Anyone completely worn out a handgun?

I’ve had some handguns wear me out shooting them a lot (.45 Colt and .357 revolvers), others after a few shots ( AMT backup .380, S&W 642 w/+P, .44 and .454 revolvers).... a few had a lot of finish wear from years in a duty holster (Sig 226, S&W 19 2.5”)... others came to me used and finish-worn (M&P .38, Helwan ‘Beretta’)...but I can honestly say that I’ve never worn a handgun out from my personal use.

Stay safe!

Not yet, but it's sort of a personal goal of mine. That would mean I'm shooting/practicing a whole lot!

I personally didn't, but I once bought a used .357 Blackhawk with the short barrel back about 6 years ago that was one of the first of the New Models, which would have placed the gun's manufacture year around '73 or early '74. Evidently the gun had been used in CAS.

The gun would sometimes fail to fire a round - maybe once every 20 rounds or so. The loading gate was also pretty "loosey-goosey".

I took it to a gunsmith, who didn't really bother to look at it and assured me it was probably fine. I sent it to Ruger and they refurbed it nicely; re-timed it and replaced a number of parts. They even put brand new grips on the gun! I was so grateful I went on to buy a new Vaquero to show my appreciation.



Anyway... point is there is no telling how many thousands of rounds it took to produce that kind of wear. I will always wonder.

Obturation said:

Curious, have any of you folks ever just flat out worn a pistol out to the point that it became unreliable and unrepairable? Im not talking about abuse , i am not asking about neglected guns, or junk guns that never work correctly in the first place or guns carried so much the finish is totally worn away. I mean a firearm that has just been shot until theres no reasonable way to repair it anymore. The reason i ask is i see a lot of talk about how long this firearm or that will last or what is going to accelerate wear and ill he honest i havent worn any gun out. I have very old guns that have needed repair, modern guns with breakage and damaged parts but all have been made good as new for little time and money. Ive had a revolver (i wont mention brand) that wouldnt stay in time if used regularly - i consider it a lemon and not representive of the brand. I have a glock 30 that i honestly have abused and fired mountains of horrific ww2 milsurp through but never misses a beat. I had a ruger mk3 22/45 that i put 1000 rds through every other weekend for a few years, no issue. A gp100 that i use as a range gun primarily, it sees 5,000+/- rounds a year. Plus others that get the use that you might expect. Yes ive had repairs, but what does it take to wear a gun out? Id love to see pictures of any that just wont take anymore and hear their story.

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Me, no, but I keep trying. Its funny high round count means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I know people who have pistols that they've had for 10+ years and I doubt there's over 1000 rounds though it. Others shoot thousands per year. Then if you compete...

At this point I'll probably wear out before my firearms, but I keep trying.

-Jeff

I have read about alloy J frame revolvers cracking. No way to repair would that count as worn out?

I have one Ruger .45 Colt Blackhawk that I have put just over 20,000 rounds through, and its still going strong. And several more Super Blackhawks with an excess of 15,000 rounds fired. This mileage documented by my log book.




My oldest (to me) gun is a 1958 vintage .357 Magnum Flat Top with over 17,000 rounds fired. The barrel came off once, and ejector housings have given me problems, but currently all is tight and she's a beauty!




Bob Wright

https://www.glocktalk.com/threads/i-think-my-21-has-proven-its-durability.462537/


I read this thread on Glocktalk. Apparently the guy decided to see what it would take to destroy a Glock 21. In the OP he claims over 150,000 rounds with 15,000 rounds without cleaning. I think in one post he updates the round count to 200,000 and at one point he claims to have thrown the gun out of an airplane.

There's a thread on Pistolforum where people document something called the 2000 round challenge. They put 2000 rounds through the gun with no cleaning or lubrication. There are 42 pages of people who have done it. Tamara Keel includes a 2000 round challenge into every gun review she does

My point here is that unless it's something like a Rohrbaugh that's designed for a low round count, most of us will never put enough rounds through any one gun to actually wear it out. Certainly not with < 1000 rounds

Nope.. Blown one up, Broken parts on a couple, but have to actually wear one out.

now-a-days I just have way too many that I like to shoot.

I have not, although I've got one that's maybe a touch looser than it was originally. I do know some competitive shooters who have done it. I have seen someone's 1st gen full-size .45 ACP Glock break off the camming/locking lug through what has to be long use. It is a thing that happens, although, absent a defect, it's usually only after so much ammo that the cost of the gun itself is a rounding error compared to the $$$'s run through the gun.

I own a Winchester 1886 chambered in 40-82. The serial No. is 694 so it was built in 1886. The barrel is sloppy loose, but from research this was not uncommon in these old guns. The rifle has a robust history and has been cut down to a 16" barrel in the early, and I men early, 1900's. I have to size the cast bullets to .408 to avoid key-holing. I only load black powder in this beast.

~g

I was in charge of my unit's arms room in the late 80's. We had about 300 WW II-era 1911s. We had to send a handful of them back to the States for depot level repair. Only one of those was deemed irreparable. Well-made guns tend to be hard to actually wear out.

