when everybody said they were shit, and still keep running it even though I know they're supposed to be shit.

[Nephrology]

My RRA Predator Pursuit, my first AR-15. The upper was something of an impulse buy as it was on sale for very cheap. Bought and assembled a lower and put a Leupold 3-9 Mark AR Mod 1 on it. I knew nothing about ARs at the time and if I did I probably would have been turned off by the slickside freefloat tube (where am I going to put my WML??), the heavy unthreaded 20" match barrel (how do I mount a suppressor???), and RRA's reputation (should have bought a BCM!!).

Really glad I was totally ignorant to all of this as the gun is probably the most accurate thing in my safe. Barrel is sub-MOA with match ammunition, and because it's over 10lbs with the scope, recoil is effectively non existent. I could sit and shoot this thing all day. I just mounted a Vortex Viper PST 6-24 that I haven't had the chance to zero yet - hoping this changes soon.

[Baldanders]

My recent experience with a Glock 20 surpassed my expectations more than any other shooting experience ever. The only centerfire semi I have had a better experience with was a Les Baer.

I wish my rabid "gotta try 'em all" phase had lasted longer. Experience beats hypothesises about what might work well. I just didn't try enough big guns! (CZ-97b might have have stopped my experimentation. Not bad, but not my cup of tea)

[Evil_Ed]

PTR K3P (basically a G3K clone, in pistol form).

I SBRed it, thinking it was going to be annoying and I'll just sit on it for my collection, and maybe a 308 trunk gun. Before SBRing it, shot 60 or so rounds through it, thought "Hey, this isn't terrible"...

Fast forward; stamp came back, I put on a stock and bought an RCM #17/36 degree locking piece, specifically so I could run it with a 30 cal can on it. RCM of course made it to a weird spec, so even with the smallest rollers that money could buy, bolt gap was a tiny, tiny, tiny bit out of spec (on the large side). But, figuring it would settle in and the bolt gap would shrink with use, I loaded up a bunch of mags and went to the range anyway.

Pain. All those things everyone says about HKs beating the crap out of your shoulder? True, if the bolt gap is not in spec. To put it another way, 40 rounds on a compressed timetable through a 1903A3 was less painful than 10 rounds of 308 through this thing. I gave up and swapped the original locking piece and rollers back in and verified bolt gap. Wow...it's a soft shooter. And double wow, it actually cycles correctly with a can on it anyway; ejection is just about the same as without a can.

It's now probably my favorite 308 to bang around on. Until that moment, my favorite 30 cal gun was either one of my FALs, or my SCAR-H. I don't take those to the range anymore..

Admittedly I haven't really beat on it very much with a can affixed yet, so I don't know if it's going to develop roller dimples. I'm probably going to try another #17 locking piece, just to see if the first one was just garbage by itself..