Has your gun ever been ridiculed? let's hear it

Two occasions. First time some years ago I announced I was leaving my rifle at home and taking my S&W 29 on a javalina hunting trip. The guys weren't really badmouthing the gun per se, but the idea of hunting with a revolver. I got a 50 yard shoit at a nice sized javalina running cross wise. I put the hard cast bullet between two ribs, through the cartliage on top of the heart and out between two ribs on the other side. The javalina went down in the space of five feet and not two ounces of meat spoiled. The other guys with rifles came home empty handed. Revenge was sweet.

The second occasion was when a customer in a gun shop bad mouthed my English double rifle on the grounds that it was not accurate enough for deer hunting. Guess he packs a twenty five pound bench rest rifle when he goes deer hunting.

I have got grief over the years for my appreciation of cheaper guns. Of course most of that went away when my cheap guns and I out shot them!

I have owned "expensive" for me guns, and plenty of cheaper guns. IMHO the measure of a gun is does it meet the realistic expectations for it, I have owned many more cheap guns who did than expensive one. With my old Ruger M77 .270 I used to regularly shoot 5 shot groups in the 1.25in range at 200yrds, with factory ammo. I gave $300 for it. I got some grief from the Rem 700 crowd, but it out shot guns 3 times the cost. So I ended up doing most of the laughing!

I carried a little Keltec P32 for several years, got grief for it, but it was a reliable carry pc that I could shoot very well, was easy to conceal, and was a very good bang for the buck if you will.

Currently I carry a little Charter Arms snubby .38 I found cheap at a pawn shop. It fits my hand, well, shoots good for me, and goes bang every time. I own "better", but the CA fits me! I don't really care what others think, I own, carry, and shoot for my own benefit not theirs!

Eddie, what, I'm supposed to walk around gun stores and LOOK for people who hate Kimber? Your internet hate is certainly magnified.

Neither myself, nor any of my friends who carry them and shoot them a lot, have ever had a significant problem. When you sell several TIMES more 1911s than your nearest competitor, a high number of reported problems doesn't equal a higher RATE of problems. (Particularly on the internet.)

9mmepiphany said:

I'm not Eddie, but I was a bit surprised by your earlier post also. Granted I only frequent 4 or 5 gun forum with any regularity, but most Kimber 1911s are held to some level of derision on all of them. Some of it is questionable (MIM) and some of it is founded (feeding issues)...but I think it pretty universal in the knowledgeable gun community.

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What he said.

My dislike (hate requires too much energy) of Kimber has more to do with the attitude I've received from "customer service" reps than quality/reliability of their handguns.

Neither myself, nor any of my friends who carry them and shoot them a lot, have ever had a significant problem.

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The antithesis of the, "Mine sucked so they all do," poster.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

go shoot trap and skeet with a Remington 870 and 18 inch barrel sometime. most of the things said aren't very nice

I had a Steyr Professional rifle when they first came out. It was probably one of the first with a real matte finish and plastic stock. I caught no end of ribbing at the Border Patrol station where I worked. It wasnt walnut and bright blue. We were allowed to keep our personal firearms in our lockers in those days. It was a different story when we went to the range. The rifle would easily group into 3/4 inch at 100 with about any ammo, 30-06. Then they tried to buy it from me.
Also, I showed up at my trap & skeet club with my grandfathers M12 Winchester. He bought it around 1917. It had a long plain barrel and some washed out spots in the blue from where I had spilled some CocaCola on it as a child. You should have heard the laughs it got from the expensive trap gun owners out there. It also had a leather lace on recoil pad and they went into convulsions of laughter when they saw it. We shot a round and they werent laughing when we came off the range. I hit 24 and the closest was 23. As we walked by I said to my friends who were watching, "Missed one. Dont know how that happened."

I was carrying a 16 gauge single shot and went to a neighbors house approx 1 mile away and was maybe 9 years old.

The neighbor had a dirt go-cart track he had carved out of his 5 acre back yard and was always building go carts and stuff that moved around the track. Really a neat mechanical kinda guy.

I was really proud and protective of the 16 gauge. Mr. Bob wanted to see my gun so I handed it to him. He said wow look at this!!! The forehand gripe came off and then he removed the barrel from the lower!! I nearly freaked!! I had never seen the gun torn down and had no idea you could even take it apart!! He went through a whole tirade about what a piece of junk it was and I was lucky it hadn't blown up on me!!!

He instructed me that day on how to clean and tear down the shot gun and of all the gun stuff I experienced in my youth it stands out as a vivid memory.

bubbaturbo :

The forum is a very large lake, and your boat is small and you obviously have no paddles. At 116 posts, you sure do have a lot to learn before making expert opinion statements, which become waves much larger than your boat. Ease off.

I have had my share.

Had a gunsmith at a local store make fun of me for carrying a Kimber 1911. I was in the store to get some spare parts to have, before going off to a 4 day handgun course. Haven't been back to that store since..

Asked a clerk in a local shop if they had anything in 10mm. Was told "only an idiot would buy a gun in a dead cartridge." Haven't been back to that store either.

Won't mention the number of times my Taurus guns have been laughed at.

And of course, there is always somebody who has something to say about my Desert Eagle.

Zombe-killa gun from Mars.

