Anyone Ever Carried An Unproven Gun?

[Good Ol' Boy]

Seems like a no brainer not to, but I've pondered the question given my current situation. I will note for the record that I will NOT be carrying a "new to me" unproven firearm.

My situation is that I just got my CHP and have been anxiously awaiting being able to CC. My "warm months" gun is only a couple weeks old and I haven't yet been able to shoot it. My "cold months" gun is obscenely too large to carry in this season.

Again, I'm personally not going to carry my non-fired summer pistol until I've had some range time with it. I am curious though if anyone has bought and carried an "unproven" to them gun, and how did things work out? I'm not specifically referring to a SD situation, but rather did you find out after the fact that it was great or horrible? Would you recommend this practice based on your experiences?

 

[SeanSw]

Unproven, possibly. Never unfired. Mostly in regards to ammo selection. I felt much more sure about things by switching to FMJ before a variety of self defense ammo had been thoroughly vetted.

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

In hindsight I should have said "not fired" specifically. That's what I meant by "unproven".

"Unproven" could be subjectively based on how many rounds one personally feels "proves" satisfactory, 100rds, 500rds, 1000+??

 

[TomJ]

Never. It hans't happened frequently, but I've had guns with stellar reputations, most recently a CZ SP01, have problems initially. I won't carry a gun until I put about 200 trouble free rounds through it with the ammo I'm going to use for SD.

 

[Red Wind]

No. All the guns that have ended up as my EDC were fairly, put through the wringer, road tested, first.

 

[Elkins45]

I have not. If I were ever in such a situation I would prefer the unproven gun be a revolver.

 

[Snyper]

If it fires a full magazine without a problem, it's "proven"

Setting some arbitrary number is pointless because it won't guarantee the next round won't jam.

 

[Swing]

I'd imagine there are various definitions of "unproven". Unfired? No and by no I mean hell no. Not fired enough for my own personal satisfaction? No. Not fired enough for someone else's satisfaction? Maybe, eh, probably ... there are a lot of folks on this planet.

 

[Jim Watson]

A DA's investigator here bought a new pistol. It was three weeks before he got around to trying it out. It didn't work. Just lucky he didn't run into a vca.

 

[Ed Ames]

Seems like a no brainer...an untried pistol is more effective than pointing your finger and making "pew pew" sounds.

I'd rather have a chance to try it out first, 1000rds in a variety of conditions, but there are a lot of things I want... doesn't mean I'll get 'em. I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face. I'm also not going to carry an untried gun if i have alternatives i trust.

 

[Swing]

Seems like a no brainer

A'yup.

 

[FL-NC]

I wouldn't recommend this under any circumstances. New guns often need to be "broken in a little" to be reliable (like a Kimber). They may not like certain brands or types of ammo. They may even be defective, improperly assembled, or missing parts. I've seen all of this- even with higher end guns. As far as a used gun- who knows? Some poop fist wannabe gunsmith may have "worked on it" and realized his work wasn't so good- so he dumped it, or it may have had any of the other problems previously mentioned. Remember- it has been used, and the previous owner got rid of it for some reason.

 

[Warp]

I would carry the too-large winter gun. But I carry a full size almost exclusively now.

If it was an unproven or even unfired gun or no gun, well, I'd really be unhappy about that situation and I would take unproven/unfired over NO gun

 

[goon]

One of my friends carried a P32 for a little while before he had a chance to fire it. I asked if he was worried it would malfunction and he replied "well... It'll probably fire at least once."

Lots of times, once might be enough.

 

[shiftyer1]

Go shoot it!!! I've had guns that I never tried and when I went to shoot them they went click or jammed. You bought it to shoot anyway so try it out!

I like to play with blackpowder and have a couple 1858 remingtons, today I tried a new way to load it and had 5 miss fires. It's a little different but still a good example.

 

[helitack32f1]

If I had the choice between carrying a non proven weapon, or no weapon at all, I would take the unproven gun, this is the real no-brainer answer. Are people really saying they would rather guarantee they can't defend themselves because they left the gun at home because they were afraid of the one in a million chance where you not only needed to use the gun for SD, but had a misfire as well? Even if you had a gun that was known to fail 62% of the time, that is still better than leaving it at home, which has proven to be essentially a 100% failure rate.

Think of all the instances where the act of pulling a gun stopped the problem, whatever that may have been, would you rather have the chance to possibly end the situation and save yourself, or would you rather tell the bad guy "Hey! It's your lucky day, I left my gun at home because it might possibly not have worked in a situation like this."

If you have no choice but to carry an unproven gun, carry it. Chances are, unless you hang out with the Sinaloa Cartel or sell meth, you are not going to have to pull this gun before you actually do get a chance to fire it. As some of the bright people on here have pointed out, even if you put 1000 rounds through a gun, what proof is there it won't now fail on round 1,001?

 

[JohnBiltz]

So, because you are afraid the gun will not work you are walking around unarmed? That makes no sense to me at all. Chances are really really good it will work. Chances are small it will not. Chances it will not work when you need it while it is sitting home is 100%.

I've carried guns numerous times I have never shot while I was in the military. Everything from guard duty to ammo escort.

