High(er) end or Brand name firearm disappointments.

I think for the most part, entry level firearms are like entry level cars. While they work, they will not have fit and finish like higher end makes, nor will they have the options and finesse. Triggers for the most part are better on higher end guns, as is the rest of the action. Higher end guns will have more rounded edges on triggers and hammer and thus easier on your fingers, just like higher end cars have more comfort in the ride. I drive Jeeps, Chevies and Fords. I have had Beemers and Caddies when I thought they were cool, but did not see enough difference to justify the price. While I would love a Land-Rover instead of the Jeep, again for my needs, the jeep is plenty. For my guns,for the most part, I have Rugers, Colts, S&Ws, Remingtons, Winchesters, Stevens, Ithicas and Mossbergs. They are the Chevys, Fords and Jeeps of the gun world. I have a coupla Taurus/Rossi (old Garcia SxS Coach gun and a Rossi lever in .357), which I would consider to be Kias. Like Kia cars, they function and shoot well. The old Rossi Coach Gun is my go to grouse/woodcock shottie. I have slicked up the Rossi lever a bit and it is a tack driver.

Well ill probably get flamed.... but I was a bit disappointed in my Kimber 1911

I've owned a couple of luxury cars and they were absolute piles of crap. Good quality in spots but mostly double priced, poorly engineered POSs.

I've learned my lesson in life to research and shop around, and buy mid range.

Guns that I count on are Glocks and Rugers. Neither are perfect but they are both great values, usually as good or better anything else I could buy.

Folks are probably tired of hearing me grouse about S&W "Classics", so I'll just say that I've had several which were very poorly done.

The only other gun for which I had high hopes and was let down was a late '90s Colt 1911 in .38 Super. I ordered it sight unseen, and when it showed up there really wasn't anything about it to justify the $1000 price tag. It rattled like a bag of parts, was unreliable, inaccurate, had a mediocre trigger, and a plain quality finish with dot-matrix style markings. At one point I had a Norinco 1911 in .45 ACP which was a very similar gun. I believe I paid just under $300 for it new. I'm not generally a Colt basher, but that particular example pretty well put me off the name.

<Edit> I grew up in a Mercedes family. My father was a mechanical engineer and held them in high regard. I guess they may have been top notch decades ago, but my experience with them has not been very good. I'm a Honda man at this point.

Oh - one more. I have a Pedersoli Gibbs long range percussion rifle. It is the "Deluxe" model with upgraded wood, extensive hand engraving, and all the bells and whistles. It is a fantastic rifle in nearly every way, with very nice wood, excellent engraving, and tremendous accuracy. The checkering, though, looks like it was done by a drunken child. Especially on the forearm there isn't a straight line to be found. (The picture looks like there is a problem with my cell phone. There isn't. The borders really do look like that!)



Because everything else about the rifle is great - and because accuracy was the primary concern with the purchase, and it has that in spades - I'm not especially upset about it. In fact, now that the pain of the cost is forgotten, the checkering is actually kind of funny to me.

Ruger automatic pistols. Pathetic.

Browning.

Bought a new SA22 from them recently and the sights are at a 10° or so offset to the barrel. Horrible. Still waiting for them to send it back, it’s been 3 months.

Have had a couple of not so good Colts, especially one particular Agent snubnose revolver which had a very seriously misaligned cylinder and an equally poor overall fit and finish. There was a like new Browning Hi-Power which was Minute of Barn, as in Broad Side of, basically because of it's miniscule sights and 15+ lb. trigger pull.

Other than a few other minor problems along the way, I have been fortunate (knock on wood), in that I'm very happy and satisfied with the guns that I presently have and look forward to reliable service out of them for some time to come.

Well ill probably get flamed.... but I was a bit disappointed in my Kimber 1911

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Pretty much every 1911 I've ever owned was a disappointment including those made by Colt. But the Kimber and S&W 1911's were 2 exceptions.

Ruger automatic pistols. Pathetic.

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I wouldn't call Ruger pistols high end. They are far from my favorite, they are crude and ugly, but are functional and usable as a SD pistol especially for the money. The Ruger American rifles are very accurate guns for the money. Although they are creeping up in price and are not the value they used to be.

Probably the one gun I've had that I was truly disappointed in was an HK-45. Granted I bought it used and that may have been the real problem. But it was neither as accurate, nor as reliable as I expected.

Not really high end, but highly thought of at least on the internet, but anything made by CZ is overrated IMO. Especially their handguns.