Took my Lonely Eagle, .30-06 with the swiss-cheese brake on it, at 18-in. breech-to-muzzle, and a 4x28 mm Leupold on it. "Whazz'at? A cut down deer rifle?" "Where's the rest of your Humvee?" Etc. First shot was followed by one "MiGawd!" and a lot of quiet. I wait until the surprised onlookers are coming nearer before rotating the breech-block and popping the casing into my hand. 100 yds off the sandbags gave 10 rounds in the 9-ring or better. I save money on targets now, shooting the four quadrants instead of just at the '"10."

Good catch Bonza, I stand corrected...either way, I get some flak for liking old pistols.

I'd like to get my hands on a pre WWI M1895 Nagant, an Webley, and if possible an early colt autoloader of some flavor (but probably cannot afford it).

Once upon a time, at the dawn of the invention of 3gun, I was shooting a Century parts-built Franken-FAL. I mean, it is was butt-hideous-ugly. Nasty ugly. But that was also back in the days of cheap ammo and I was shooting 2,000 rounds a month in practice between the 3 guns.

During match setup, there was this one guy who had just got a brand new uber-gun. A really slick JP with dual optics (magnifying on top, dot on side). Beautiful rifle. (and later on I became friends with the guy). But all during setup he kept talking about how his gun was so much better that he really should be in his own class, and he berated my ugly gun (the thumbhole stock was wrapped in black electrical tape so I wouldn't cut myself on it... as much)

Then, during the match, my gun was sitting on an open case on the ground, action open, cooling from the last stage, and somebody came over not paying attention and kicked a bunch of sand right into the receiver. This is 30 seconds before I'm supposed to go to the line to shoot the big rifle burner stage.

So I'm all angry and distracted by the sand, that I shoot the stage, not thinking about shooting at all, and just thinking about how it is going to jam at any second. I turn around at the end, no jams, but still grumbling, to see everybody else there staring at me with their mouths agape. Well... turns out that I ran it clean, had the fastest time of the day, won the stage, and beat the #2 guy with the JP by a really wide margin.

After that I made having the ugliest/winning gun a kind of goal. I took 2nd in the state one year in "tactical rifle" shooting an iron sighted Vepr K with a stock that I made myself (and I don't know the first thing about wood work). It is literally held on with great gobs of wood glue and it has a 3 point sling made out of paracord and duct-tape. It is blatantly ugly, but it is also fun to beat the pants off of people who don't know you, and don't see that coming.

Sure. Many denigrate my Ruger P90 for being ugly, chubby, suffering awful ergonomics, offering quite possibly the worst SA trigger pull on a mainstream firearm, and, generally, being cheap, mass-produced junk.

Others denigrate my Glock for being a self-injury-accident waiting to happen, quite possibly having the worst trigger pull on a mainstream firearm and, in general, suffering horrid ergonomics and awful aesthetics.

steveno said:

go shoot trap and skeet with a Remington 870 and 18 inch barrel sometime. most of the things said aren't very nice

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Silhouette shooters hate, IPSC shooters; IPSC shooters hate High Power shooters; High Power shooters hate shotgun shooters and shotgun shooters hate everyone.

The forum is a very large lake, and your boat is small and you obviously have no paddles. At 116 posts, you sure do have a lot to learn before making expert opinion statements, which become waves much larger than your boat.

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My goodness. Where did the boats, paddles, lakes, and waves come from? Wait, I bet that's a metaphor or something.

And what "'expert opinion statements" are you referring to?
I only pointed out that anyone posting a picture of a customized gun on a gun forum shouldn't be surprised at comments, both pro and con, and to admit going to another forum to call somebody out about it sounds silly.

Ease off.

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No.

If you really want your gun to be mocked buy a Judge and tell everyone you're putting bird shot in it for self defense

so saxon, you invited people on the internet, armed ones to meet you somewhere and talk (fight) you because you didnt like what they were saying about a rifle you modified from its original condition?

yeah, nice

I've gottten alot of "can that ol thing even shoot" with my Mosin, Mausers, Enfield at range from time to times and those folks usually shut up after i showed them the target

No, but then again I don't buy garbage guns.

Has your gun ever been ridiculed?

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Yes. It always seems to stop once the skillsets and downrange results are compared.

Of course, being on the range as an instructor usually limits the jibes to good-natured ones from other instructors, but even those seem to fade away once skillsets & shooting results are compared. The remaining jibes are those offered by very good friends who I admire and respect, and I enjoy their gentle teasing.

I will admit to enjoying having someone make disparaging remarks about some gun I'm using, and then running it better, faster and more accurately than the guy making the remarks, and who usually is using some flavor-of-the-month gee-whiz gun or some expensive custom gun he probably won't ever be able to use to its capability.

The world is full of tools. Some of those tools take an inordinate and inappropriate amount of pride in the tools they own.

My dad bashes my Mossberg 500's, then I bash his 870 Express right back.

Except we both understand both are capable tools, just different taste. I actually want to buy an older 870 soon, I just dislike the modern Express line.

Oh sure. AR guys bash my AK. AK guys bash my SKS, Clay shooters bash my Mossberg. Everybody bashes my Taurus revolver. Wunderpistol guys trash my 1911s. 1911 guys bash my SW1911. Marlin guys bash my Model 94. Model 70 guys bash my Savage.

It's all part of the fun!