Obturation said:

I was waiting to see if some high pressure guns would come up in conversation but it doesnt seem to be the case. My super redhawk thats my profile picture has taken a pounding of at least 2500 heavily loaded 454s and shows no sign of wear or looseness. I had a 629 that went out of time more than once but i dont really consider it worn out, more like defective.

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Pressures, as such, has relatively little to do with what wears handguns out. Recoil impulse is what wears them out. A 9mm 1911 (higher pressure round with lower total recoil) will not wear out faster than a .45ACP 1911 (lower pressure round with higher total recoil). A max-power 454 is definitely a high-recoil round, so that is a robust test for a gun to handle.

Funny thing about the round-count number: 2,500 full power magnum rounds may be more than most shooters ever put through their guns, and I sure wouldn't be eager to crank off 2,500 454 Casull rounds. OTOH, 2,500 rounds might be a single month's worth of shooting for a hard-core competitive shooter, and 2,500 would be just starting to break in for them!

Haven't worn one out yet... But a poster here tells me my Ruger Security 9 will be there within a few months...

20 years with my PPK/s finally saw it have ejection and feeding problems. Not a high round count, but I did fire it regularly. It could have been worked on but I just traded it for a newer one.

I haven't worn out a gun yet. I'm at the 5000 round mark on my P99AS, at 5000 rounds on the Norinco Olympia and at 8000 rounds on the Weihrauch. The other guns has more or less 2000 rounds each.
But I saw a worn out Beretta 98 FS (9x21 IMI version of the 92 FS). It belonged to the range owner where I go to shoot. It was his carry gun but he also used it as a rental gun. He never replaced the recoil spring. Locking block broke at the 50.000 round mark. He replaced it. Then it developed a bulged barrel due to some "champion" firing a round with the previous bullet sticking in the barrel. The Beretta was still good to go. The front rails were worn to the point only a little portion was still there. Then the recoil spring broke in three parts. The gun still shot properly, but the slide broke at one side because he did't replaice the recoil spring. He repaired the slide by welding it and the gun fired another 1000 or 2000 rounds before finally giving up at the 90.000 round mark.
I bet that with a regular recoil spring replacement every 10.000 rounds fired that gun would be still in action.

Here's an old video from Ben Stoeger, a high-level competitive shooter, walking through some of his gamer guns (Berettas, this video predates his switch to Tanfoglios) that have 100k+ rounds through them.

Former full time LE firearms instructor, with a LT who said I could shoot all the ammo we had, he'd just order more. Challenge accepted.

From December 2012 till our transition in late 2016 I was issued a S&W M&P .40. It was my range gun/teaching gun. Prior to teaching a new class I would routinely put down 250-500 rounds a day for a month or so (yes I once shoot 10,000 rounds in a month, I checked my ammo check out logs to verify this) getting things sorted out as far as drill times, etc. On off weeks, I would still routinely shoot around 100 rounds a day, so I'd average about 500 rounds a week. Rough back of the envelope math, I shot between 100,000 and 200,000 (as a guess I'd say a bit above 150,000) rounds in the 4 years I had that pistol. It was still a serviceable pistol, but comparing to a NIB pistol you could definitely feel the wear and tear. Another year or so and I'd imagine I'd have seen the frame start to delaminate around the rails, or possibly crack in some of the higher stress areas. As far as parts replacements the only parts that were not replaced were the slide and frame. In that 4 year period all other internals including the barrel were replaced at least once (I think I went through 12 slide releases). Our practice ammo was ballistically matched to our service round (165 gr Gold Dot), so these were all full power rounds.

I took a .44spcl bulldog pug from just a little looser than normal to clickity-clack-at-full-lockup loose with a few hundred rounds of 44spcl handloads, 240gr. chrono'd at 800fps out of a 4" barrel. The gun was still safe to shoot but I got rid of it before I wore it completely out.

Not a handgun, but I did manage to wear out a bolt action .308 rifle. Rem 788, back in the days of cheap 7.62 surplus. Rifling was gone for aprox 1" past the chamber, wore out 3 bolt stops, 2 firing pin springs and a couple other small parts. 3rd time the bolt stop went out, the internals in the bolt were so sloppy, I would have had to basically rebuild or replace the whole assembly and re-headspace. Sold the rifle cheaply to a guy who already had a couple of 788 bolts for an F-class build. Estimated round count was North of 5000, mostly FN surplus.

P5 Guy said:

I have read about alloy J frame revolvers cracking. No way to repair would that count as worn out?

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I had a S&W 642 38 special that had a cracked frame. I bought it used, so had no idea how many rounds? S&W replaced it with a new one.

Glock 30SF, 3rd Gen. The frame developed a crack above the left take down pin adjacent to the locking block (above the part number on the frame, right side). I was at 20,400 rounds at this point and the past ~15,000 rounds had been a 230 gr. LRN over 4.5 gr WST. The only evidence I had of the problem was that it wouldn't lock back on brand new magazines. Glock replaced the frame and everything in it for free. The only things they didn't replace in the slide was the barrel. I'm currently at 24,610 and hope to see many more rounds.