Posted: 12/26/2009 5:48:58 AM EDT
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Done. Just plain done fooling around. If it doesn’t say Glock on an auto or S&W on a revolver, it isn’t coming into the house. Having both, I was looking around for something to play with last summer and fall. Cool gun, barbeque gun, potting around plaything gun, pocket gun, just for fun something different gun. Raided momma’s cookie jar and was ready to participate in the economy.
Bought a SIG. Could not fire 10 rounds in a row without failing to feed, fire, or extract 2 or 3 times. Repaired by SIG and resold unfired. Bought a KelTec PF-9. Primer flow from standard 9mm 147 grain HydraShocks welded the firing pin hole shut in addition to magazines not entering the grip, dropping the loaded mag on the first shot, and keyholing. The gun fired a total of 3 (three) rounds before packing up totally. Dealer 100% refund. So I looked at Taurus PT1911 pistols. The prices have risen to within $20 of other makers entry level guns and are no longer a bargain. Priced out of their own market. There seem to be a lot of issues with them, the finish wears off rapidly, and you have to buy new mags for any sort of reliability. So I looked at a Taurus PT132. Cannot find a dealer with one to sell, cannot find anyone who has one who will admit it, and no info on reliability other that a G&A story with about zero details like the guy never even saw the real gun. So I looked at Kimber II pistols. Seemed nice, but slippery grip with no checkering and hard to see black only sights, no white dots. Nice trigger. Some people liked them and others had problems with them. This one feeds X ammo but not Y ammo. A different gun feeds Y ammo but not X. Give me a break. Sounds like the old story, which of the half dozen Kimber companies over the years made this one. Same story with STI entry level gun. Genuine Phillipines Armscor frame and slide with an STI trigger and hammer set. Whoop Te Do. The metal work was so bad I thought the frame was plastic, and I don’t mean Glock polymer. So I quit. I have been reading and learning for a month or two. Most of these auto pistols are randomly dependable. Some or many of them work of a particular model. For no obvious reason, some or a lot don’t work of the same exact model. Cheap 1911s don’t seem like a reliable item. Cheap plastic and steel guns seem even less reliable from the off brand makers. The more power someone pours into a smaller package, the less reliable the product seems. And that doesn’t speak to good or poor designs or good or poor quality control. Or to good or poor customer service. Every web site has its buffs whose personal guns always work after they have polished them up. Good on them. It seems like a personal challenge for them to make a substandard product perform as they wish. Or send it back until it does. Granted, web sites catch a lot of bad stories and skip the good ones. The web sites also miss the mass of sillies who buy a gun, load it, and never fire it knowing it will work since it is new. If you carry a gun, you carry it to shoot if needed every single time. Most of these won’t unless you fiddle with them, polish them, send them back for refitting and fixing, and you shoot $200 of each ammo type per brand to see if it “likes” that ammo brand and bullet style. Breaking them in costs as much as the gun ammo price wise. If a factory cartridge fits into the magazine of a Glock 9mm, 40S&W, or .45acp and is of remotely normal power for the caliber, it will feed, fire, and eject. Bet your life on it out of the box. Save the frustration of off brand toys. They work. I think the main reason is the super quality magazines from Glock and the straight into the chamber feeding angle from the magazine. The slide pushes the round forward into the big hole, not up a half inch ramp. And if you can see at all, you can put the big white dot into the big white three sided box and pull the trigger. Perfect holster guns and a M26 is manageable in a pocket, if you must. Ditto with the S&W M&P340 Scandium .357 with a Big Dot Tritium front sight. If you put it into the chambers and pull the trigger, it fires to hit where ever you put the front sight. Perfect pocket gun. No frustration. It is reliable to bet your life on. If a lightweight J frame is too brutal, even with .38 or .38 +P ammo, buy virtually any K frame Smith .38 and be well armed. Having finally figured out I already possess the Holy Grail, I quit looking around. |
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Nice rant, I have felt the same way. In 9mm, Glocks cannot be beat. No expereicne on .40's (not a round I like/utilize).
