Ever wear out a pistol? Tell us about it.

I don't know about "worn out." The hammer plunger spring on two Ruger Vaqueros gave up with a couple of weeks. This was after about 10 years of Cowboy Action Shooting and thousands of dry fires.

I broke the trigger return springs on a H&K P7 and a Canik 100 dry firing. Maybe a couple thousand times on each pistol.

So I've had parts failures, but nothing that I considered worn out.

You can expect to hand that Glock down to your kids if not your grand kids. It's about how a firearm is maintained and the ammo used, not the cartridge it fires.

I have a Sig that the slide raises up and to the left as you pull the trigger. I would call it well worn, but not worn out.

I do plan on wearing out my G19. I'm just gonna shoot it til I do.

But what's the barrel in that SIG doing, as that's what matters?

TCB

HP White Laboratory, Inc did testing back around the 70/80's? for the Gov. Firearms fail soon or later. Wearing one out is possible. The rifling in my Ruger MK1 22lr target pistol was almost gone when i sold it. The lands were hardly visible any more. A Mossberg 22 rifle that was in the lend lease program had the same problem, with excessive headspace. http://www.firearmsid.com/Feature%20Articles/022001/HPWhite.htm

rskent said:

I have a Sig that the slide raises up and to the left as you pull the trigger. I would call it well worn, but not worn out.

I do plan on wearing out my G19. I'm just gonna shoot it til I do.

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I have a feg hi power that does the same thing. Just really noticed it yesterday. Still trying to figure out why it does it....

Guns are like my grandfather's hammer. He was a carpenter and only had to change the head once and the handle twice. He handed it down to my father and now I've got the same hammer as grandpa. Had to change the handle once too.

I've got my most used 1911 down to about an inch of rifling left in the barrel. Does that count?

I wore out a gen3 Taurus PT145. About 100-150 rounds in it just stopped working and it didn't matter what I did to correct the problem....conclusion...worn out.

Can't say I have but I would like to have the time/ammo to do so in my life.

Takes a lot in most cases. I have seen S&W model 19/66's which were fed a LOT of hot .357 and they started to get loose. Also, some overbore rifles out west where guys shot a LOT of varmints and wore the barrels out of them, sometimes 2-3 barrels while the rifle was still going fine.

With normal ammo in a std platform it would take a lot to really wear out a quality handgun.

Autoloaders, no.
Revolver, yes. I loosened up a Charter arms .44 significantly over about 500 rounds of mild to medium loads.

Series 70 Goverment Model. Took 50k rounds to do it. An AMU armorer had to do major welding and rework to to return it to firing condition.

NO!

I've got an old Llama 45. It's made of soft steel and the finish looks good, but after a few thousand rounds it's falling apart. The most troubling part is the breach face is dimpliing and I think it will give way soon, possibly sending the firing pin backwards at the speed of sound. I'm thinking of cutting up the slide and replacing it with a 22 upper. Yes, I've worn out a gun, a Llama.
Mauserguy

I have an H&K USP 45 compact that is ready to have all the springs replaced. No reliability or accuracy issues yet, but the pistol feels loose and sloppy when firing. It also broke the trigger bar a couple thousand rounds ago. H&K replaced that under warranty with no problems.

Took a lot of rounds to get to that point.

Not an autoloader, but I did wear out a Ruger GP100. Had the thing for about 13 years, put thousands of rounds though it. I started getting a painful amount of blowback from it and found that the forcing cone was fracturing and blowing away in chunks. It was also at the same time chewing through the cylinder facing portions of the receiver. I sent it back to Ruger and they replaced it with a brand new one for no more than the price of shipping and FFL transfer. Sad I don't have my first pistol any longer, but sure is nice to have a brand spanking new GP100

^^^Yup! Seen a buddy wear out a GP100 357mag barrel.....

Had the barrel on a FEG HP split at the weld and had the frame rail on a KT P3AT break off after over 3000 rounds.

The FEG was not worth fixing.

Sent the P3AT back to KelTec and they immedietly sent me a new pistol free of charge.

moxie said:

Guns are like my grandfather's hammer. He was a carpenter and only had to change the head once and the handle twice. He handed it down to my father and now I've got the same hammer as grandpa. Had to change the handle once too.

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http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

I've seen frames STRETCH in some revolvers shooting ammo a bit too stout.

I've seen slides BREAK on a couple of low-mileage semi-autos -- including a WWII P38 and a Witness .45. Heard of it with Witness 10mm guns.

Heard of slide breakage problems with Beretta M9s (Desert Storm?)

I've heard of cracks to frames in the slide-stop opening areas of several types of guns.

I've seen slide rails crack and break on some gun frames, including a Glock!!!

I've personally had a barrel crack in the chamber area in a Witness Sport Long Slide shooting .45 factory loads (Blazer aluminum case).

I've seen photos of a broken barrel underlug on a CZ 97B.

Guns can wear out. More often they break. Sometimes its due to a LOT of usage, sometimes it's poor metal processing during manufacturer. Sometimes its user abuse.

Wearing out a gun requires the shooter to have fewer guns, a lot of spare time, a LOT of ammo money or a very long life. We don't see those variables all that often.


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The fine accuracy of my S&W 686 .357mag revolver started to deteriorate around 60k rounds, likely due to bore wear.

It's now got 70k+ rounds through it and functions fine, and is still reasonably accurate, but its match-grade accuracy days are behind it.

Yea, I wore out the sear on my Ingles Hightower. It's a 2 CH contract gun from WW II so no telling how many rounds through it.

Do you mean worn-out as not fixable any more?

I have replaced the springs in two revolvers and one semi-auto after they started having too light of firing pin primer hits.

I sent a S&W Model 10-6 back to the factory after the action would lock up after shooting three rounds. It was a well used security company trade-in so there is no way of knowing how many rounds has gone through it. At that point I suppose it could be considered worn out. However S&W repaired it (I suspect they put in new action parts like the trigger and hammer and retimed it) for around $125.00 and I now have a gun with a well worn blue finish and a like new out of box action that will easily outlast me.