I do not trust my pistol anymore

I do realise its a Taurus but I have seen many pistols of any brand jamming or so on the range in the 25 years I have been going to shooting ranges.
This weekend I shot with my EDC again, it was not being shot for perhaps 3 months. The third shot nose-dived. at least the first shot, the one carried in the chamber went off. So at least I have a reliable single shotter

My father has a very old revolver that costed him secondhand less than 10% of what I paid for my brand new pistol. But is does not matter if his revolver was in the safe for years, all shots will go off.

I think I must trade my pistol for a revolver to EDC. Despite the huge drop in capacity and firing power. But I do need something I can trust 110%

I shot about 60 rounds, and had 2 nose-dives. Strangely I never had that before. seems this Taurus must be cleaned at least once in two weeks to not get problems with feeding rounds

To get a glock can only help, but Glocks also give nose-dives or other feeding problems time to time. I have never seen a revolver give a feeding problem in my life.

Is it stupid to change the high capacily pistol for a low capacity revolver, taking the issues I have into account?

I will still shoot with it at the range, but I honestly believe that your EDC should be 100% reliable, not 99%.

 

What is a "nose dive"? I think we are divided by a common language on this.

 

The bullet gets stuck on the feeding ramp. ie a fail to load.
I did get this when the pistol was new, but it happened only when chambering a round after inserting a new magazine. It never happened while stooting before.

 

Sound more like s magazine issue than anything. Do you have more than 1 magazine. If so does it FTF with all magazines?

 

Hi Drband. I've got 4 magazines with it. Two is brand new I have only started to use this weekend for the first time. The original magazine gave the first nose-dive, one of the brand new magazines the second. I do not think the magazines are the problem. It seems this pistol's feeding ramp must be polished and shinning clean all the time when shooting with hollowpoints. When shooting with FMJ I have never experienched a problem so far. But I do not prefer to use FMJ for SD.

 

After cleaning the pistol at home, after the shooting session, I did cycle the four full magazines through the pistol, and not one got stuck. It really seems this pistol likes a squeeky clean feeding ramp.

 

Number your mags so you identify the one being used when the problem crops up. You may find a trend based on a bad magazine.

Just a thought.

Edmo

 

the only gun that is 100% reliable is a gun you dont shoot.....

revolvers reliability is drastically overstated......go shoot one sometime and youll see what i mean......

i shoot both.......i put maybe 10K rounds through my revolvers a year.....and about the same for my autos.........both give me problems.....

 

Really? I have FAR less problems with my revolvers than my Semi-autos.

 

i shoot Glocks and Rugers....neither give me a terrible amount of problems....but like any mechanical device, they hickup from time to time....and both about equally

the rugers will get carbon/ debris on the cylinder face, and prevent the cylinder from rotating past the forcing cone....

the glocks have occasional feeding problems....

doesnt stop me from carrying either of them.....

 

Agree

M-Cameron is spot on. Cylinder can go out of timing just when you don't want it to, spent brass can seize up and be a *^%* to eject, FTF for unknown reasons related to the round itself.

I've been shooting my Glock M17 since 1993. Never get a failure to fire, and only a very rare feed failure and I have identified it to one clip and one brand of ammo. The clip is gone, the ammo never purchased again.

Don't get rid of a gun until you've studies the problem and understand it and address it. Chances are you'll buy a new problem which will perturb you even more

KA

 

I would like to fix the problem rather. But how

 

You say it hasn't been fired for 3 months. Did you clean it 3 months ago? Or did you shoot it and were carrying it dirty? All that crap tends to harden up over time. I know many don't clean their guns regularly. I'm not one of them. If it gets shot it gets cleaned. Do you periodically wipe down, run a patch down the bore, and relube your EDC? If you are counting on it to save your life it warrants regular attention. What do you lube with? Petroleum base oil tends to dry up and gum up over time.

Revolvers require regular maintenance too. From what you say I think it's more a maintenance issue than gun issue.

 

I always clean it after I shot it, as I agree, the dirt tend to harden and get stickier with time.
I use Slick 2000. Is it good enough?
I have not cleaned it at all in this three months. No wipe down, and no relube were done in this three months. Is this wrong, seeing not one shot was shot with it?

