Durability of a everyday carry pistol/revolver ?

Do you carry a safe queen or a tool

  • I carry a gun and I'm not worried about scratches nor wear

    Votes: 179 97.8%
  • I carry a safe queen and wont subject my gun to unwanted wear nor scratches

    Votes: 4 2.2%

  • Total voters
    183
  • Poll closed .
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Maybe the whole concrete drop thing was a mangled-in-translation allusion to the CA drop tests that pretty much every mainstream handgun has passed in one dress or another?
 
I enjoy looking at the wear my pistol accumulates. It shows character.

I won't abuse it, though. Battle scars are supposed to be earned.
 
Delawarean said:
There is no way to keep a carry gun in mint condition.

Sure there is. Carry it in the box, never load it and never take it out. But you will have it with you :D

No way you can prevent 100% of blemishes on a carry gun. There are a few things you can do to reduce them. Such as getting a high quality holster made for that firearm. No Jack of all firearms type holsters. Use protectant oils like Breakfree CLP around high traffic points where the holster rubs on your firearm such as on the sides of the slide for semi-autos and the cylinders on revolvers.
 
My carry gun is fantastic plastic. My safe queens are aluminum and steel. Well, I do have my one 1911 Kimber I carry from time to time, but I'm not too worried about it.
 
More importantly, are you prepared to surrender your carry piece if you ever have to use it?

Guarantee that if you fire your piece in self defense, Officer Friendly is gonna collect it as evidence.

I run the philosophy that the carry pistol is a tool that should be ultra reliable, as accurate as me and affordable to carry and replace.
 
Back when I had them, I divided my handguns into collector guns and working guns. Collectors, so as not to suffer scratches, holster wear or other cosmetic damage, stayed mostly in the safe, although I would occasionally shoot them. Working guns were and are meant to be carried, shot, drawn from holsters hundreds of times, etc., so wear resulting from this is normal and accepted.
 
OP, Could you drop back in and clarify what you're really asking?

So, I have a gun. I hold it over my head. I drop it in my driveway.

Are you asking:

Are we worried about it working?

Are we worried it isn't pretty any more?

Do we start with ugly guns on purpose so the scratches don't matter?

................

Yes, my EDC gets more wear than a safe queen, but it isn't like it has to be a POS just because it will be carried. If I was going to drive 200 miles round trip to a job site every day for a month, I wouldn't take a restored 67 Firebird but I wouldn't take a demolition derby car either. Odds are good that I will never "un-conceal" my CCW for the rest of my life. I am not a cop, bounty hunter, or anything else that would make it likely that I would draw my gun more than once in a lifetime. It is concealed so it isn't like I'm dragging it down the side of a building directly against the brick.

My pocket gun is a $1000 pistol. If I dropped it on concrete it would bother me (mostly I would have to ask myself why exactly I was holding it above my head in the driveway in the first place...was I surrendering?)...but it doesn't stop me from carrying it.
 
Now, does this trainer, teacher do what? Actually drop a pistol? Have students drop pistols or what?

If the instructor asked me to drop my gun, I would walk out of class.



Scratching fingernails on a blackboard does NOT bother me.

Seeing a firearm of any sort hit the ground and worse yet take s skid makes me cringe in pain.


That said, if any gun I own went through a drop, I would strip it and examine everything internally and externally. I trust my eye and experience to do this well.

I'd put it back together and test fire it well and with appropriate caution.

Then, I'd clean the marks up as well as I could.
I totally agree. I do not have any safe queens but I would not intentionally try to damage any of my guns. My carry pieces do show wear, thats OK. I also would leave a class where the instructor was telling people to intentionally damage their guns. Your post is well said and on point.
Thanks
 
Deliberately dropped???

As with the others no way and I would walk out of the class.

Accidently?

Then the answer is yes I would expect it to remain in fully functional condition. Case in point is a couple of weeks ago I took a Ruger S.A. out of the safe and carelessly failed to see the case it was in was partially unzippered and, well you guessed it, major, deep concrete dings on the bottom back tip of the grip frame. The nice thing about steel is a file and cold blue can fix stupid acts. So a little time with a file, wet sandpaper and cold blue removed the damaged.

This gun is far from safe queen having being shot and carried a lot over the last 15 years or so. It has been dropped a couple of times in soft dirt when we were participating in mounted shooting which is not a uncommon occurance in that sport. Yet it remains in perfect working condition.

(p.s. As a plus I acually like the gun better with the end of the grip frame slightly rounded as it feels more comfortable. So sometimes you can make lemonade out of a lemon.)

Double action revolvers with swing out cylinders are a bit more fragile on dropping onto hard surfaces such as concrete as I have seen them put out of time from the impact. Still it is not enough of concern to stop me from carrying one for EDC.
 
I carry for years and my pistol looks brand new. Why? I use eezox,try it you will agree .
 
More importantly, are you prepared to surrender your carry piece if you ever have to use it?

Guarantee that if you fire your piece in self defense, Officer Friendly is gonna collect it as evidence.