South Prairie Jim said:

Well ill probably get flamed.... but I was a bit disappointed in my Kimber 1911

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Me to, mid to late 2000’s manufacture. I’ve been told they’re better now but I’ll never know. The CS was worse than the gun.

Havent gotten a real bad ..... anything....not yet anyway.

I dont own but one factory high end gun, and even my Ridgeline is basically the "entry level" gun.

But ive handled a bunch of higher end guns and ive honestly had a few.....is that all? moments.
A lot of it I attribute to my general lack of experience tho I get the feeling that were I to USE some of the guns ive only shot a few times for a while, id eventually come to really appreciate the small nuances. Then theres a few that I think were anomalies, like my buddies X5 Legion with an awful trigger....ruined an otherwise fantastic (and not horribly highend) package.

Also, most of my gun are cheap utilitarian pieces ive dumped money and/or effort into because it amused me. They could be considered semi customs at this point, so perhaps not a 100% fair comparison either.

I've read/heard a lot of bad reviews and complaining about Mossberg's Silver Reserver O/U shotguns. For a low cost O/U I couldn't be happier with the one I have. Got my only 25/25 with it. If i do my part the gun will do it's part.

One high end gun I bought and had high expectations on was a 2011. It came with a premium cost and not exactly sure what I was expecting but overall my opinion was "eh". It was no better then my mid level 1911s.

H&K USP .45.

I bought one of the first ones available here in SoCal, I put money down when they were first announced and had to wait for a while until they were delivered to the dealer, I also had to take it to Tex Shoemaker so they could build a duty holster for it.

Awful trigger; mushy with no hint of crispness and way too slide-heavy once the magazine was down to a few rounds. I sent it packing with the duty holster and four magazines and used the money to fly to England for a vacation.

All of my other higher end guns I’m very happy with.

Stay safe.

Rockrivr1 said:

I've read/heard a lot of bad reviews and complaining about Mossberg's Silver Reserver O/U shotguns. For a low cost O/U I couldn't be happier with the one I have. Got my only 25/25 with it. If i do my part the gun will do it's part.

One high end gun I bought and had high expectations on was a 2011. It came with a premium cost and not exactly sure what I was expecting but overall my opinion was "eh". It was no better then my mid level 1911s.

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If that was an STI (Now Staccato) 2011 I concur. I had a new hire here who bought one and tried to qualify with it as a duty gun. It jammed so many times I failed the $2,200+\- pistol and the guy went home with a Glock 19.

I’ll take a mid-level 1911 like a SA Ronin as well.

Stay safe.

gnappi said:

That said, I've owned a couple of high(er) end pistols, and in general some were worth the $$ uplift, in others not so much.

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Guess you need to define what you consider "high(er)" end.

Well I don't know if I told it here, but around March last year I purchased a new Beretta APX in .40S&W, it was a few weeks before I had a chance to shoot it. I ran one 10 rd mag thru it no problem, about 4th round on second mag and something struck me on right index knuckle, ended up being the extractor from this brand new Beretta, took about 3 months, got it back have ran about 400 rounds thru it, after 1,000 I might trust it. It was an Italian not Tennessee made gun btw. So as not to beat any mfg. up. I always say if it was made with human hands it's not a matter of if but when it fails.

I've never owned a Kimber, something about the look of it did not appeal to me, so when my brother bought one and had me trying it out I personally thought that it was the hardest slide to rack in a 1911 compared to my 1911s made by Springfield Armory. It was just as accurate as my Springfields at 50 yards but racking the slide was hard, very hard. My brother ended trading it for a Springfield.

I have never been disappointed by any of the brands of firearms I own, until just recently when I purchased what I considered a top of the line purchase from Smith And Wesson performance center. I bought the Model 41 and was ready to do a comparison accuracy test with my Browning Buckmark and was not able to do it as the Model 41 would not feed any of the ammo I had. It was disappointing since I saved for over 2 1/2 years to buy it and the most I could shoot was 10 rounds before I had to send it back a few weeks ago. I sure hope they can fix it.

Diminishing returns in most cases.
There is a difference but is it enough of a difference to matter? That's the question...

I think we can draw some conclusion with a comparison to cars , but not everything is so simple.

I'll tell you with almost complete certainty that a $100 hi-point is capable of better accuracy than the vast majority of shooters. It's not easy to shoot well, it's not ergonomic or stylish but mechanically it can outshoot most people's ability. So do we make fun of the guy with the sig 210 that paid $2000? A gun that costs 1/20th the price puts out the same projectile , with mechanical accuracy potential better than most people could ever even take advantage of . clearly the sig 210 guy is a sucker. Not really, there's more there. Emotional satisfaction, aesthetic satisfaction, status, ergonomics , quality , longevity ect ect ect .

