What is the most unreliable semi auto you have shot ?

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Most unreliable was a CZ-50 that would jam or stovepipe every other round. Atypical for that pistol so I have heard, and I have a CZ-70 that has never had a hiccup (virtually the identical gun).
 
My worst was an issued 1911A1 in Viet Nam. If you dropped the slide it would ND. If you fired one mag, you got at least one two round burst. It's finish was totally gone and required half an hour per day to keep the rust off. Accuracy and trigger were terrible.

The holster weighted about 3 pounds when wet, which in Viet Nam was 7-8 months per years.

I "lost" it in a firefight and threw away the mags, holster and cleaning gear. I made up the weight with a couple of extra frag grenades which have a lot more utility than a pistol.
 
Glock 34, jammed every 3rd round or so. I attribute that to bad maintainance by the range I rented it from.
 
L.E.S. Rogak, for reasons previously stated on another thread.

A friend of mine had an Iver-Johnson clone of a Walther pistol in .22, if I recall correctly. Sadly, a small downward pull on the trigger guard was sufficient to disengage the slide, and the recoil of firing a shot was often enough to make it so do. The slide would be pushed muzzleward by the recoil spring and go flying. We teased him about his proud ownership of a Class III weapon, the slide constituting a second projectile.

I never found the nerve to fire the gun, so can't claim it was the worst I ever shot, but it deserved a mention as well.
 
Interesting thread here. I was an old revolver guy, but sold everything off years ago for personal reasons. Just started back in a couple years ago, not much money after a bad divorce and thought I needed SOMETHING around the house, and the .40 caliber had been interesting me for some time. Went and picked up a Hi Point JCP .40. Yep, has a bit of a bad reputation, but I know some will say I must have gotten one of the good ones. Accurate as hell with the fixed barrel. Bought some more magazines from the factory and it turned into a jammin machine. BUT looked close at them, and man... dont know who makes their mags but they need to be beat. I cleaned them up, powdercoated them so they had a decent finish, dremeled the stamping flash off the body and set the mag ears to the same specs as the one good mag and haven't had ONE malfunction in over 1k rounds since.

Bought an abused C9 compensated model off a guy, called HP and had them send me (free) a new firing pin and spring assemble, recoil spring, extractor and spring. Not one problem with it, have around 1500 rounds through it now, accurate but noisy with the comp on it.

SW40VE was my third purchase. Smoothed out the sear assembly to get rid of the gritty trigger pull. Works fine and accurate as long as I stay with heavy grain bullets. It likes the 180 gr in FMJ and JHP's as well. Shoot a 155 gr and it will jam every round.

Picked up a Phoenix Arms HP22 for the kids and wife to plink with. Not a bit of problem unless you want to count misfires where the cheap ammo just doesn't fire. No problems, must have gotten a good one but I don't buy the super-cheap bulk packs unless I want to spend a little extra time clearing out the occasional stovepipes.

Worst ever firearm was my issue M16. Would either stovepipe or FTE like crazy.

Picking up an Armscor M1600 on the first just because it's so damned ugly...
 
kel-teck 9mm. Jams with every kind of ammo I've tried.Tried to save some money. That didn't work out.
 
kel-teck 9mm. Jams with every kind of ammo I've tried.Tried to save some money. That didn't work out.
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same here, my PF9 wouldn't feed WWB ammo no matter how many parts I replaced or polished.
sold it and bought a Taurus 709, best move ever.
 
rhubarb said:
I might have miscounted a few, but the trend is there. Even if I over- or under-counted 2 Kimber posts, Kimber still has the highest number of complaints.
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So I'd better sell my Kimber Tactical Entry II and forget about buying the stainless Pro Raptor II that I've been thinking about ..... NOT!!!

As for the OP's original question, the only unreliable semi-auto that I've owned was my first back in '88 which was an Erma .22LR. It was a Walther PPK clone and was great fun but picky about ammunition. When it worked it was great, when it didn't, it wasn't. The only other semi-auto that I owned and got rid of was a Ruger P90. It was very reliable but I didn't like the ergonomics. I traded it for a NIB P220 back in '92 and never looked back. I now have three SIG P220s and a SIG P225. All of the SIGs and the Kimber are keepers.

:)
 
Mauser built PO8 Luger. Beautifully built and finely finished. Loved to stovepipe on a variety of factory and hand loaded ammo.
 
"i consider xds,mnps, an all the polymer pistols that came out after glock knock offs, so be specific about the comany, if you know. "

an XD is not a kock off of a glock, totally different pistol.
 
Worst was my Ruger Mark III. Had at least 2 or 3 stovepipes per magazine. That was until I disabled the loaded chamber indicator. Now it is as reliable as any .22 auto can be. On the rare occasion of a jam (maybe 1 every 500 rounds or so) I now blame it on the ammo.

If anyone is having problems with a Mark III at least try to remove the metal tab on the LCI (3 minute job). It's a flawed design that causes many extraction issues.
 
My MKIII has been perfect from round 1 to 1000+ and counting. Maybe it's not the design that's flawed. It could have been a flaw with your particular gun?

I must be lucky. I have owned nearly a dozen semiautomatic pistols over the years, and all of them have been extremely reliable. A couple were problematic out of the box, but I was able to fix even those to run 100%.
 
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Powerglide: said:
Yuck, no Taurus I ever dealt with was worth a hoot.
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I own 3 Taurus handguns. I've never had a single problem with any of them. 100% reliable, accurate, good price. I guess mine would be worth a hoot.
 
Would you believe a Glock 27? Granted, it was a range gun (probably hadn't been cleaned in about 5 years), but it stovepiped at least one round per mag.

Powerglide said:
Yuck, no Taurus I ever dealt with was worth a hoot.
Click to expand...
FWIW, I've had two Tauruses (Tauri?) -- a 709 Slim that had no issues, and a TCP-738 (I traded the 709 for it) which had to go back to Taurus for work on the trigger (look up "TCP light strikes" on TaurusArmed.net). Since I've gotten it back, no issues. (I keep in touch with the guy with whom I did the trade, he says the 709's going strong.)
 
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