What is the most useless handgun design?

chiappa rino...Dumb idea.

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They sure seem to sell a lot of them, and to largely satisfied customers, despite being such a dumb idea... . "Useless" = not suitable for a use, and the 357 Rhinos do seem to work decently enough as 357 carry guns, ergo --latin-- useful. What they are is expensive compared to century-old DA designs, and that's about the extent of it.

There was this weirdo-but-cool-looking derringer (two shot?) that folded up into a credit-card looking thing at SHOT I read about. You gripped it like a syringe, pushed a button, and the trigger and two blast shields popped out making the thing 'armed' so you could set off, IIRC, two 357 rounds. Very odd looking, oddly held, and an odd-bordering-on-impractical manual of arms. Appeared well made, though, and designed by a lady if memory serves.

TCB

chiappa rhino

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My turn to disagree. Expensive? Yes. Too Expensive? Probably.

But the couple I shot worked great, felt great and were pretty nice shooters. Very useful.

I will come out and say the auto-cocking revolver that uses exposed spiral flutes on the cylinder to cycle (there's like three different iterations that have been tried, in addition to the Webley) is a pretty obvious design dead-end. By definition expensive, sensitive, and inefficient in requiring a really fat cylinder diameter.

Sort of in the same camp is the toggle-action concept, since it's always been obvious that no user wants a bunch of mechanical junk flying around in their line of sight.

Bolt-action to semi-auto conversions like the Charlton Automatic and others, and for the same reason ("Oh joy! A bolt carrier racing towards my eyeball! Let's shoot it again!" )

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Lastly, one that I got to explore (painlessly ) first hand. The manual of arms of the Hakim/Ljungman rifle is full, unadulterated, mo-ron. Push the dust cover forward to snag the bolt carrier, completely exposing the guts of the lower to debris in the process. Pull the whole mess to the rear locking them back, with no way to manually drop the bolt on an empty mag (thus tempting you to press on the follower with your finger...). Extremely stiff recoil spring, guillotine-like edges on the bolt carrier, and hole-punch of a DI gas tube & BCG socket. A gentle pull back on the charging...wire ...er, handle, and the bolt-guillotine is released forward with no way to stop it. After much timid/terrified fiddling, I finally got the thing to drop, and it was the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced with firearms that didn't involve the presence of live ammunition or the threat thereof.

SHUNK! "Gah! Holy crap!" I nearly dropped the rifle right there . As well as a brick or two (of 22LR --I swear!)

Basically, if you try to let the bolt down manually on an empty mag using the handle, like every other rifle design in freakin' existence, you will have a 1/4" diameter by 1/4" deep plug of flesh punched out of your hand. If your bolt release is worn/broken, simply charging the clip as required may accomplish this feat. Oh, and you can't drop the bolt at all if the rifle is on safe (or whatever those characters mean) so closed/dust-covered on an empty/safe chamber requires removing the mag via the obnoxious-ass mag release (fold it down, then pull it back; so simple it can't be done with either hand near the trigger!)

Having seen one in person at last and still being shocked at what a terrible arm it is despite knowing most of these features in advance, I have to say I've lost a lot of respect for Swedish design. I'd love to see the cartoon-manual they gave the Egyptians for these babies. It honestly is enough to shake my faith in their Mausers (I'll get a BRNO VZ24, instead ). At least the Hakim was fairly light for what it was, a big 'ol clip fed 8mm semi-auto, and had a good (loud) muzzle brake so that lightness wasn't itself a design flaw, too.

TCB

TRX said:

The MOST useless? I'll vote for the pre-ATF-restrictions .45 caliber Ingram MAC-10 pistol. Not the SMG, the pistol. You're looking at an open bolt .45, almost ten inches long, weighing six and a quarter pounds - as much as some lightweight rifles. When you pull the trigger the bolt - which weighs as much as some entire subcompact pistols - comes trundling forward to strip a cartridge off the magazine and slam it into the chamber.

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I had a chance to fire a 9mm version of this open bolt junker . . . there's nothing like taking a dead aim through the crude sights, squeezing the trigger, and having the whole pistol jerk in your hand as the "ka-CHUNK" of the heavy bolt moving forward knocks your sights off target before the gun fires. May as well have someone tap your pistol with a small hammer before every shot.

On the other hand, I've read that the early open-bolt MACs can be made to fire full-auto with a bent paper clip, so if you're inquisitive and of an experimental mindset you have an easy path leading into Club Fed.

To me, .50 cal pistols are useless. I can't lift one let alone aim it. God forbid I should ever pull the trigger. I'd be in rehab for three months.

I'll just stick with my little 9's.

JWH321 said:

To me, .50 cal pistols are useless. I can't lift one let alone aim it. God forbid I should ever pull the trigger. I'd be in rehab for three months.

I'll just stick with my little 9's.

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I agree. If a 44 Magnum won't do it, give me a rifle or a shotgun.

I thought a .308 pistol a bit much.

Bren 10 unless you happen to have an actual magazine for the gun and even then you will only have the one.

Re: Liberators

I have read a lot about them. I handled one at a show at the 5th Corp O club in Frankfurt FRG in 1981, the last show for perhaps ever as the CGs wife was upset by the amount of Nazi stuff. The seller had.....wait for it..... the non existent sardine cans of them, a stack of about 20. I know I have read in multiple places how that packaging did not exist. The one I handled was in an opened can with Comic strip wood dowel and six rounds of steel case .45 ACP. Whether the guns left the US in those cans or not I can not say . nor when they were so packaged ... but there they were.

I have met two persons that claimed to have used one in WWII both were teens at the time in occupied lands. In one case the gun was used twice. Once to gain a K98 and later with said K98 to gain two StG-44s in Holland.

The other seemed a more likely use it gave a group of boys the courage to go mess with some german planes. he reasoned they had a gun and could get away with bashing a few instraments and cutting a few cables and letting the sir from some tires. He claimed they also actually dismounted a couple of flexible guns with some ammo but actually threw them in a near by river when they considered what being caught with them would mean.

Though folks might be interest in some unofficial non verified stories.....

-kBob

Liberator or Nihilater ?

Both the above terms refer to the same gun design. The Liberator is the worst design and most deceptively named.

I would vote for the Dardek? with the "trounds" ammunition Good Luck finding a couple of boxes of that down at the corner gun shop.something so exotic that ammunition is virtually unobtainable is worthless :banghead:, unless you have it in the museum of useless guns .

worst handgun design?

Anything that isn't a glock copy.

here we go.

Lorcin or Raven 25 auto's.Jamomatics Potmetal Junk!Honorable mention, LLama revolvers,a friend has one and it's falling apart and very loose and wobbly.Also the rear site fell off and is lost.

Forgot to mention an array of German 22 revolvers from the 60's and 70's.The names slip my mine but there $100 bucks or less.The name "Fie" comes to mind.Junk.But some look OK at first sight.

flyingtiger85 said:

Lorcin or Raven 25 auto's.Jamomatics Potmetal Junk!Honorable mention, LLama revolvers,a friend has one and it's falling apart and very loose and wobbly.Also the rear site fell off and is lost.

Forgot to mention an array of German 22 revolvers from the 60's and 70's.The names slip my mine but there $100 bucks or less.The name "Fie" comes to mind.Junk.But some look OK at first sight.

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Lorcins maybe, but the Ravens of the 1970s and 80s are renowned for their reliability.