Have you ever had a gun break at the range?

[hemiram]

My FTL Auto-Nine broke both times at the range while shooting. Extractors seemed to be a problem.
Rear sight came off of a brand new Ruger Security-Six.
A trigger return spring broke on one of my used Dan Wesson 15-2's.
Other than those, there were either unreliable out of the box, or I screwed up somehow.

 

[P5 Guy]

The extractor disappeared off my Walther P5c
Those three parts were $75 from Earl's

 

[twarr1]

More than once. That’s why I have a few tools and small parts in my range bag

 

[Slamfire]

Two hammers and one sear wear out on a Kimber Custom Classic 1911 made in Clackamus. Kimber replaced the hammers but not the sear. When I took the pistol to Camp Perry and asked the Marine Armorer’s to do a trigger job, they made me get a milled/forged sear because they said the MIM sear had worn so much. So, I went to the Springfield Armory pavilion on Commercial row and purchased one of their forged sears.







I have not been a fan of MIM parts since then.



I purchased this new when it was a first year stainless Superblack Hawk. Early 1980’s. I must have dry fired this Ruger 44 Mag 50,000 times, and shot it thousands of times,







And then the transfer bar broke. It did fail safe.









The transfer bar on a FIE Hombre 44 Magnum revolver broke. https://gunvalues.gundigest.com/f-i-e/4842/hombre/ this pistol was a poor copy of a Colt SAA, and the transfer bar was as thin as a spaghetti noodle and just as twisted, it was a poor design. FIE sent me a replacement, and since it was only time till it broke again, I traded that Hombre for a S&W M25-7 and boot.



This one, a pre 64 M70 target rifle. Cloward stock and handstop.







The cocking piece nose broke at the range. It no go bang till I had a Tubb cocking piece nose installed.










This is one of the few weaknesses of the M70 design, that cocking piece nose will break.

Yesterday at a match I mentioned that gunsmith James K Cloward, Lake Stevens WA, must have passed away. I wanted an extra Cloward handstop, which is the handstop in the picture, and Mr Cloward’s phone number no longer works, and the letter I sent to his shop never got answered. Mr Cloward was a National Highpower Champion in the late 1960’s and won the Wimbleton cup in 1976. RIP. My last supply source was Otto K Webber, who passed away in 2019.

I have had Garand firing pins and extractors break at the range. However I had been told these items did break, so I collected spare parts for a repair kit and was able to dig into my shooting stool and pull out an extractor, the extractor springs (which were ejected into the grass), and when the firing pin broke, I had a spare on hand.

I have seen lots of trigger malfunctions with AR15’s and the military trigger. Before good two stage triggers became available, shooters would perform trigger jobs on the single stage military trigger, and they would always wear and go full auto at a match. That also happened with M1 and M1a triggers.

I helped replace one push feed M70 extractor on the firing line during a match. Both the M700 and M70 push feed extractors wear and then the rifle won’t eject the round. Luckily the match director was a gunsmith, had a box of M70 extractors, and I helped the shooter push the plunger, slide the extractor out, and install a new one. If your M700 extractor goes, you better have an extra bolt in your shooting stool, as those extractors are not line replaceable units.



If your gas rings wear out on an AR15, you can still manually cycle the rifle, but I never replaced rings at the range.

The back end of this stainless steel firing pin deformed to the point the pistol would not go bang. Luckily I had a backup pistol at the Bullseye match.






In this application I do not need corrosion resistant firing pin as much as a impact resistant firing pin, so I purchased a Volquartsen tool steel firing pin and everything is fine.

 

[Odd Job]

I've had replacement parts fail. I had spare firing pins made for my SIG522 and R55 Benchmark. I had spare extractors made for the R55 also.
They were made here in the UK by two gunsmiths.
The SIG522 firing pin snapped and so did one extractor and two firing pins for the R55. It looks like they weren't properly heat-treated.
In the case of the SIG522 I had a spare bolt with me at the bench, so I was able to swap that out in a minute and carry on.
But the R55: that's not a quick swap. Had to put that gun away and finish with another one.

 

[1942bull]

Had the trigger spring of a one day old, never fired Taurus G2C break before 50 rounds were fired. It was my first and lastbTurus.

 

[trackskippy]

Ive had a few, that were memorable anyway, and most of them were with high round count guns. A GI firing pin in my one M1A, the roller retainer in my MP5 went, the charging knob sheared off my MAC, and the first upper tube cracked, the charging handle sheared off on one of my M1 Carbines, and one of my Glocks broke a rail and had a couple of trigger return springs go.

I also had an M1 Garand go grenade in a match from a slamfire. That gun was trashed. The MP5 and Glock were both still working with the parts broken.

