What gun disappointed you the most?

Glockula said:

Mine was a Century CETME. I wanted to love the gun but reliability issues, a ground bolt, and tight bolt gap were too much to overcome. I purchased a good amount of NATO headstamped 7.62x51 to shoot through it and still there were issues. One range session I pulled the trigger and it blew the mag out of the gun and deformed thw magazine. One of the few firearms I have sold. Good riddance.

My Savage 11 Trophy .308 was a distant second. The barrel was really rough inside and was extremely picky on projectiles. It just never shot better than 2moa with anything. I gave her as partial trade on a Savage 10 fp-sr and love the 10.

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I had the same issues with their CETME/C308 rifle. The thing simply wouldn’t function. The bolt wouldn’t go into battery half the time. With no forward assist or bolt handle to bash forward I couldn’t work past it. For such a simple rifle it really gave me a run for my money. I could not figure out what was wrong.

Figuring all was lost, I gave it one last shot. I’m not sure on the proper term for the part, but the little metal piece that the non reciprocating bolt handle latches into and pushes the bolt back when you charge it had burrs on it. I polished it up and now it’s great

About seven years ago i traded for a brand new Mossberg 500 rifled barrel shotgun. Recently got around to buying some sabot slugs and firing the gun. What an unwieldy and clunky piece it turned out to be. i especially detest the ported barrel.

A few Colt 1911s purchased new.

Loose plunger tubes. (WW1 repro)

Crooked slides that rubbed one side of frame. (1991a1)

Sights falling off. (1991 stainless)

Trigger pad brazed on crooked (series 70 repro)

I’m a glutton for punishment.

A Walther P-22 that would not fire a couple of rounds out of every magazine. Two different gunsmiths tried to fix the issue. Another one claimed I was probably limp wristing it even after I carefully explained to the lunkhead that there wasn't an issue with cycling in a new round but that the hammer wasn't falling far enough to hit the firing pin every now and then. Gave up, sold the gun. Incidentally, replaced it with a Walther P-22 from a buddy who let me run 50 rounds of LR through it before buying it. Not a lick of a problem with that one.

There's been more than one. But these are the ones that I bought with eyes wide open, based on what I'd heard and read, expecting better.

Walther PPK/S (Interarms). Most finicky semi-auto I've ever owned ... but bought into the Bond thing and regretted it. Pitiful sights. Useless safety. Horrible DA trigger, barely acceptable in SA. Mediocre accuracy. But looked cool.

Kel-Tec P11. Literally could not get though two consecutive magazines without at least two or more malfunctions. Garbage accuracy. Egregious trigger.

Ruger LC9 (original, pre-S). Worst trigger ever.

Ruger Mini-14. Wanted to like it; loved the feel and the looks. Couldn't shoot worth a lick, worst accuracy of any rifle I've ever owned.

H&K USP. Bought one because it was once a duty pistol. One of the most singularly un-ergonomic pistols ever produced. A brick in the hand. Cheese-grater front-strap. Bad barrel, horrible accuracy. Magazines prohibitively overpriced.

bannockburn said:

Stevie-Ray

The AMT Hardballer a friend of mine had was without a doubt one of the worst assembled guns I have ever encountered! Internally it was if the "assembler" (and I use that term lightly), took parts out of a bin, arbitrarily put them into the gun, and then went on to the next gun disaster in the making. There was no evidence of any hand fitting of any part inside the gun, as proven by the fact that the gun could scarcely live up to it's name with hardball ammo on the rare occasion it did work! I ended up replacing just about every part on that gun with quality parts from Colt, Wilson, and Ed Brown to get it to up and running.

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I'd do the same with my Govt. if I still had it today. Back then, I had neither the time, nor the inclination to deal with something so obviously inferior to Colt. It was a beautiful gun to be sure, and had a plethora of features not found on run-o-the-mill Colts, and for a steal of a price. Accurate too, when it worked. Mine worked best with Uzi ball, as it was hotter than most and beat the gun into submission. Sometimes the gun would even go through a whole mag with Uzi, raising my hopes, then choke on the next. These days, you find in the chatter about AMT, that the Longslides had a few complaints, the Hardballers more, and the Government models pretty much all. Makes me wish I had bought a Longslide all those years ago, but I wanted a standard length at the time.