I run the philosophy that the carry pistol is a tool that should be ultra reliable, as accurate as me and affordable to carry and replace.

That is probably the last thing I would worry about. Sure, I wouldn't carry a rare collector gun but honestly if I have to use it the difference between temporarily giving up a $300 gun or a $1100 gun is pretty small.

I see this concern pop up all over the boards but to me it's a little weak.
 
That is probably the last thing I would worry about. Sure, I wouldn't carry a rare collector gun but honestly if I have to use it the difference between temporarily giving up a $300 gun or a $1100 gun is pretty small.

I see this concern pop up all over the boards but to me it's a little weak.
Pray tell us what is strong.
 
I really appreciate the way a nice blued 1911 looks after its been carried for years and has several thousand rounds through it. They start to look like an old friend; customized in a way that no amount of knick-knacks or doo-dads could create.

My first 1911 I carried for nine years made it to that stage, and was quite a handsome weapon. I sold that one about three years ago, and replaced it with a Remington R1 when they first came out. Its starting to show signs of getting to that stage, but its got a ways to go.

As another poster presented, Wabi-Sabi may be the perfect analysis. The same may be applied to old wood instruments like fiddles, mandolins, and guitars; when respected for decades, they show their wear quite elegantly. The same for an old pair of shoes, your grandpa's pocket knife, a classic wristwatch, a sun faded baseball hat, even a wife who just gets prettier each year. When you honor and care for something, it only becomes more beautiful, elegant, and irreplaceable with age.
 
I've never had a "safe queen."

I have had "VERY NICE" guns though. Some expensive, some rare, some old. I carried them, eventually it starts to stress me out. In particular guns in the old/rare category, make me feel kind of guilty.

I carry "middle of the road." Right now it's Sig Sauer and Kimber.

I expect honest wear. I don't worry about it. I'm not abusive, either, though.
 
My carry is worn and has pitting on the cylinder from a previous owner's lack of care. It's an older J frame and it ain't exactly a thing of beauty.

But to me, it's just as pretty as my Python queen that lives in a safe.

And in a pinch, the Python would go first. ;)
 
My EDC is an LCP, so I'm not worried about holster wear or scratching.

I wouldn't consider the rest of my guns safe queens but I definitely try to protect the finish on them. My 1911 stays safely in a holster in my nightstand until I go for a motorcycle ride - then it sits open carry on my hip in a Safariland duty holster. I try to limit the amount of moving in and out from one holster to another. Same thing for my DW revolver - I might move it around but it stays in a leather OWB even during transit.
 
I carry a Glock. If I drug it behind a car for a mile or so, I think it would look better in some ways. At least it would look a little different than all the others and have a bit of character... :)
 
Posted by splattergun:
Quote:
Originally Posted by tercel89 View Post
lord forbid cracked if it is made of zinc/pot metal (yes some are made of this like the S&W Sigma 380) ?
I watched a video of a trainer that teaches this and yes it makes sense to me. I dont carry a safe queen nor believe in a safe queen.
How do you guys feel ?
the Sigma was made of a polymer frame (thus Glock's patent infringement lawsuit against S&W) and steel slide and barrel.

"pot metal" is not a valid term to use for every material that isn't steel.
Heck, even the old Lorcin junkers weren't made of pot metal.

The Sigma .380 is not the same as the other Sigmas, and the slides tend to crack under moderate use, much like one would expect from a non-ferrous metal. Lorcins and so forth were made of a non-ferrous zinc alloy which is commonly referred to as pot-metal. Whether or not the Sigma .380 was, I don't recall, but it seems to me that it was and that was one of the reasons for its short shelf life in the product line. And yes, I'm still talking about the slide, not the polymer frame.

As far as the purpose of this thread - my primary carry gun has almost no finish left on it, and the stainless parts are practically polished by my holster. I love my little 642. YMMV.
 
My everyday carry is my duty gun. It gets used, and smacked into everything imaginable while at work. However, I don't abuse it.

However, just because it gets worn, doesn't mean I don't want to have a good looking gun.

Here is my duty gun.
 

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The Sigma in .380 had a slide made of Zinc alloy of some sort . My brother had one and it's slide cracked and the Zinc could be seen.
 
I've always heard that a revolver withstands neglect better than an auto and an auto takes abuse better than a revolver.

Dropping handguns 6 ft. onto concrete constitutes abuse. If I suspected this might occur, I'd carry a polymer auto I could rely on and remind myself that's what it's for. A revolver might not (probably wouldn't) survive this and still function normally. A trip to a smith would be a certainty.

OTOH, the busy but quiet life I lead means the gun might go a few moons before being taken to the range, shot, and then cleaned. So, it'll see neglect. My quiet semi-rural neighborhood, home to several policemen, will not be the target of rough-and-tumble gang or drug activity (there's a +P George Zimmerman behind every third door). So the gun probably won't see abuse.

Plus I don't carry when operating a tractor.

These things add up to a gently used J-frame revolver that might suffer a few finish imperfections from being slid in and out of a pocket. There's no reason it has to turn into a beater or look like one.
 
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