New Pistol Woes

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Styx

Styx

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This is kind of a venting thread. I owned pistols from several manufactures including 6 Taurus firearms within the last few years starting with the PT111 G2. I now only one 3. but all but the Model 85 is a safe queen. Six out of six have been flawless. Nothing broke and zero malfunctions.

With that said, my wife is interested in getting her CCP and a pistol of her own. She owned a Taurus Slim in the past, but with me being influenced by Taurus bashing, I stirred her towards the Ruger LC9s Pro after she tried one at the range. I ordered myself a Walther PPS M2 LE. Well we had our first range trip with both guns and my relatively new Shield 45 Performance Center. The dots on the Walther's luminescent sights fells out with the first mag. The mag release on her LC9 became very difficult to push, it started to get light strikes, and then later the trigger gave out completely. Pull the trigger and absolutely nothing happens. No sound, no nothin'.To top it all off, when I got home and went to clean the Shield, the captured recoil spring came apart...

In all the years that I've owned firearms, I've never had a problem and never had to use warranty services. If I had to do it all over again, I'd just kept my mouth shut, ignored the naysayers and snobs, and just purchase Taurus Slim like she was wanted in the first place.
 
Wow, a bad day!

Never had much desire for anything Taurus. But, I know many people have aquired them and are very well pleased.

Never heard much bad about Walther except recall some issues with zinc slide .22s.

I'm not shocked at the Shield failure, only because I know they have made and sold alot of them. The more there are, there are bound to be at least some lemons getting out there. It is the law of averages.
 
Stuff happens. People are human and their products aren't perfect. I have never got 6 firearms in a row that were good to go. As I type this I have a glock 19 that had to go back to Georgia.


As an aside I have certainly read a whole lot lately about ruger handguns not working right out of the gate lately. Not sure if their qc is slipping or what.

Last ruger I bought was an lcr9 about a year ago and it had to go back to ruger...twice to get fixed. Didnt function at all either time.
If that had happened to me with Taurus (again) or most other companies I would swear them off for life. We are all bias I guess but I digress.
 
VoodooMountain said:
Stuff happens. People are human and their products aren't perfect. I have never got 6 firearms in a row that were good to go. As I type this I have a glock 19 that had to go back to Georgia.


As an aside I have certainly read a whole lot lately about ruger handguns not working right out of the gate lately. Not sure if their qc is slipping or what.

Last ruger I bought was an lcr9 about a year ago and it had to go back to ruger...twice to get fixed. Didnt function at all either time.
If that had happened to me with Taurus (again) or most other companies I would swear them off for life. We are all bias I guess but I digress.
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Yea, if it were my gun, it would get fixed and sold. She wants to get it fixed and keep it... The sights and recoil spring don't bother me as much as the trigger going dead. I planned on getting night sights anyway, and there are aftermarket recoil springs for the Shield...

Anyone have any idea about what would cause the trigger to go dead on the LC9s Pro? It's kind of like pulling the trigger on an uncocked/unracked pistol even though it has been racked.
 
Styx said:
The dots on the Walther's luminescent sights fells out with the first mag.
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I have seen several posts about this issue on the new Walther PPS. If you want to fix it yourself, a dab of epoxy in the sight pocket will do the job. Otherwise Walther will honor the warranty if you can deal with the down time to send it back. Likewise with the Ruger trigger problems and their respective warranty.

FWIW I have owned a few Taurus firearms as well. Some have been downright lemons. I had a Taurus 738 that would jam 4 or 5 times out of a magazine. And that is a huge problem when its a 380 single stack. My wife had a 709slim and neither of us were impressed with the accuracy and what we expect out of a SD firearm.
 
I own a few Rugers. No experience with the LC9s but I would call Ruger & ask for a shipping label. I had an issue with my SR 1911. It had rust under the grips. I sent it in & they took care of it & had it back to me in a week. I don't know how they are doing now but that was my experience.

I've got a PT 111 G2. It works. I'm thinking about selling it. Not because anything is wrong with it but there is something else I want. My wife has an older model 85 she had when we met. I don't consider either of them the nicest gun there ever was but they both work.
 
My view is this: firearms, through regular use, are subjected to explosive impacts and violent recoil like almost no other common consumer products you own. The only other product I can think of that is subjected to these kind of conditions is an automobile engine, and it's a lot bigger and weighs a lot more than a handgun. Because of this, I'm not waiting for any company to make 100% of it's product 100% flawless. Since handguns can't weight 30 pounds, they're often intended to function closer to the limits of their design parameters. Some guns, like the old Smith and Wesson K frame .38 revolvers, get pretty close to 100% flawless 100% of the time, but I've had old S&W revolvers that have had issues, too.

So, whenever I buy a handgun - new or used - I just sort of expect that I'm going to get one now and then that is going to need work, even as a brand new gun. I've yet to buy a gun that wasn't able to be fixed properly by the factory through it's warranty program, or not been able to work well after a break in period.

I've had good luck with Taurus, Rossi and Ruger firearms. I've had to send a Taurus and a Ruger in for warranty, but most have been pretty good guns. Most of the time, the guns I send in for warranty work end up being good guns, too.
 
