The most unreliable handgun you have owned

[DeepbluePA]

S & W 22a

total crap
lots of failure to feed, failure to eject, problems with the finish on the aluminum.

I still have it, barely fired

Anyone want to buy it?
i'll give you a good deal

[Travis Bickle]

I had an early Kel-Tec P32. It worked well for 150-200 rounds...then I started having FTF's - a LOT of them. The first round of a new mag would fail to fire at LEAST 75% of the time ('real nice in a gun that has absolutely no purpose save for self-defense).

I sent the gun to Kel-Tec, and they had it back to me in less than a week! I took it to the range, and had the same problem within another hundred rounds. So, I sent the gun back to Kel-Tec again (after I voiced my disappointment to them over their $hitty quality control). This time, they destroyed my gun, and sent me a brand new one stamped with my original serial #. They also reimbursed me the $80. that I'd spent in shipping their $230. piece of crap back to them twice. I immediately sold the "new" gun without ever firing it. The shop that I bought it from sold it on consignment for me; they sold it as a "new" gun...and I only lost a few bucks.

[Suburban]

Kel-Tec P3AT, .380. Wonderful to carry, but I had FTFs and it disassembled itself while firing a couple times. The first time that I took it out, the guide rod bracket thing fell out of the slide, and I couldn't find it. At about the 250 round point, the hammer spring broke. Many of the parts, including the aluminum frame in the grip, were peened pretty badly, and I only shot standard pressure ammo through it. I couldn't trust the pistol, and sold it through the KTOG classified board.

I bought a Kahr PM9 to replace the KT, and I love that pistol. Slide locks back when the mag is empty, it works, and I don't see any peening after about 800 rounds.

[Chuck S]

Not counting $100 pistols (which ya ought to know will be trouble) the Worst Pistol Ever is the Kimber Ultra Carry II with the external extractor. No only would it not extract starting with the first magazine, Kimber lied to me about changing the extractor and claimed the pistol worked for them. I'd marked the extractor and the pistol had a failure to extract the first magazine back from the factory. Two trips to Kimber and 4 extractors later I got it to run a box of ammo and immediately sold it.

-- Chuck

[Arcana71]

Originally Posted by JayBell

my Colt 1911, the 1991A1, and my fracking NORINCO all worked perfect.

Not to highjack the thread or anything... but I just saw this. Jay... are you a fan of (the new) Battlestar Galactica by any chance? Typically, the use of "frack" is a dead giveaway... much the same way Futurama nerds can tell I'm one of them when I use "aw, crud" in everyday conversation.

Just curious.

[DPB]

You're not going to believe this. It's not reall a reliability thing, but the gun didn't do what it was supposed to do.

The worst experience I have had with a handgun was with a Les Baer Super Tac.

I waited like 12 weeks and paid in the neighborhood of $2K for this pistol. When it arrived, it shot fine. Except that the point of impact was 5 inches to the left of the point of aim at 25 yards.

I shot it left handed, right handed, two handed, artificial light, natural light, no change.

Called Les Baer, Inc., and talked to Les himself. He said "That's not possible, send it back to us." So, now the owner of the company has called me a liar.

I send it back. Instead of re-fitting or replacing the barrel, or actually fixing the problem, they milled down the right leaf of the rear sight. So now the rear sight is asymmetrical, to make it shoot to point of aim.

To say I was not happy would be a significant understatement.

I called back and wrote a letter. They bought the pistol back, saving me the hassle of posting pictures of their "solution" on every internet board where I could secure a membership. I don't think that dealer has sold another LB in the three years since.

Now every other Les Baer I've seen has been flawless, and the one guy I know who had a cracked frame had his fixed first time, no problem. However, for $2K and a 3+ month wait, this was far from acceptable. Les Baer will never see another nickel of my money.

[schwantz]

Detonics Pocket Nine. Would not fire much of the time due to light firing pin strikes. When it did fire it would rip the web of your hand if you hung on hard enough to keep it from jumping out of your hand. Impossible to re-assemble after field stripping due to recoil spring that would have done credit to a Ford station wagon.

[phillyd2]

Originally Posted by Arcana71

Not to highjack the thread or anything... but I just saw this. Jay... are you a fan of (the new) Battlestar Galactica by any chance? Typically, the use of "frack" is a dead giveaway... much the same way Futurama nerds can tell I'm one of them when I use "aw, crud" in everyday conversation.

Just curious.

Marc

Don't know about Jay but I am a big fan.

[SGTUSArmy]

Originally Posted by Eggmcmuffin

Any automatic made by Taurus (with a possible exception to their new 1911).

I am flabbergasted. I had two failures to fire with mine, and they were both operator headspace.

Worst handgun I fired, Jennings .380 of my uncles. To damned inaccurate, and had a feed issue.

Since I have owned 3 pistols, a Colt Gold Cup (bought from Dad, sold to Dad), Glock 9mm (sold to Dad), and a Taurus 24/7, I haven't owned a bad one yet.

The first gen 24/7 .45s did have issues. That is why I bought my .40 S&W and I believe it is a 2nd or 3rd gen.

[keystone]

Maybe it was the pistol!! Maybe it was me!! The worst I had was a berretta .22 cal which I picked up for 'cheap ammo..practice'. Replaced it with a Sig Mosquito and using CCI MiniMag it's great for cheap ammo practice.