How about the guy who buys a nighthawk (or whatever ) 1911, will his $3000 (or whatever) gun run better or more reliably than a $500 glock? No. Sorry, but no. But he gets satisfaction from pride of ownership.

This boils down to what you value. I've had a few S&W revolvers, I consider the a little higher end compared to rugers and Taurus but they were garbage. Nice finish, smooth action but frail and finicky to put it politely . what I value is longevity and reliability so for me the Smith was no value at all. I lost respect for the brand because of how my concerns were handled and how the guns couldn't hold up to the exact treatment I gave my rugers and Taurus revolvers. That's not the point, point is that someone , somewhere has my old S&W revolvers and probably treasures them. They value different things than I do and a ruger would make them turn up their nose when in all reality it's superior as far as function (not looks).

Depends on what you value.

My most treasured gun is a freedom arms revolver. There's not one single revolver that I've had hands on that's even close. Smooth, powerful, robust and beautiful . ask some tactical mall ninja and he'd tell you it's like a hilarious joke from a bygone era, no value there for that guy. Perception is the biggest factor. If you only shoot 100 rds out of a certain gun in your entire life , treasure it, rub it with a diaper, put endless photos on the internet and brag about the thing but never shoot it , it's done its job and has value to the individual. Like the hi-point guy who values his one and only firearm above everything else, even if he could afford more but chose it because it felt right. You or I wouldn't give $50 for it and he wouldn't sell it for $500- he loves it.

Don't get me started on cars, all I'll say is that I know more about it than most people and in all honesty they're all unreliable and overpriced . you can drive a geo for 20 years or a maybach - both move you down the road. Both have heat, ac (well...), a steering wheel and a seat. Both can get you across country and back again but one costs 60x more, what do you get for 60x the price? A 35 way adjustable seat you'll never move after adjusted , smoother ride and bragging rights . Both work but some folks got an itch to scratch.

Long story even longer, somethings have real value some things have perceived value and some things are just a rip off (both expensive and inexpensive). If a high end gun doesn't satisfy your standards , give up and get a hi-point. Or something.

A bunch of years back---
1---A Kimber 1911 .45---wouldn't feed my 230gr LRN reloads nor any of 3 factory JRN. I traded it even up at a LGShow to a guy I didn't like for a same condition
S&W Mod 19 blue 2 1/2in.
2---A Dan Wesson 6in .22 revolver. It shot 8in "groups" at 20yds supported. After 6 months of playing with cylinder gap, barrel torque and ammo I traded this $400 POS
back for a $200 Remington 788 bolt in .223. After loading a ladder group I could shoot 1in groups at 100yds all day. My buddy (a rifle shooter only) got it down to 1/2in.

Bcwitt said:

Ruger automatic pistols. Pathetic.

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Curious.

They're generally considered ultra reliable.

South Prairie Jim said:

Well ill probably get flamed.... but I was a bit disappointed in my Kimber 1911

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That surprises me.

bdickens said:

Curious.

They're generally considered ultra reliable.

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The earlier "p" series was OK, but more modern ones use very small pins & tension springs. If you take one apart you will see what I mean. Bring your magnifying glass & tweezers.

Springfield 1911. Pos couldn't get it to work. Tried different ammo, mag's, even sent it in. Never worked. This was years upon years ago. So maybe they got things worked out. Will never buy another ti find out.

Really disappointed in a Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0 Pro Series 5" C.O.R.E. Really poor engineering with the plastic adapter plates. The action is not as smooth as my broken in compact. The trigger, while different than the compact is arguably not "better". Smith and Wesson's customer service has simply been MIA.

Taurus PT99 has always been reliable and accurate. My customer service experience with Taurus has been satisfactory.

buck460XVR said:

I would love a Land-Rover instead of the Jeep, again for my needs, the jeep is plenty

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But, can a Land Rover do that?
When this Jeep inevitably dies, I'll be looking for another just like it. My 3rd XJ that's went beyond 300k miles.

Colt Defender Lightweight .45 acp. Thing would stop hard 1/4" out of battery. To the point that it was really difficult to get it unstuck. Ammo didn't matter. Mags didn't matter. It would do it empty, no mag, nothing...just slingshot the slide and 8 times out of 10 it would stick. 2 local gunsmiths and a trip back to Colt. Was like that the day I got it, so I traded it back in to the shop it came from. He sent it back to Colt the 2nd time. He said they fixed it, but he never told me exactly what they did. I'm way happier with the Sig 1911 I got in trade and only gave $50 difference.