Styx

Let us know how the repairs go and if there are any more problems with the three pistols or if it's smooth sailing from here on in.
 
OP, this is not against you and mean no disrespect. I get sick of reading about QC issues with new guns, especially handguns from numerous manufacturers.

What is going on? Is there no one minding the store?

With regard to the Walther sights falling out I've read about this as well with the phosphorous sights. I would and did put a nice set of night sights on mine before they had a chance to fall out. But gezum chrow!
 
Tallball said:
Bad luck! They all put out lemons sometimes. It happens.
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I guess the question really is: Has the overall product quality of the domestic firearms industry gone down in the modern era of CAD/CAM/MIM?

Or has the existence the Interweb blown the issue out of proportion?

Are consumers expectations unrealistic in the face of the gun makers' own advertising which touts their reliability and quality?

Could it have been that in the age of wood and steel, if a new gun came in with issues, it was much more likely to be fixed at the dealer or even by the buyer? Folks were handier back then, on everything from cars to tractors......

For my part, I believe the single biggest factor driving new gun quality down is the lack of family ownership/ administration. Savage, Colt, Wesson, now Ruger......as the family names on the product have less and less presence in the board room, pride in product slides out the door to bump the bottom line, make the stockholders happy, and secure CEO bonuses......

Maybe some old-timers can chime in here. Were guns REALLY better made when they were hand fitted and finished by craftsmen who worked for the Owner? Or have new guns always been a work in progress?
 
Not an old timer, but all the new guns I've had have run better than all the old fine I've had.

People complain about new cars being awful, but reality is, the average age of cats cn the road are significantly older than generations past.

Manufacturing is better in most ways, and the internet creates hysteria.

That's just the way I see it.
 
I guess I'm lucky. Have had everything from a Rossi , Taurus , Colt ,Kimber, Ruger , S&W , Heritage. 22LR up to .475. Never had a problem with any of them.
 
I owned a PT111-G2 a while back and it was a pretty good gun. Granted I only shot about 200 rounds through it, but it seemed to be a competent gun. The finish on the slide seemed to be too delicate, but otherwise it did its job. I sold the gun as I decided I didn't want a CCW pistol with a manual safety.

Now Taurus has the new G2C, they removed the TSS(awesome), but kept the manual safety. IMO, if Taurus had no manual safety with no TSS, it would be a much more desirable pistol as it has 2nd strike capability.
 
Of all the guns I owned over the years I've only had one that gave problems quickly. I've owned five Taurus handguns and never had a minutes problem with any of them even thought they get bashed a lot. The one I've had problems with is an RIA 1911 and they get outstanding reviews. It's been not one but three problems for it starting with the first shot. I think I have things resolved but time will tell.
 
Both companies should pay shipping and take care of you quickly. Still better than going with a Taurus.
 
Ruger stands behind their guns. Taurus is getting better on that, though I've only had two problems with my two, easily solved.
1. PT145 shot very low. Removed sights. Shoots fine now.
2. After 13 years and umpteen rounds through it, the ambi safety on my PT1911 broke. I took the opportunity as long as I had it apart to put a TJ's shim in it and dump the Series 80 trigger pull.
 
JeeperCreeper said:
Not an old timer, but all the new guns I've had have run better than all the old fine I've had.

People complain about new cars being awful, but reality is, the average age of cats cn the road are significantly older than generations past.

Manufacturing is better in most ways, and the internet creates hysteria.

That's just the way I see it.
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Except that as the auto industry dropped planned obsolescence as a sales strategy, the firearms industry seems to have taken it up.......o_O
 
I had a Ruger sr9c that the trigger didn't reset. Sent it in and came back just fine. Traded it for a an xde 9mm. Love my xde.
 
I have in the ballpark of 80-90 guns, and I think only 7 were brand new. Of those, two are simple pump shotguns and 3 are ARs that I built. Give me a "been there" used gun that's been well loved and maintained any day. The sad thing is that I work part-time in a gunshop and help people buy guns that I would never buy or own. Oh well, I'm sure they all work just fine.......
 
NIGHTLORD40K

Maybe some old-timers can chime in here. Were guns REALLY better made when they were hand fitted and finished by craftsmen who worked for the Owner? Or have new guns always been a work in progress?
Click to expand...

Not sure if I qualify as an "old timer" but I would say back in the day gun building craftsmen did a pretty decent job with hand fitting and finishing guns than they do today. Remember too there weren't as many new models being introduced back then so it was pretty much a standardized routine with the same workers building the same guns year in and year out. And like cars of that era there were always a few clunkers but they seemed to be relatively few and far between.

So I would say you're right in that corporate ownership of gun manufacturers where everything is bottom line profit driven, coupled with the latest innovations, new gun designs, manufacturing technology, marketing strategies, and the confounding need to get everything immediately to market; I would think that new guns will continue to be as you put it, a work in progress.
 
I just dont buy brand new guns. Especially new s&ws. There is no quality control. The buyer is a beta tester too.

All my carry guns were made before the year 2000. In addition to little to no quality control and cheap construction and excessively optimistic prices, the current production guns are UGLY, to me. :)

Old is Gold! ;)
 
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