worst semi-auto experience?

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A lot of us have wonderful experiences with semi-auto pistols. Well sometimes we just need to get it out. what has been your worst semi-auto experience? Everything goes except AD/ND.
 
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Many years ago...the first, and only I might add, time I ever fired a Glock. I was shooting a Colt .45 ACP, and hitting what I was pointing it at, when my friend ask me if I wanted to try his Glock. It too was a 45 ACP but I have no idea what model that was. Felt like I was holding a piece of 2 x 4 plus I couldn't hit the inside of a barn with it.
 

OldePhart

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TRanger said:
A S&W 5904 I bought in 1991 performed so poorly, I owned it less than 24 hours.

Sounds familiar - I bought an S&W DA/SA (5913, IIRC) around that same time (maybe 89 or 90). I won't say the gun performed poorly - never had jamming issues or anything and the slow-fire accuracy was tolerable - but there was so much creep in that SA pull that I couldn't hit the side of a barn from the inside on second and subsequent fast shots. Actually, that's a slight exaggeration, the first time I fired a police qualification run on timed targets I forgot to rack the slide :oops: (had just switched from shooting exclusively revolver). It took me a bit to figure out why it wouldn't go bang no matter how many times I pulled the trigger. I still managed to get all 10 off and inside the silhouette (if barely, for some of them) before the target rotated out of view.

In any case, I stuck with it a few weeks thinking I'd eventually get accustomed to that trigger but never did. One day for grins I shot one of our club matches twice, once with my trusty old .357 and once with the S&W nine. I placed third with the revolver (in a match where I was guaranteed to have to reload when guys with 7 rounds could shoot every stage clean without a reload). I placed dead last with the nine and never shot it again.

About that time Glock introduced the G22 and I got the first one an LGS got in stock. Sent it off and had it magna-ported during California's 15-day waiting period. I was initially disappointed because it battered the brass and often stove-piped...that first run turned out to be kind of famous for that. Anyway, I basically "blueprinted" around the ejection port and found that the brass was hitting and hanging on the sharp inner edges of the ejection port. Thirty minutes (I'm slow) with a Dremel tool cured that and I ended up putting in the neighborhood of 10k rounds through it without a single malfunction. Got my revenge on those "7-rounders," too. :twisted:

John
 

GunnyGene

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Don't know if this was the worst or the best, but I had a 1911a1 service pistol go full auto for 3 rounds during annual qual once. It was certainly interesting. :shock:
 

22/45 Fan

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I had an S&W SW9 for a while. It was Smith's compact polymer blowback 9mm (yes, blowback and real 9 mm, not .380). It was the most unpleasant gun to shoot i've ever had. It was stolen in a house break in and i never even thought of replacing it. It wasn't in S&W's product line for long.
 

OldePhart

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GunnyGene said:
Don't know if this was the worst or the best, but I had a 1911a1 service pistol go full auto for 3 rounds during annual qual once. It was certainly interesting. :shock:

Heh, heh. Happened to my (much) older brother once but it was a full mag. Fortunately he was in the boonies so no damage beyond soiled britches. He said his arm was pointing almost straight up at the end of the string. It was a used gun he was thinking of buying from a friend. The guy had inherited it or something and had never fired it. My brother said he didn't have any problem passing on the "deal." (My brother was not a very experienced shooter at the time, either. In fact, he was looking for a "snake gun" for hiking in the desert and I'm hard pressed to think of a poorer choice...)

John
 

roylt

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My bad times are typically when I have tinkered on an old P-series and it doesn't function 100%. I have been able to fix all the problems over time though. Cutting my "gunsmithing" teeth I guess you could say.

What does this mean? "Everything goes except AD/ND"
 

GunnyGene

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OldePhart said:
GunnyGene said:
Don't know if this was the worst or the best, but I had a 1911a1 service pistol go full auto for 3 rounds during annual qual once. It was certainly interesting. :shock:

Heh, heh. Happened to my (much) older brother once but it was a full mag. Fortunately he was in the boonies so no damage beyond soiled britches. He said his arm was pointing almost straight up at the end of the string. It was a used gun he was thinking of buying from a friend. The guy had inherited it or something and had never fired it. My brother said he didn't have any problem passing on the "deal." (My brother was not a very experienced shooter at the time, either. In fact, he was looking for a "snake gun" for hiking in the desert and I'm hard pressed to think of a poorer choice...)

John

Only had 5 in the mag. First two fired as normal. I agree about the snake gun. A .22 mag revolver with snake shot would be a much better choice. Snake shot just don't feed reliably (or at all) in a SA, and snakes are pretty small targets. I'd also get a smooth bore barrel for it to get a longer effective range.
 

Mike J

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That would be my Kel Tec P-11. I messed up the plastic magazine catch & turned it into a single shot pistol. There was a guy at ktog.org that makes metal mag catches & sells them in the classifieds there. I bought one from him since Kel Tec doesn't make one for that pistol.

The slide stop broke twice. They were always quick to send replacement parts.

I had an issue with the trigger bar & spring but once I figured out that I had caused it and undid what I had done (I saw a post on a forum where someone had heated the plastic trigger & reshaped it to be more comfortable, I went too far with it) that has been fine.

I actually reached a point where I wanted rid of it but I couldn't sell it in good faith knowing it had issues. So I toughed it out & worked it out.

The only other issue I had was the thin bluing on the slide rusting. I sprayed it with some engine paint & baked it in the oven.

It is what it is, a small lightweight pistol with a long heavy trigger but it works now. I use it for carry in hot weather when it is difficult to hide a full sized pistol.
 

WIL TERRY

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A Kimber rimfire Target. It has 14,000 rounds through it . Shoots like a 22 rifle. Of those14,000 rounds EXACTLY twenty five magaziness full have gone through with ten consecutive shots. The other 13,000 + have had three to four jams per ten rounds. Of the ten magazines I bought all but three , at $25.00 a piece, would not feed anything and are in the bottom of the Cheyenne river at Wasta.
The A-holes at Kimber told me to run it dry.....no no no run it wet....no no no use W-W wildcat....no no no use FEderal....no no no use Blazer....it is a $600++ POS and I'll never EVER spend a dime with the owner of Kimber for as long as he lives, the Bernie Madoff of the gun industry who is also all but the most man despised by the gun industry. IT is a good thing the whole damned company is too far away back east to conveniately drive there...they have no idea how lucky they are. This does NOT include Dwight Van Brunt of Kimber in Montana.
And so it goes...
 
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roylt said:
My bad times are typically when I have tinkered on an old P-series and it doesn't function 100%. I have been able to fix all the problems over time though. Cutting my "gunsmithing" teeth I guess you could say.

What does this mean? "Everything goes except AD/ND"

Somebody pulling the trigger on a live round into themselves or somebody else negligently
 

OldePhart

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Three to four jams out of every ten rounds and you managed to put 13k+ through it?!!!...you, my friend, are a heck of a lot more patient than I. I would have turned it into a sculpture (something with lemons in the theme, I think) long, long, ago.
 

FergusonTO35

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I suppose I've been lucky in that all my autos have gone bang when they're supposed to and functioned well. I had a Kel-Tec P11 for awhile and then a PF9. They were surprisingly good guns for the money, carried easily, and I love being able to order every part right off the company website. Unfortunately they flung brass into the next county which is a big problem since I shoot nothing but reloads. I replaced them with a Glock 26 and am quite happy with it. I do still have my little Kel-Tec P32 though, great little pocket rocket.
 
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