New Pistol Woes

[Pat Riot]

I don’t care who makes them or what the gun is made for. When a person drops several hundred or more dollars for a gun the darn thing oughta shoot and you shouldn’t have to tinker and fuss with it to get it to do so.

They are guns and they should be made well because someone’s life might depend on it or someone depends on the gun to work and not malfunction and hurt them or a loved one. Especially from reputable companies.

Bell Helmets had an ad many years ago that said “You buy a $10 helmet for a $10 head” - No, I am not THAT old Anyway, if you buy a cheap gun you should expect cheap results but when you buy an S&W, a Ruger, a Sig or whatever gun that is coming from a reputable company you should expect it to function well.

Without going into details to bore you, I bought a gun that should have been the most reliable gun on the planet from the oldest gun maker in the USA. I bought a 2nd Gen Remington R51.
After the giant fiasco Remington had with Gen 1 R51s and the big push to fall on their swords and make good they still managed to release some guns with problems...like mine. Anyway, they have made good, I think, we’ll see in a few hundred rounds, but even after all that crap the company went through you’d think they would have learned.

What am I going to do about it? Well, I will right letters and bitch and moan and make myself feel better. In all the bluster my words will end up in some minion’s desk and they will attempt to placate me with little bits of sympathy and words of understanding. There will be one line in my email / letter that will hold true and will be, probably, the onltly reason I get any response. “I am planning on buying a rifle this year. It will not be a Remington.”

Gotta hit ‘em where it hurts.

 

[jonb32248]

I don’t care who makes them or what the gun is made for. When a person drops several hundred or more dollars for a gun the darn thing oughta shoot and you shouldn’t have to tinker and fuss with it to get it to do so.

They are guns and they should be made well because someone’s life might depend on it or someone depends on the gun to work and not malfunction and hurt them or a loved one. Especially from reputable companies.

Bell Helmets had an ad many years ago that said “You buy a $10 helmet for a $10 head” - No, I am not THAT old Anyway, if you buy a cheap gun you should expect cheap results but when you buy an S&W, a Ruger, a Sig or whatever gun that is coming from a reputable company you should expect it to function well.

Without going into details to bore you, I bought a gun that should have been the most reliable gun on the planet from the oldest gun maker in the USA. I bought a 2nd Gen Remington R51.
After the giant fiasco Remington had with Gen 1 R51s and the big push to fall on their swords and make good they still managed to release some guns with problems...like mine. Anyway, they have made good, I think, we’ll see in a few hundred rounds, but even after all that crap the company went through you’d think they would have learned.

What am I going to do about it? Well, I will right letters and bitch and moan and make myself feel better. In all the bluster my words will end up in some minion’s desk and they will attempt to placate me with little bits of sympathy and words of understanding. There will be one line in my email / letter that will hold true and will be, probably, the onltly reason I get any response. “I am planning on buying a rifle this year. It will not be a Remington.”

Gotta hit ‘em where it hurts.

Great post! I couldn't agree more.

 

[RecoilRob]

Unless you're paying a premium price for the pistol.....you're getting a mass produced item assembled by someone who probably doesn't know or care much about it. 'Put part 'A' into 'slot B'...all day long. If there is a slight burr on 'A' this assembler isn't going to take the time to knock it down with a file or if there is some stacking of tolerances nobody is going to adjust it. Most of the guns going out the door work OK....so the ones that don't come back and go to someone with an inkling of how things work and he/she fixes it. Sorry but that's the way things are in the Modern World.

A bit of enlightenment: I worked for Ford and then GM back in the late '80's. If you were a supplier of parts for Ford and went the entire year without a Warranty Claim....they gave you an award and bonus. If you went a year without a Warranty Claim at GM....they cut your payment by 10% saying you were building things too good. They didn't want too many problems, but needed to see some to make them know you were cutting every corner you could. When the manufacturer had the price being paid cut....what are they supposed to do? The profit margins were already pitifully small so something had to be removed from the process to reduce the cost. For example we were seeing computer board failures because they weren't cleaned of soldering flux where in the past they were cleaned and conformal coated to seal and protect them. I think the same thing goes on at the gun manufacturers with everyone striving to produce their offerings at the lowest prices possible.

So...long way around of saying it, but I consider pretty much everything I buy to be an assembled kit that might need some tinkering or adjustments to get it to run properly and have found this to be true many times on both automobiles and guns. Most of the time the parts are just fine except for a small burr or the like that only needs a quick swipe with file or stone to get the dimensions down to where they were designed to be...then they work fine. If you are just a 'Consumer' and consider machines to be an 'IT'...meaning 'it broke' so 'it' has to go back to be fixed....rather than knowing that 'it' is a composition of a bunch of parts and a single one out of spec can make 'it' malfunction then you're going to have to put up with the time delay of getting someone else to do the tiny adjustment that most likely is what will fix 'it'.

 

[Mad_Max]

I can absolutely confirm that ANY cost that a manufacturer can take out of a part they will. I worked for GM in the '90's and I sat in on product development meetings where product engineers would propose deleting a graphic off of a fog light switch to save half a cent per car.... you'd thought they discovered a cure for cancer! the vehicle line chief would dang near kiss the guys feet. Then I'd ask for a mod to the cross car brace so the evaporator would be serviceable without removing the entire dash and they'd look at me like I was a leper. When you look at a part that broke and say to yourself "why'd they make it out of that" there was a reason.

 

[lsudave]

I just dont buy brand new guns. Especially new s&ws. There is no quality control. The buyer is a beta tester too.

All my carry guns were made before the year 2000. In addition to little to no quality control and cheap construction and excessively optimistic prices, the current production guns are UGLY, to me.

Old is Gold!

This is my approach too.

I find you can usually get the same price on a good, used pistol from a higher tier of manufacturer, as you do with a new gun. People talk about warranties etc, but once you shake the bugs out, a good used gun will be good to go.

 

[Zendude]

OP, this is not against you and mean no disrespect. I get sick of reading about QC issues with new guns, especially handguns from numerous manufacturers.

What is going on? Is there no one minding the store?

With regard to the Walther sights falling out I've read about this as well with the phosphorous sights. I would and did put a nice set of night sights on mine before they had a chance to fall out. But gezum chrow!

I agree. Factory QC seems to be lacking in today’s business environment. The push to release new models ahead of competitors and not wanting to build up large inventories puts a lot of stress on the QC process. There just isn’t enough time for it to meet demanding delivery schedules it seems.

 

[Wanderling]

I don’t have many guns and the ones that I do have were all bought brand new. Out of five (two Glocks, a Marlin .22 rifle, S&W AR-15, and Ruger LCP) only the LCP gave me grief, and it was fixed after a weeklong vacation at Ruger.

If I could get a LCP sized .380 from any maker, based on my experience with reliability, ease of maintenance, and initial quality, I’d buy a Glock without hesitation. But they don’t make really small guns.