A Mossberg dedicated turkey gun.

Colt Officers ACP...

My most disappointing firearm was a Mossberg .22lr 702 Plinkster or Junkster as I called it. I was in Walley World and happen to see it in the display case and asked to check it out. It felt light and nice so I took a chance and paid $99 for it out the door. I took it home and cleaned it up and started shooting it and it was off target badly. I thought I can't see good at a distance but I am not blind. So I put a scope on it and tried to sight in from a rest. I never could get that thing even at 15 yards to shoot to aim point. I took it to the local pawn shop and traded it on a used Ruger 10/22. I took a $10 loss but was happy to be rid of that junker.

I had a Walther P-38 that seemed to shed or break pieces every time I fired it.

A new Remington 870 shotgun with a slug barrel. It functioned fine, but rusted like it had been dipped in salt water after just a few weeks in the safe. Terrible finish.

NIGHTLORD40K said:

Whoo boy, where to start.......

Probably my 99% FACTORY NICKEL Colt 1908 Pocket Hammerless. Most beautiful handgun Ive ever owned- and one of the least reliable.

To make matters worse, I got a really good deal on it and figured Id be able to flip it for a decent profit even though I couldnt get it to run right. When I went to sell it, it was like it had gun herpes- nobody locally wanted to touch the darn thing! Took it to the gunshow, nada!
Finally dumped it on Armslist for what I paid minus the shipping which I ate......

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You must have gotten your hands on a bad example. I have several of those little Colts in .32 and .380, and they all run reliably and are accurate, although I'd probably never shoot them as much as I would a 1911. The way the extractor and the firing pin are pinned into the slide, I don't think it would do to take them down too often. Worse, is that double mainspring system. The book says reassembly is simple reverse order, and that will work if you have the grip of a gorilla.

Smith And Wesson 329 pd. Nice guns and good factory backing so far but the worst durability of anything I've ever seen, and I have a sig mosquito, 2 J-22s, a Clerke first, and a Lorcin in a scrap box so that's saying something.

Old Dog said:

There's been more than one. But these are the ones that I bought with eyes wide open, based on what I'd heard and read, expecting better.

Walther PPK/S (Interarms). Most finicky semi-auto I've ever owned ... but bought into the Bond thing and regretted it. Pitiful sights. Useless safety. Horrible DA trigger, barely acceptable in SA. Mediocre accuracy. But looked cool.

Kel-Tec P11. Literally could not get though two consecutive magazines without at least two or more malfunctions. Garbage accuracy. Egregious trigger.

Ruger LC9 (original, pre-S). Worst trigger ever.

Ruger Mini-14. Wanted to like it; loved the feel and the looks. Couldn't shoot worth a lick, worst accuracy of any rifle I've ever owned.

H&K USP. Bought one because it was once a duty pistol. One of the most singularly un-ergonomic pistols ever produced. A brick in the hand. Cheese-grater front-strap. Bad barrel, horrible accuracy. Magazines prohibitively overpriced.

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Man, did we have a few of the same lemons!

Interarms PPK/s in stainless: Love the looks, but the gun had sharp edges, awful sights and started doubling on me just for fun.

H&K USP .45. I bought into the hype, and paid full price + for one of the first ones after they were introduced. Absolute applesauce mush for a trigger, fair accuracy, 2x4 ergonomics, 55 bucks each for mags back in mid 1990s.

Marlin 60. Meh, it didn’t do anything very well.

Rossi 85: my first stubby, a crooked cylinder would bind against forcing cone.

Stay safe.

Had to be the Kimber 84m in .260 Remington I bought as a reward to myself. Many years ago. Beautiful thing that wouldn't shoot better than 4" at 100 yards to save your soul.
Long story short: I eventually sold it on GB for less than 1/2 of what I paid for it, and I am glad to see it gone.

I’ve had some disappointing guns, mainly Taurus’s but the all time worst disappointment was a Detonics Combat Master. It was used, I was young and didn’t know a lot about the 1911 platform at the time or I could have fixed it myself. It would eject each case as I pulled the trigger but as the round count in the magazine went down the spent cases got closer and closer to me. The next to the last empty case hit me in the top of the head and the last one went down my shirt. It only took a few magazines through that pistol and it went back to the gun shop. I sure wished I had it back. That was the best looking automatic I’ve ever seen!