HOWEVER, you let some bad 1911's ruin your 1911 experience. Shoot a nicer one, and while I understand its easily double the price of a G21, they tend to be the best delivery platform of .45. JMHO. |
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An excellent post! In the past I've nearly given up on firearms altogether due to all my experiences with quality control issues, manufacturing defects, and poorly engineered firearms. My attitude is much like yours, if it doesn't say Glock, they can keep it. I wish Glock would build a .22 semi-auto rimfire, I've had to jump through way too many hoops to make my Ruger semi-autos reliable. Now that they are, I'll keep them around. My once extensive collection of handguns now is a majority of Glock with a few T/C Contenders, S&W pinned and recessed .44's, a few Ruger .22 semi-autos, and a couple of USFA SAA revolvers. Everything else, the SIG's, all the 1911's, the HK's have been sold off for firearms that are reliable, don't have manufacturing shortcuts, or in the case of the 1911's, finicky personality problems that make going to the range an exercise in pain. Like you, once I figured out what works I dumped the rest and started actually enjoying shooting again... |
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Good on the HK. I respect anything that works.
Good on the Colt revolvers also. They work. I have a Officer's Model Match .38 6" that is a gem. From looking, shooting, reading, and internetting, it isn't that this gun or that brand has a percentage of problems or a high percentage of problems or random defects or usually good reliability, but sometimes not. The fact seems to be that it is a distinct effort to find a brand that is reliable. Glock and S&W revolvers are and Colt revolvers certainly are. As to other brands, I didn't bother to mention the Springfield 1911 with about an 8# pull, the FBI SWAT 1911 that jambed 2 or 3 times per magazine shooting ball ammo (a Springfield I think) which then ceased working at all before 100 rounds (it got dirty), ParaExperts with the finish wearing off from gun counter handling, Walther .380s that drop a full magazine when the chambered top off round is fired, Ruger LCPs that fire when dropped until you get the recall done, Ruger LCRs with easy recoil because of a monster rubber grip that gets stuck on every piece of fabric that touches it, and on and on. Especially the original buy the Colt auto and then spend three times that much to make it run accurately. No bias there. I had a Series 70 Gold Cup I carried everyday for two years in the mid 1970's. Perfection, but no longer made like that. WW2-Korea Colt-Rem/Rands-Ithaca 1911s from the arms room all ran perfectly if clean and not too much sand or dirt was added. I personally don't think all the new 1911s by various companies are made as well. Or more probably in the efforts to factory accurize them, they have lost their reliability. If they ever knew or understood the idea, American gun companies have forgotten the damn things have to work. This time, everytime, all the time. Reliable sells guns. People pay for reliable even if it is ugly. Glock understood this. The first accross the board out of the box reliable auto pistol. No one cares much if it is plastic or steel, aluminum forged or stamped, just so it works. If it weren't for all the Glock copies, Glock would own the entire auto pistol market. I think it is a shame consumers accept the junk sold to us a big prices. Or pay say Rock River's prices for a reliable 1911. A little more piss offed ness among consumers and these companies would try a little harder. My first rule is simple now. If a company's warranty won't pay to ship it back to them during the warranty period, don't buy it. As in if they do not automatically send you a call tag per their policy, don't waste your money. If it is too small and light for the caliber, wait a couple years to see if they actually work. If the Owners Group website specializes in "Fluffing and Buffing" a poorly machined product, don't waste your money. |
| Sound like you are tired of projects and just want weapons. You'll be hard pressed to gain the trust in much else once you have pushed a couple glocks to the limits. There are a lot of other great companies and weapons, but for the money and out of the box satisfaction, really none better. Maybe equal, but not more reliable. |
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Oh, so precisely said.
Two piles of handguns. #1. Weapons for keeping self intact in a dangerous world. Things that have to work absolutely positively everytime. Spelled Glock and S&W revolvers. #2. Playthings or projects for having fun and new experiences. Spelled all the rest. I recognize the utility of each group. Chose the right tools for the job at hand. As to #2, think of all the 9mm I saved when my brand new KelTec fired three (3) total rounds and welded the firing pin hole shut with primer flow from unlocking too fast. A 200 round break in would take 66 2/3 trips to the range and a like number of return to KelTec trips. |