 

[ms6852]

After several thousands of rounds I started to get extractor issues. Upon inspection I noticed why. The slot where the extractor slid through had chipped and a dent caused binding.

 

[hso]

Extractor on a Colt SP-1 broke in a class while on the range. One of the guys had a tool box full of gun parts and it was back up and running in no time.

 

[alsaqr]

Last time my Winchester model 92 .25-20 was at the range the hammer spring broke. Brought the rifle home and replaced the spring.

 

[Pat Riot]

Wow! I must have bad luck compared to a lot of you fellas. I can’t even remember all the failures I have had but I have to say the majority of the broken parts and springs I have encountered have been aftermarket parts…aftermarket so-called “mil spec” parts installed on military styled firearms bought from Gun Shows.

Factory gun parts that have failed?

Ruger Vaqueros - 1 broken transfer bar over many years and many thousands of rounds at CAS matches.

Colt 1991A1 factory extractor broke. I should note that I had many parts breakages with this gun while fiddling with aftermarket parts “to make the gun better”. When I put everything back to factory parts that came on the gun it worked great. Whoda thunk it?

Winchester 94 Links have failed due to wear from thousands of rounds at CAS matches.

And I am sure, a few more I am forgetting, I’m sure.

Overall though, most all of my broken parts have been on old military guns, M1 carbines, M1 Garand, 1911, SKS’s, etc. that were pretty worn out when I got them and only aftermarket parts were available. So I am not trying to say aftermarket parts are bad. They were just the parts available to me that went bad.

If you have never had a gun break on you while shooting, well, in my humble opinion, you just aren’t shooting enough.
Go hit the range.

 

[Wildbillz]

My Colt Government model had the nub on the slide lock brake off. It didn't stop me from shooting it, the slide just wouldn't lock back. Replaced it and the very next time I took it shooting the tip of the extractor broke off. That one pretty much turned it into a single shot pistol. Replaced the extractor and have not had an issue since.

WB

 

[lightman]

Not at the range but on last years Dove Hunt the extractor on my Shotgun broke. I finished the hunt by pulling the fired hull out with my fingers.

When we go out of state on our Prairie Dog hunt I take more than one rifle. So do the others. Most of us shoot Remington 700's or customs that have the same trigger. One year a buddy had a trigger fail on a Browning. Another buddy had a case separation that left half of the case stuck in the chamber. I carry an aluminum tool box that holds my cleaning stuff plus a few tools and some spare parts. I have a spare trigger and a firing pin assembly and enough tools to do the work.

 

[alfsauve]

Front sight broke off 1911
Safety broke on 1911
Front sight broke on 12 gauge pump
Revolver cylinder locked solid
Glock trigger froze
Pin backed out on AR and it went binary
Gas ring jumped out of groove on AR
Numerous commercial ammo failures

I'm thinking if you haven't had some failure, you're not shooting enough.

 

[BlueHeelerFl]

The very first gun that I ever owned, a Marlin Model 60, broke the very first time I took it to the range. The plastic buffer cracked in half after less than 100 rounds of shooting.

To keep a long story short, the rifle never got fixes. I was naive and stupid, Marlin customer service could have done more to help, and the various NYC gun shops with gunsmithing services didn't care to help me.

I still have the Marlin. It sits in a glass gun case in my living room as a non functional decoration

 

[entropy]

Pin backed out on AR and it went binary

That happened on my first civilian build. I always test them well now.

The very first gun that I ever owned, a Marlin Model 60, broke the very first time I took it to the range. The plastic buffer cracked in half after less than 100 rounds of shooting.

To keep a long story short, the rifle never got fixes. I was naive and stupid, Marlin customer service could have done more to help, and the various NYC gun shops with gunsmithing services didn't care to help me.

I still have the Marlin. It sits in a glass gun case in my living room as a non functional decoration

That's not a hard fix. Find the part, and there are plenty of Marlin 60 disassembly/reassembly videos on You Tube.

 

[Riomouse911]

Hammer mounted firing pin on a S&W.
Locking lug on a T/C Encore.
Base pin latch on a Super Blackhawk Hunter.

I had the hammer nose snap off on my 629 classic while at the range as well. No bueno.

My trick is making handguns go full auto. Three times over the decades. Funny how much excitement that causes, here in SoCal.

I once owned a stainless Manhurin PPK/s that started doing the unintended double and triple on me. Exciting, to put it mildly .

The most annoying non-ammo related gun fail I had was when I let a buddy shoot my CMP Garand. The front sight had worked loose and he didn’t notice it creeping out of the dovetail while he was shooting. Naturally it fell off into a field of gravel that was a perfect color match for WWII parkerizing. I never found it and a correct replacement sight cost me 80 bucks.

Stay safe.

