The most dangerous alteration you've seen?

How about a lunatic, wannabe gun smith who altered an AK to make it full auto and it worked. It just didn't stop working. If you pulled the trigger the whole mag was fired without it stopping. You better be hanging on tight when something like that happens.

^^^ I wonder if there would be some way to induce a jam, or drop the mag to stop the AK once it started firing full auto, just to keep it from going to the bottom of the mag.
Of course, letting go with one hand to try that, with a jumping gun in the primary hand has the potential to be seriously "no bueno"

I think amateur trigger jobs in self defense and hunting guns resulting in < 2 pounds are common and potentially unsafe.

Reason being I discourage people from "improving" their firearms with stupid add-ons like steel guide rods when the manufacturer used polymer, spring loaded firing pins in a bolt with a free floating firing pin, custom bubba trigger jobs.

If a gun is not what you want when you buy it, buy a different one. People think they are so much smarter than the gun manufacturer.

I don't know if there is a statistic, but I would wager that most firearm malfunctions are a result of people tinkering around trying to make the gun better. They grab the dremel and sandpaper and improve away.

readyeddy said:

i think amateur trigger jobs in self defense and hunting guns resulting in < 2 pounds are common and potentially unsafe.

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agreed 100%%%%%%%

I've had the displeasure of customers bringing in two 1911s that had been Bubba'd to the full-auto point, as well as a 12ga SXS that fired every time you closed the breech. The 12ga was stolen in a burglary of the shop.

All you have to with with most hammer-fired guns is interfere with the disconnector to make them "full auto." Uncontrollable automatic fire you can't stop is a problem, but the good thing is even a 30-round mag only lasts a few seconds...

Certain triggers from one glock to another glock cause stringfires...and I saw it happen on a buddy's racegun. The trigger dry firing was quite nice...but live fire got exciting awfully quick for the duration of 1 magazine.

Trigger-guards....

I'm not fond of the gunsmiths & designs with trigger-guards that are removed or modified.
Paris Theodore did it with the highly rated ASP 9mm pistol. Massad Ayoob did it too with his 1980s era Canon-Ayoob custom L frame 686 4" DA only revolver.
Early 20th century target shooter & Colt spokesperson; Fitz Fitzgerald used snub revolvers in .44spl with no triggerguards.
I saw too the custom 1911a1 .45acp used as a sidearm by the Texas Ranger who early in his LE career crawled up the tower steps to confront a spree shooter in Austin Texas. His brave act led to a formal post with the Texas Rangers.
His 1911 model had no triggerguard & lots of engraving.

I can see the speed aspect of removing or re-shape of the handgun triggerguard but the risk of a AD or a mishap with a loaded firearm would prevent me from doing it.

Trigger shoes or extended trigger faces aren't safe either in my opine. You can have a accident or issue with those devices too.

Ive seen bolt luggs shaved in lieu of adjusting correctly for headspace... that was kinda nuts. Ive seen dummy's on you tube use the bread tie method to make their AK "full auto" or fully stupid anyways. Seen a LOT of duct tape holding guns together. Usually a stock or something like a dust cover. I buy up people's crappy guns and fix them for myself, so i see dumb stuff all the time.

"I saw too the custom 1911a1 .45acp used as a sidearm by the Texas Ranger who early in his LE career crawled up the tower steps to confront a spree shooter in Austin Texas. His brave act led to a formal post with the Texas Rangers.
His 1911 model had no triggerguard & lots of engraving."

Uuuh, no. The future Ranger who killed Charles Whitman was Ramiro Martinez who generally favored Beretta 92s. The engraved 1911, sans trigger guard, you saw belonged to Manual "Lone Wolf" Gonzales. He came about a generation before Ranger Martinez. Manual was "colorful" to say the least. And I've never seen a Fitz Special with NO trigger guard, just with the front of it removed.

TRX said:

All you have to with with most hammer-fired guns is interfere with the disconnector to make them "full auto." Uncontrollable automatic fire you can't stop is a problem, but the good thing is even a 30-round mag only lasts a few seconds...

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The bigger problem with modifying the disconnector is that there is no provision for lock time, and you're not only full auto until the mag is empty, the rounds are essentially slam-firing without full lockup. I certainly don't want my face behind that bolt.

Remember, in many cases these 'improved' full-auto devices gather the attention of the ATF...never a good thing.

I remember as a kid in the very early 1960s visiting the used gun rack in a sporting goods section of the department store. I looked over a Lee Enfield SMLE that had been sporterized. A commercial rear sight had been installed in a dovetail cut in the barrel.

Most "sporterized" Enfields in the barrel at the old Army/Navy store down on mainstreet retained their massive military sights, and "sporterizing" was limited removing the upperhand guard, barrel bands and bayonet lug, and trimming the forearm of the stock about halfway up the barrel.

Someone had gone out of their way to put civilian sights on the rifle I was looking at. I knew enough about guns to open the bolt, put a piece of white paper in breech to catch the overhead light, and inspect the rifling to see if it was even there. I saw a puzzling bulge on the inside of the barrel about where the sight would be and returned the rifle to the rack.