1KPerDay said:

However when I finally got the opportunity to purchase a nice P225 and jumped on it, it has not worked out so well. The trigger is livable but I simply can't shoot it accurately. I tried everything I could think of; I even replaced the locking block insert on the advice of some knowledgeable people. Still can't shoot it as well as I would expect to be able to.

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I had the same experience. I love my W. German P226 so I thought I would like the P225 as well. I found an excellent condition P225 (not a P6), and it just didn't fit me very well at all. I shot much more poorly with it vs. the P226.

Glockula said:

Mine was a Century CETME.

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I bought a Century CETME when I was younger because I thought the HK 91 style rifles "looked cool. It wasn't until I took it to the range and shot it that I realized that it did not fit me at all. I just couldn't work with the ergonomics and it turned me off of HK style rifles for a long time. I am much happier with my STG 58 variant of the FAL.

Despite that, I'm glad that I gave HK style rifles a second chance recently in the form of a Zenith Arms MP5 style pistol. I still dislike the hard to reach safety, but it is a lot of fun to shoot.

My biggest disappointment recently was an all matching commercial DWM Luger in 7.65 Para. I love the caliber and have a couple of Swiss SIG P210-6s in it. I liked the Luger, but a number of parts broke in the first few magazines. I might change my opinion of the Luger if I had a better example, and I still want to try a Swiss 06/29 Luger, but my experience was not good with the DWM.

Colt American 2000
Colt Double Eagle

Browning BAR in 7mm Mag. It never lived up to my expectations and I sold it. It wasn't a bad rifle, but after several years of not being what I expected accuracy wise, I felt like I was wasting my time with it.

After posting the other day and then reading all of the following post I remembered a few other disappointments.

A Ruger Blackhawk 45 Convertible. It would not shoot better than pie plate size groups with either the 45 Colt or the 45 ACP cylinders. Many different loads, a few different shooters, ect. Ruger said to send it back. They returned it with a test target that matched my targets saying that it was within spec. It got traded off!

A Ruger M-77 with the tang safety in 308 Winchester. Me and a friend both bought one at the same store at the same time. His shot MOA with several different loads. Mine shot Minute of pie plate. I tried different loads, different scopes, recrowned the barrel, free floated the barrel and bedded the action and finally traded it for a Remington 700 that shoots MOA.

A Springfield Armory M1-A Super Match. It had a head space problem from the factory. Springfield did fix it and I still have it.

On another note I have a few guns that others have had problems with that work fine for me.

My AMT Hardballer shoots nearly as well as my Colt Gold Cup and feeds flawlessly. I did buy it from a Gunsmith back in the day when a Gunsmith was a real Smith. I don't know what if anything that he did to it. It just works!

My Interarms Walter PPKs stainless feeds reliably and shoots ok. Its not a Bullseye gun and the trigger ain't great but it works ok.

Remington Model 742 in 30-06. It's like a bear in the woods "shoots wherever it wants to".

Glock. I found the ergonomics intolerable. Could never find a comfortable grip on it. The trigger felt squishy like a red ryder bb gun, and ground the hell out of the tip of my trigger finger. The trigger ring bashed the hell out of my middle finger. the mag release was extremely sharp edged. The magazines couldn't be trusted to drop free, and were hard to load. I know a lot of people love them, which causes me no grief at all. They're just not for me.

Double Eagle Officers; trigger had a vug in the front, Colt wanted me to send the whole gun back, i still have it. later on, front sight took off for parts unknown. now have old Tasco Optima rd on it... wanted it for edc, cuz ss, but way too heavy.

Dframe said:

Glock. I found the ergonomics intolerable. Could never find a comfortable grip on it. The trigger felt squishy like a red ryder bb gun, and ground the hell out of the tip of my trigger finger. The trigger ring bashed the hell out of my middle finger. the mag release was extremely sharp edged. The magazines couldn't be trusted to drop free, and were hard to load. I know a lot of people love them, which causes me no grief at all. They're just not for me.

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I owned enough toy plastic pistols when I was a child. They don't appeal to me as an adult.