 

[stillquietvoice]

I've h ad quite a few failures, mostly black powder arms that were run really hard from years of civil war reenactments. The trigger return/cylinder stop spring, hand spring, hammer main spring, pin on loading lever, even a piece of the trigger that contacted the hammer. Had to regrind and polish the mating surface to get it to function until I procured a new trigger. The latest failure with that revolver was the loading lever screw. That went to my Smith for removal and replacement, still waiting on the screw from Italy.

My enfield musketoon broke a main spring, once but the biggest issue with that rifle was the trigger sear and trigger not being hardened properly, sear and or trigger would break and become unsafe on either full or half cock, had the same issue with a Mississippi rifle. A cook and brother's rifle had a nice with a tiny flash hole that would plug and continually misfire, had to open up the whole nipple inside and increase the flash hole diameter to keep it firing, that nipple was not safe for live fire so had the owner get a hot shot nipple for shooting live.

My Browning Buckmark, 10" bull barrel screws kept backing out, had yo lock tite them or risk it falling apart.

 

[wiscoaster]

Oh, yeah, been there. The funnest incident was one day someone else's gun broke - with a live round in the chamber, hammer cocked, slide jammed in battery and unable to safe. The fun was us trying to figure out how to make the gun safe so the guy, who didn't know much about what he was doing, could take the gun to a gunsmith and get it fixed. We succeeded, but I never found out what was broken inside the gun to put it in that condition.

 

[Gun4Fun90]

I had a buddy who had the slide crack on his I can’t remember the brand polymer 9mm something. Although we were on top of a mountain at my family’s cabin not technically at the range so I am not sure if it counts.

 

[Double_J]

Broken firing pin on a Star pistol of unknown vintage was my favorite, the shop it came from gave us store credit as they couldn't repair it.
The other memorable failure was a 1911 blowing the mag out of the grip and bending the barrel /chamber due to an over-charged reload.

I saw the aftermath of a glock with an out of battery firing issue. It was not a pretty sight, lots of blood and broken metal. We found out the owner "upgraded" his pistol with "aftermarket upgrade" parts and questionable reloads.

 

[Slotback]

I've had broken trigger springs more than once. Frustrating, but it happens.

 

[Jim Watson]

When I broke the extractor in my Commander, I thought it was a fluke.
When I broke the extractor in my Combat Commander, I noticed it was the same batch of ammo salvaged after The Incident.
I concluded that the powder had been Slamfireized by enough heat to crinkle the Baggies I put reloads in, increasing pressure and sticking brass in the chambers. I pulled the rest of those bullets to salvage them and the brass. The powder looked normal, but was apparently not burning normally.

I replaced one extractor with USGI, the other with Wilson. Strangely, the GI extractor took a lot more "fitting" to a Colt gun, I referred it to my gunsmith.

 

[luzyfuerza]

I had repeated failures of a Glock 36 I used in IDPA competition and in practice. One of the crosspins holding the trigger group in place sheared in two on three separate occasions. These were replaced each time by a Glock armorer.

Then, the plastic recoil spring assembly broke.

The gun was a paperweight after each failure.

I'm sure Gaston has fixed all problems with the G36 design since then.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Of 104 guns over 60 years, I have had break at the range or in the field:

1965. Firing pin broke on my Marlin 99G semi-auto. I ordered two firing pins from Marlin parts division. Few years later I sold the gun, still have the backup firing pin.

The extractor snapped on my Springfield 120A single shot .22 rifle.

I have had the original extractors break on a .22 LR Savage 73 (1981) and a .22 Mag Savage 63KM (bought 2000) single shot bolt action rifles. The replacement extractors from Savage have worked for decades now. (The 73 is just a 63 with a barrel chambered for.22 LR. They must have had a production run of brittle extractors).

The pin holding the transfer bar fell out of my H&R Toppper 12 ga single shot shotgun (gun in use about 28 years).

I received a Raven .25 as a gift in 1992. I made a point of firing at least two magazines of ammo a year to see how long it would last. Mostly factory ammo, including about 50 rounds handloads. Slide cracked 2020.

The extractor on my IBM made M1 Carbine chipped. I bought an extractor, installed it, and that one chipped too. On thorough disassembly I found that the extractor spring had broken in two places and came out in three pieces. I ordered extractor and spring spec'd as original for IBM M1 Carbines. I have had no problems since installing them following the US Army/USAF field manual/tech order instructions.

I had bought a used Grendel P10 as a spare. Finally the weld holding the left rail to the trunnion failed. The plastic frame cracked also. By serial number range, the gun was among the last assembled as the original factory was shutting down. I had bought it used. I stripped all the parts off the ruined receiver/frame assembly, mailed the parts to Numrich Arms Gun Parts and took their offer for the parts (they also reimbursed me for my mailing cost).