Just because I'm bored and off today...
What is the worst gun you have ever owned or fired, and what made it suck so bad? Perhaps you were young and were suckered into some terrible jamomatic, or you were given a crappy gun as a gift and too polite to tell the giver how much it sucked? Share your tales!
Now, if you're an elitist who plans to say "I've never owned a bad gun. I do my research." Or what have you....That's good for you and we're very impressed If that's the case, at least talk about a crappy gun you fired that belonged to a buddy or whatever. Anyway, without further ado..
-My father had a personal friend who was an FFL, a huge and surly man from Bayonne, NJ. I nor dad realized it at the time but he sold the lousiest garbage guns pop or I ever saw. Among them was some stainless semiauto .22 magnum pistol that looked and felt cheap and had a freaking bent firing pin so you'd be lucky to even get two shots off in a row without either a failure to ignite or, even if it did touch off, a very nasty jam. Luckily dad got his money back. I don't even remember who made the POS.
-The same man also sold dad an Accu-Tek AT-380 in .380 ACP (imagine that). While it actually was a pretty reliable and fun little gun, we had several issues with it: The safety lever just snapped off one day, and the little screw at the front of the trigger guard also broke and had to be replaced. Dad actually kept this for a long time though, until I got a little older and more discerning and was able to steer dad to better choices. Don't get me wrong - Dad's a smart man and wonderful father who is enthusiastic about guns but a little lacking in the more technical/mechanical knowledge necessary to spot potential problems. He's a doctor, not a metallurgist or gunsmith. To dads credit though, he recognized from a young age that the Browning HP was an excellent gun and purchased one in the 80's that he kept for a long time. That was the first gun I fired when I was 4.
-Me and dad's first shotgun was what we THOUGHT was a solid, simple, reliable old Stevens 12ga pump gun. We got about 40 shells out of it before the op rod promptly snapped in half, rendering the gun inoperable. We got our money back again, thankfully.
-I inherited a little 9mm Makarov FEG, a Hungarian Makarov clone. This gun was roughly-tooled, ugly and had a pretty bad snappy kick but was actually quite reliable. Except for the entire safety/decocker assembly blowing out of the gun suddenly one day. Even missing all that, she still was reliable! I sold that to my stepbrother as-is for $75 a long time ago. He still has it!
-While my HD Mossberg 500A shotgun is not at all crappy, it LOOKS really stupid and I hate it. It has a Knoxx recoil-reducing pistol grip stock that, while making the gun a lot more comfortable to fire, looks really stupid, especially along with the uglier-than-sin and cheap-feeling Butler Creek tactical forend. Its that squared-off "handle" sort of forend they make (not the chainsaw kind) that I guess facilitates the super tacticool one-handed pumping technique. Or something. Anyway, its cheap-looking, rattles a lot and looks lame as hell. Otherwise the gun works wonderfully though and that is all that matters. I'll eventually get around to changing that forend.
-a CETME that I fully admit I purchased on impulse many years ago because, hey, .308 semi auto battle rifle! The thing was beat-up, harder than hell to cock and jammed all the freaking time. Took it back and exchanged for a lovely stainless Ruger single-action .44 mag. A much better choice.
-A buddy had a 20 ga. DB coach gun made by either Stevens or Stoeger (don't recall) with rabbit-ear hammers. It looked nice but BOTH hammers failed to ignite the primers a good 60% of the time on the first shot. Totally unreliable. We worked our way through a bag full of slugs and buckshot and then he promptly sold it. It was pretty cool when we did manage to touch off both barrels at once but we only succeeded in that a few times each!
Oh, and I feel compelled to note: This may seem like a lot of lemon guns, but compared to the number of good and reliable quality guns I and my dad have owned or still own, these guns make up only a small percentage.
OK, your turn!
What is the worst gun you have ever owned or fired, and what made it suck so bad? Perhaps you were young and were suckered into some terrible jamomatic, or you were given a crappy gun as a gift and too polite to tell the giver how much it sucked? Share your tales!
Now, if you're an elitist who plans to say "I've never owned a bad gun. I do my research." Or what have you....That's good for you and we're very impressed If that's the case, at least talk about a crappy gun you fired that belonged to a buddy or whatever. Anyway, without further ado..
-My father had a personal friend who was an FFL, a huge and surly man from Bayonne, NJ. I nor dad realized it at the time but he sold the lousiest garbage guns pop or I ever saw. Among them was some stainless semiauto .22 magnum pistol that looked and felt cheap and had a freaking bent firing pin so you'd be lucky to even get two shots off in a row without either a failure to ignite or, even if it did touch off, a very nasty jam. Luckily dad got his money back. I don't even remember who made the POS.
-The same man also sold dad an Accu-Tek AT-380 in .380 ACP (imagine that). While it actually was a pretty reliable and fun little gun, we had several issues with it: The safety lever just snapped off one day, and the little screw at the front of the trigger guard also broke and had to be replaced. Dad actually kept this for a long time though, until I got a little older and more discerning and was able to steer dad to better choices. Don't get me wrong - Dad's a smart man and wonderful father who is enthusiastic about guns but a little lacking in the more technical/mechanical knowledge necessary to spot potential problems. He's a doctor, not a metallurgist or gunsmith. To dads credit though, he recognized from a young age that the Browning HP was an excellent gun and purchased one in the 80's that he kept for a long time. That was the first gun I fired when I was 4.
-Me and dad's first shotgun was what we THOUGHT was a solid, simple, reliable old Stevens 12ga pump gun. We got about 40 shells out of it before the op rod promptly snapped in half, rendering the gun inoperable. We got our money back again, thankfully.
-I inherited a little 9mm Makarov FEG, a Hungarian Makarov clone. This gun was roughly-tooled, ugly and had a pretty bad snappy kick but was actually quite reliable. Except for the entire safety/decocker assembly blowing out of the gun suddenly one day. Even missing all that, she still was reliable! I sold that to my stepbrother as-is for $75 a long time ago. He still has it!
-While my HD Mossberg 500A shotgun is not at all crappy, it LOOKS really stupid and I hate it. It has a Knoxx recoil-reducing pistol grip stock that, while making the gun a lot more comfortable to fire, looks really stupid, especially along with the uglier-than-sin and cheap-feeling Butler Creek tactical forend. Its that squared-off "handle" sort of forend they make (not the chainsaw kind) that I guess facilitates the super tacticool one-handed pumping technique. Or something. Anyway, its cheap-looking, rattles a lot and looks lame as hell. Otherwise the gun works wonderfully though and that is all that matters. I'll eventually get around to changing that forend.
-a CETME that I fully admit I purchased on impulse many years ago because, hey, .308 semi auto battle rifle! The thing was beat-up, harder than hell to cock and jammed all the freaking time. Took it back and exchanged for a lovely stainless Ruger single-action .44 mag. A much better choice.
-A buddy had a 20 ga. DB coach gun made by either Stevens or Stoeger (don't recall) with rabbit-ear hammers. It looked nice but BOTH hammers failed to ignite the primers a good 60% of the time on the first shot. Totally unreliable. We worked our way through a bag full of slugs and buckshot and then he promptly sold it. It was pretty cool when we did manage to touch off both barrels at once but we only succeeded in that a few times each!
Oh, and I feel compelled to note: This may seem like a lot of lemon guns, but compared to the number of good and reliable quality guns I and my dad have owned or still own, these guns make up only a small percentage.
OK, your turn!