 

I have high dollar guns that don't run HP ammo very well and "cheap" guns that will run anything at any time. I have three Hi Point pistols that are 100% reliable with HP ammo. I have a $900 pistol that required several hundred rounds of shooting before it became reliable. Most times, for me, it is a really simple fix when I have FTF's. Polishing, cleaning, mag springs, etc. I have guns (P-85 for one) that will run all day if you keep them wet but are a pain if they are dry. One skeet of Rem Oil will have it running like a champ.

I have two revolvers at the gunsmith right now that were having some issues so he is giving them a once over for me. Both are older S&W .32s. In my experience I have far fewer issues with revolvers but when I do have an issue it can be catastrophic.

 

Misfeed.

Could be a magazine problem as others pointed out. Could be wear on the pistol's magazine catch. Could be wear on the notch on the magazine that engages the catch.

Could be the ammo. I remember a batch of rimless pistol ammo that felt like it was semi-rimmed: the rim of the cartridge on top would catch on the extractor groove of the cartridge beneath it and cause a misfeed.

 

Hard to diagnose a problem over the internet.
You could go to a revolver... or a better auto.

Or you could do as I did when I was a starving student and carried my 1911 (back when those were Army Surplus, not yet transmogrified into Significant Historical Artifacts and Valuable Collectors' Items) many a mile with a Norma hollowpoint in the chamber and hardball in the magazine.

 

I've shot a .22 Taurus revolver that wouldn't get through more than about 15 rounds between cleanings. It would just get dirty and then lock up. You try to squeeze the trigger and it just goes about a quarter the way and stops.

Granted, it was a .22 (which has less space available for dirt and grime and such), but I've seen revolvers completely fail.

There is less that can fail in a revolver. I've never seen a revolver have parts fall off when you shoot it (like I have with a Sig P938), and there's a lot less moving parts to fail. But revolvers CAN have timing issues, cylinder locks, parts break, or simple failure to fire or difficulty extracting rounds.

 

In the book "The Snubby Revolver" by Ed Lovett he mentions that the NYPD reported they had 6000 shootings with revolvers and didn't have one single gun failure. I believe I have that number correct. But I doubt any shooting was more than two cylinders full and most a lot less. But they always worked.

And as others have said check your mags. They seem to be the number one problem with autos. At least they are an easy fix. Brownells sells a mag adjusting tool. It just looks like a rod with a slot in the end to adjust mag lips. It sounds like yours need to be opened a little.

 

Ah hell, here we go again.. Revolvers never malf and semis are choke-a-matics. Yeah right, and I'm the Space Pope!

There's no saving this thread

EJECT

EJECT!

 

No mechanical device can be 100% reliable over the long term. Just cannot.

I have several guns that are sufficiently reliable that the odds of a malfunction coinciding with the very-unlikely circumstance of me needing to actually discharge a gun in self-defense are astronomical. I'll take those odds, because there really aren't any better odds available.

That said, sounds like your current gun is having issues. Either figure them out and fix it or move to a different gun where problems are far less frequent for you.

 

I didn't have to read past the title. If you lose trust in it, get rid of it.

 

Does it only occur with hollow points? If so, try a hollow point with a different bullet shape. Some have a wider nose than others. Hollow point feed problems are not uncommon.
The other likely culprit on nosedives is the magazine. Sometimes the feed lips on the mags are slightly too narrow (can't always tell by looking at it). You can take one of the mags and bend the feed lips slightly wider with needle nose pliers.

 

I guess people practice "tap rack" drills only for when they borrow a semi in a self defense situation. Malfunctions occur. It sucks but it's true.

 

When I first started carrying 12 years ago, I had a Beretta mini cougar. I shot it often, and the gun always functioned 100-%. Some time went by without shooting it(nor cleaning it), and the on my next range trip, it turned into a jam-o-matic.

I always cleaned my carry guns after shooting, but never thought to clean during periods of not shooting. Learned my lesson, I clean my carry piece once every few weeks if I shoot it or not.