Problems you have with firearms...

Can you be a little more specific? Are we talking about run of the mill malfunctions, design flaws, or dangerously bad failures?

Look at the historical failures, such as the Chauchat LMG, the Ross straight-pull rifle, the Colt Paterson, etc. The history of firearms is replete with such examples.

Dorkfish88 said:

By that I mean with the firearms themselves, not things like price or laws...

For an engineering class im in, i have to research a problem in a field of my choosing, and i figure this forum is as good of a place as any to get help with this

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Running out of ammunition.

Seriously. Magazine design is in and of itself a fascinating discipline, and most self loading firearms malfunctions are magazine related.

Folks trying to reliably stuff that 8th round into a 1911 magazine and all of the spring and follower permutations that that has entailed is reads like a viking saga.

Are we talking about design problems? If we are I can think of two.

1. You need hands like an NBA player to operate the selector on an MP5. But I think they fixed that in later models.

2. in the old M60 MG, you could reassemble the gun with the bolt in backwards. It would go together fine, you just couldn't shoot it.

I could probably think of more, but thinking makes my head hurt.

sigpro said:

in the old M60 MG, you could reassemble the gun with the bolt in backwards. It would go together fine, you just couldn't shoot it.

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Gas piston. It would make it into a straight pull.

Not possible to do with later versions.

historically the ability to reach out and hurt your enemy ( they change over the years but we never run out of them...) has driven engineering and science & chemistry and manufacturing and tool making ant metal working..and metal making and.....kinda get where im going....?

the trouble with them now may be that they are too darn effective.

well, i didn't mean that, not that way at least.
for honest folk the handgun lacks what?
what needs improving?

id like a holster like in The Weapon Shops of Isthar. think 'gun' and the wire on the holster to the gun whips the gun into your hand faster than muscles can move.
matter of fact, the person has to train till they can use the holster without the gun breaking their hand.

the gas operated hard projectile system has had improvements sinse 1911, but weight vs power vs controlability has pretty much been achieved.

Gas piston. It would make it into a straight pull.

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i stand corrected. What can I say, I was a Corpsman, not a 0331.

What about the Remington "Walker" trigger in the Model 700 rifle? This is the most populuar rifle ever sold. Many users claim it tends to fire without pulling the trigger.

CNBC runs a smear TV documentary 2 or 3 times a month. Their beef appears to be that under the law, firearms makers cannot be compelled to "re-call" their guns even if they are defective.

In the end, guns should not be pointed in unsafe directions and most of the people injured or killed with these guns have been the victoms of poor gun handling by others who should know better.

What about the Remington "Walker" trigger in the Model 700 rifle? This is the most populuar rifle ever sold. Many users claim it tends to fire without pulling the trigger.

CNBC runs a smear TV documentary 2 or 3 times a month. Their beef appears to be that under the law, firearms makers cannot be compelled to "re-call" their guns even if they are defective.

In the end, guns should not be pointed in unsafe directions and most of the people injured or killed with these guns have been the victoms of poor gun handling by others who should know better.

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there is nothing wrong with the 700 trigger.......the "problem" came from people who neglected to maintain their firearms, or donkeyed with the trigger.

How about Trigger wobble in Lever Action Rifles? Worse yet is the simple fix that you can get by installing a one piece trigger and sear yet the factory continues to install the wobbly two piece design.

I don't know if this is what you want but I've had (and seen) a couple of revolvers bind up over the years. If you get them dirty enough you can have the face of the cylinder drag on the forcing cone as it rotates. I've seen them bind up enough that they won't operate. Granted, it usually takes a few hundred rounds and a few brushes with a cleaning brush and a little oil quickly fixes it. This is not a big deal but it shows that nothing is perfect in the gun world.
I've also had a Springfield V10 years ago that constantly jammed. The slide didn't appear to have a propper heat treatment. After a few hundred rounds the notch for the slide lock started getting chewed up and rounded out. They replaced it after a couple of trips back to the factory.
That's about it for firearms issue over the years.

I'll stick with handguns...

Issue #1 is always dependability (for a SD gun), whether that is fewer malfunctions, less risk of breakage, or fewer parts to break. You'd have to do better than Glock on this one.

Issue #2 is bore axis; a high bore increases the torque on the wrist in recoil (muzzle flip), causing issues with dependability ("limp-wristing") and slowness of follow-up shots. The Chiappa Rhino has tried to address that, but by using more parts (see dependability, above). It may not be possible to avoid high bore axis in a semi-auto handgun; well, except maybe something like...





Pet-peeve: hammer bite. But, that's been solved in a number of ways. So, why didn't they "solve" it to begin with!

Ruger and Beretta. They just do not sell higher capacity magazines for weapons which really could use them like the Mini series and the Cx4. The only alternatives are aftermarket magazines of assorted quality.

Magazines do more for reliability than anything else.

The G3 action is unusually harsh in recoil and great at scalding people 4 lanes down with hot mangled cases.

Wood and steel rifles can have wandering zeroes so you need to re zero them regularly.

Factory 6 pound double action trigger pulls play hell with aim.

There's always one stray to ruin your new best group.

Smaller calibers in lighter guns ought to be easier to control and shoot, but they are not.

The sights on some guns just flat out don't make any sense.

Guns that are stripped, cleaned, and lubricated will develop problems when unobserved.

Nobody has been able to make improvements to the Kalashnikov action.

The more lubrication you put on your weapon, the more you need to clean it.

