A self defense handgun should work the first time, everytime, excluding user error and bad ammo...I also don't trust lemons, even after they're fixed. It's just me, whether I'm too picky or not is up to you.
Fisherman12,
Please put me at the top of your of list of people wanting to buy your "lemons."
I have a Colt Series 70 Gold Cup I brought 30 years ago. This was when IPSC was getting started in my area and Colt Gold Cups were selling for a premium price. New out of the box it would not feed even ball ammunition. Definitely met Fisherman12 definition of a "lemon."
I showed the gun to a gunsmith friend and this first thing he noticed was the feed lips on the Colt magazine were not formed correctly. I wrote a letter of complaint to Colt and they sent me a new magazine free of charge.
Guess what? The gun functioned fine and has every time since then.
But wait the story gets better. Over the course of shooting several hundred rounds through it the accuracy just got better and better as it broke in. This gun is capable of 1" groups at 25 yards in the hands of the right shooter. For me 2" groups at 15+ yards are normal.
Not bad for a lemon that cost me a postage stamp to fix.
As far as 1911s, IMO 500 round break-in period is ridiculous. 500 rounds(10 boxes) of 45ACP is about $200
Why would you
NOT want to spend the money and time to learn to shoot your gun as accurately as possible and to gain confidence in it's reliability?
We KNOW from the results of many shootings in the past that shooting skills generally degrade under pressure such as trying to save your life. I often see posts along the lines of "I got a my new gun and took it to the range. It's a accurate gun. Why I shot 12" groups at 5 yards." Then a dozen or so other posters jump in praising his new gun and shooting ability.
I have a high benchmark for my guns and my shooting ability. My guns must go 500 rounds without any failures other than defective ammo, bad magazines or shooter error. In fact all of my semi-auto's even run perfectly with cheap quality magazines (although I only use the el cheapos on the range).
My accuracy standard is 50 rounds in a 2" group at 7 -10 yards. I can shoot 2" groups at 15+ yards but I will confess to getting fatigued (old age and health) so they open up to 3" or so. I do have one semi-auto that is only capable of "Combat Accuracy" at 10 & 15 yards. By Combat Accuracy I mean 4" groups. But it is a 35+ years old Ruger and until recently very reliable. It started choking on me so I replaced all of the springs and it is currently undergoing my 500 round trouble free test. Since I don't have any real use of this gun for grins and giggles this winter I am going to subject it cold weather extremes without cleaning it and post the results. I say grins and giggles as I will never subject my self-defense guns to the tests I have planned. My plan is to eventually shoot 2,000 rounds only oiling it when it chokes. I'll post the results sometime next year.
Even The American Rifleman ran a article recently in which the author said that shooting 50 rounds through a new semi-auto was enough to test the gun for conceal carry.
I figure my life is worth more than $200.00. It is certainly much cheaper than a hospital visit.