 

[bannockburn]

Good 'Ol Boy

Never have carried a gun that I at least had taken to the range one or two times and run a box of ammo through it. And just because it's a revolver doesn't mean it's going to run perfectly either. I had one that didn't work right after 50 rounds and another that had problems before it even got to the range.

 

[Devonai]

About 15 years ago, I got a pre-Kahr Auto Ordnance 1911A1. I carried it for a couple of days before I got to the range. It turned out that if I'd needed more than three rounds, I'd be dead. It wouldn't go a single mag without multiple failures to feed or extract (several GI mags, ball ammo). After struggling through 50 rounds, I managed to get the shop to take it back.

Now I won't carry a new pistol without firing 50-100 rounds, including at least 50 rounds of the JHP I intend to carry, and testing each mag I have. That being said, I've only had one other pistol fail me, a S&W 1006 that needed a new extractor spring (S&W fixed it for free), and I've owned far more pistols than I'd care to admit.

So if you asked me to carry a modern pistol from a major manufacturer without testing it, I wouldn't worry too much. I know Glock, Sig, H&K, Beretta, etc, sometimes produce lemons but I have yet to encounter one.

 

[Ryanxia]

Once, when I started carrying I had a Taurus TCP, a little pocket .380. I liked it a lot but it had some hickups, I sent it into the factory (lifetime warranty) and in the mean time the only other thing I had small enough to carry in my daily routine was a .25ACP Raven. I knew it was a horrible choice but figured better to have something rather than nothing.

I since bit the bullet and bought a quality carry gun that I can carry year round and haven't had to mess around again. I've carried a Sig 938 for about 4 years and couldn't be happier with it no matter how I'm dressed. Yes I would prefer a full size but I think it's important to have the same gun in the same spot no matter your activities, and to train with it. I can ring a 10" steel plate with it at 50 yards and that's good enough for me (for now).

 

[Tirod]

Yes. Unfired. Loaded it up and concealed it, walked out the door.

First, the odds you will actually use it are low. In point of fact, the odds of being in an armed encounter are so low it's not something we use to justify carrying. It would seem to be excellent fodder for disarming the country if the antigunners would quit depending on all the inner city shootings to prove their point and focus on the complete lack of suburban home neighborhood crime.. Decent people don't really need to carry a gun to get the paper off the lawn in McMansionville. We just respect the right and exercise it - largely as a matter of privilege in states that don't have Constitutional Carry because we can afford the fees, classes, guns, ammo, holsters, and internet subscription to brag about it.

But if you decided you needed to carry because the Mean Streets are out to get you - and I decided it, too - then once you can, you do - because even if it's an unproven gun that may only fire three rounds and jam, it's better than NO gun and your bare fists.

Any gun can jam at any time. That is a fact. It happens. What we do "proving" a gun is to establish that we can put enough rounds thru it to give us a warm fuzzy feeling of reliance on it - which is misleading and deceptive.

The result is overconfidence you can control the situation - and when the perp decides his willingness to beat you down to make his creds on the street, you are forced to go for, say, a "reliable" .38 in lambs wool lined ankle hoster that jams on the first round from lack of cleaning. A documented case.

You would have been better off with a nice new clean unfired gun. You would have gotten at least one round out of it.

The whole point of being "smart" enough to carry a "proven" gun is actually based on a lot of internet social posturing. Those who do it to see if a gun has reliable functioning should not expect it to be absolutely guaranteed against any malfunction ever. That is MORE dangerous than carrying an unfired gun in my estimation.

You still need a Plan B and also the idea that you shouldn't have been there in the first place. It's all about the odds - an unfired gun is just one aspect of the total assessment. Enjoy YOUR Constitutional Freedom - carry - and if you choose, carry a brand new gun out of the box unfired. Make your OWN choice, not pressured by social media or the catcalls of those trying to impress you they know it all.

You will hear a preponderance of professional opinion deride this way of thinking - just scroll down - but the real issue is being deceived you have done all the required actions to make your gun "bullet proof" when in reality that is exactly when it will fail you. I would rather understand my chances than blindly rely on them.

 

[Warp]

focus on the complete lack of suburban home neighborhood crime..

Stop lying

 

[lpsharp88]

Unfired? No. Unproven (to me), yes. When doing trainup for deployment we only got to fire our M9s enough to qualify. After that, nothing. It functioned just fine, but IIRC it was under 50 rounds total that we got to fire, which is not enough for me personally to completely trust the firearm. Of course we fired our M4's and crew served weapons quite a bit more, but I took that M9 with me everywhere, so I would have liked to have gotten more trigger time on it.

 

[Old Fuff]

Pistol or revolver?

Pistols are ammunition dependent and sometimes tend to prefer one kind/brand over another. To determine what is most reliable some testing is necessary.

Revolvers are not ammunition dependent, and a failure is more likely to be caused by a mechanical issue. These days a combination of massive production and less quality control make an issue more possible, but they are still rare. When they're is a problem it is likely to show up quickly, or at least give some prior warning something is going amiss.

In both cases routine shooting/practice should reveal that something is happening that should be addressed and corrected before returning it to regular use.

 

[shafter]

If it fires a full magazine without a problem, it's "proven"

Setting some arbitrary number is pointless because it won't guarantee the next round won't jam.

I think I'd call it good after a box. You're right about setting an arbitrary number. One could even say that with every round fired you're that much closer to an eventual failure of some sort.