When I mentioned this later to a relative who knew more about guns, he told me that it sounded like whoever cut the slot for the sight must have cut into the bore and what I saw was the bottom of the dovetail of the rearsight sticking into the bore.

Remember, in many cases these 'improved' full-auto devices gather the attention of the ATF...never a good thing.

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Not a good thing at all. My experience with the full auto AK I mentioned before went like this. The guy pulls up in my yard. He's the son of a good friend and he knows I like guns. He says he wants to show me something and proceeds to get his AK out and loaded. Then he says, "Watch this," and pulls the trigger. Apparently his dad ran him off from his own house so he came to mine to shoot full auto. I will admit I let him stick around a few minutes but there was little to do by then anyway. I would have narc'ed him out in half a second if the BATF had shown up.

Ive seen dummy's on you tube use the bread tie method to make their AK "full auto"

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The thought processes of some people. "Hey, I'm risking 10 years and a $100,000 fine manufacturing an unregistered machinegun, KNow what'll be cool? Post the evidence on YouTube!"

Plus I do not want to be holding a 7.62x39mm caliber rifle when a cartridge goes off out of battery, with the breech not fully locked against, what, 40,000 psi?

I always thought those "Fitz specials" looked like a very bad idea. Never seen one in wood and steel but cutting off the trigger guard (for the most part) doesn't seem like a good idea at all.

burrhead said:

"I saw too the custom 1911a1 .45acp used as a sidearm by the Texas Ranger who early in his LE career crawled up the tower steps to confront a spree shooter in Austin Texas. His brave act led to a formal post with the Texas Rangers.
His 1911 model had no triggerguard & lots of engraving."

Uuuh, no. The future Ranger who killed Charles Whitman was Ramiro Martinez who generally favored Beretta 92s. The engraved 1911, sans trigger guard, you saw belonged to Manual "Lone Wolf" Gonzales. He came about a generation before Ranger Martinez. Manual was "colorful" to say the least. And I've never seen a Fitz Special with NO trigger guard, just with the front of it removed.

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Whitman was killed with a 12 gauge shotgun by Houston McCoy, and the Beretta 92 didn't exist in 1966.

And Ramiro Martinez wasn't a Ranger in 1966. You're right about McCoy though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramiro_Martinez

Friend of mine in high school had a marlin goose gun that he altered so that it fired when you closed the bolt.

If a gun is not what you want when you buy it, buy a different one. People think they are so much smarter than the gun manufacturer.

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I don't agree with this at all. There is plenty that can be done to improve a great many guns, if you know what you're doing. It's unwise and unfair to judge all tinkerers as incompetent.


I also wouldn't go around telling real gunfighters that their cherished fighting pistols are "unsafe". Unlike most of us, they didn't grow up in a time where there's a lawyer on every corner just frothing to get a big payday for every idiot who hurts themselves. Where people spill hot coffee on themselves and then sue for getting burned. It was a time of common sense, before barrel warnings, loaded chamber indicators and internal locks. When they did what they had to to win gunfights.

Removed trigger guards are right up there.

Boogered trigger jobs too. I'll admit to doing one, but I replaced the hammer and sear asap. Gotta learn somehow, and I learned to leave that to the pros.

Carl N. Brown said:

Plus I do not want to be holding a 7.62x39mm caliber rifle when a cartridge goes off out of battery, with the breech not fully locked against, what, 40,000 psi?

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As a southpaw, that thought makes me really nervous...

CraigC said:

I don't agree with this at all. There is plenty that can be done to improve a great many guns, if you know what you're doing. It's unwise and unfair to judge all tinkerers as incompetent.

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Agreed. If I own it, and it uses ammunition or gasoline, it probably has several modifications.

Texas Rangers.....

Thanks for the corrections. I'm not "up" on my Texas history.
I do recall as a teen reading NRA magazines(my uncle was a hunter & WWII veteran who belonged to the NRA).
Beretta USA had ads saying the elite Texas Rangers used the 92F 9x19mm.
I don't think the DPS & Rangers used the 92Fs very long before switching to SIGs in P220 .45acp & P226(first 9mm then later the potent .357sig).
J Jackson, the retired Texas Ranger wrote in his first non fiction book: One Ranger that sworn Rangers could choose what pistols or guns to use. He said many picked the 1911a1 .45acp SAO. Jackson liked the Commander size with stag grips.

To clarify, I meant the front part of the triggerguards too for the "Fitz" Colts.

stchman said:

Reason being I discourage people from "improving" their firearms with stupid add-ons like steel guide rods when the manufacturer used polymer, spring loaded firing pins in a bolt with a free floating firing pin, custom bubba trigger jobs.



If a gun is not what you want when you buy it, buy a different one. People think they are so much smarter than the gun manufacturer.



I don't know if there is a statistic, but I would wager that most firearm malfunctions are a result of people tinkering around trying to make the gun better. They grab the dremel and sandpaper and improve away.

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So I guess I should drop a couple grand on a bullseye gun instead of building my own? My "bubba" trigger jobs don't cost me much and get me great scores. I guess I could just pay four times as much for the same thing.