Most guns cannot be made to do much more than 2 MOA without substantial work.

Aperture sights are either too ridiculously small to be practical or they're bigger than some open sight designs.

Trigger pull is always just a bit lighter than the pressure you exert while considering your first shot.

If a trigger is too fast, then the bullet misses because it was launched while pulling the trigger was sending your aim ever so slightly off target

Some guns have safeties which do not change much in appearance between on and off.

Adding 6 inches of barrel makes the gun feel 3x heavier.

The difference between an 8 pound gun and a 10 pound gun is huge.

Handgun skill seems to vary immensely between platforms.

Dorkfish88 said:

not design flaws, just regular annoying things you have to deal with, like noise, recoil pads that don't fit on your gun, loading up hi cap mags and things like that...

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Not being able to reach things like the slide release and the magazine release because my hands are small and my fingers are short. For example, its physically impossible for me to lock a Colt 1911 open to show clear at the range unless I lay it on the bench and pin the grip down with my chest so I can use both hands for the slide release and the slide itself. That's not great from either a safety standpoint or the standpoint of treating the gun with the respect due to its finish. I did it once in a class to an empty gun with an empty magazine (yes, yes, "All guns are always loaded," etc.), and can think of no realistic scenario where I would absolutely HAVE TO do it that way again.

And there are only a handful of guns from which I can drop a magazine one-handed by hitting the release with my right thumb.

With more and more women carrying correcting this sort of problem might make a good project if you're looking for a design challenge.

Mechanically, guns are pretty much figured out.

Autoloaders that won't reliably feed some kinds of rounds (JHPs, SWCs, etc.) caused by (I think) feed ramp and magazine not mating properly.

That they don't aim themselves?

I would say it would have to be quality control. I am sick and tired of purchasing guns that have flaws that should have been caught and fixed at the factory. Sure, manufacturers are more than happy to fix them when you send them back to firearm. However, I would just assume get it well done when it leaves the factory. I think firearms that were built 50 years ago were better made and required less returns to the factory. This all ties inti six sigma type stuff.

Dorkfish88:
My limited background only includes very frequent use of a few milsurp rifles.
Frankly, my only instruction has been pointers given by very seasoned friends (one friend set two AR records on the Navy Marks. Team years ago).

My primary hang-up is trying to use the very open sights on Yugo Mausers, and to a lesser extent, similar open sights on other battle rifles.

This is why the new Tech Sights are so much more accurate on my common, typical, Norinco SKS. Don't discount the improved sight distance. If I ever buy an AK clone (Not a Century build), it will very quickly acquire a Tech Sight. Even "Nutnfancy" (YouTube) likes his.

I am sick and tired of purchasing guns that have flaws that should have been caught and fixed at the factory.

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Why do you purchase guns that are flawed? Do you buy all of your guns sight-unseen over the internet?

If people didn't buy the flawed guns, the manufacturers would either go out of business or start producing higher quality firearms.

If you don't care enough to notice a flaw before plunking down many hundreds of dollars for a gun, do you really expect some "inspector" making a few dollars an hour to care more about it than you do? It's your money, not his.

I dislike the standard push-button magazine release on most pistols (Glock, S&W, etc). As one with small hands, I cannot reach the button with either my strong or support hand without significantly altering my grip on the pistol. When executing reloads, I've been taught to reach for the fresh mag with the support hand, after it's been secured, drop the magazine with the strong hand. This is tactically sound, but I can't do it without shifting the pistol in my hand. Under stress and/or with sweaty or bloody hands, this could cause me to drop the pistol, and at very least, I need to reestablish my grip once a new mag is in place.

I GREATLY prefer the ambidextrous lever style found on pistols such as the Walther P99 and the HK P30. With this style, I can use the lever using the middle finger on my strong hand without shifting the pistol at all. This can be done while the gun is on target, or after bringing it up into my "workspace" as in a tactical reload.

Also, the ambi-lever mag releases can be used identically regardless of your shooting hand. This is good when teaching support hand shooting tactics, as the same reload methods can be used.

I carry a Smith and Wesson M&P because I like almost everything about that gun, and I shoot it very well. But if I could change one thing, I would give it the ambi lever style mag release from the P99. I'm a right handed shooter, but I've actually switched push button on my M&P to a leftie style, just so I can push it with my strong hand middle finger. It's not as good as a lever, but it's better that change my grip entirely to make up for my stubby thumbs.

Ragnar Danneskjold,I'm with you on the flipper release, and I have large hands.

I'm quite sure that if JMB had developed a flipper or doublesided button (like the CZ82/XD/XDM/HS2000) that everything would have that design now, it is so obviously superior and simple.

Perhaps a paper on how a "pretty good" design like the one-way button ends up having longevity because of existing machinery on the market, and causes a "better" design to be a curiousity/oddity on a few models

Why do you purchase guns that are flawed?

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I think we should give ourselves a break.

The last gun I purchased was a handgun. I tested it at the counter (not with live ammo, though) and it was fine.

When I got it to the range, it malfunctioned. During a 50-round test session, I got it to fire two rounds in rapid succession exactly twice.

Oh--did I mention this was a revolver? :banghead:

Good news: I called up, the manufacturer sent me a shipping label AND covered pick-up cost from my door; they got it back to me in under 2 weeks; it is now perfect.

Sometimes a gun's flaws don't express themselves except during live fire. As a sometime-restorer of C&R pistols, I can tell you that successful dry-fire is only the first hurdle.