Reliability:

[Onward Allusion]

i think people are psychologically blinded by the malfunctions they experience. multiple times, I've gone on range trips with people, personally witnessed their firearms malfunction and them fix it and keep shooting, and later have that person tell me in all honesty that that particular firearm has been 100% reliable and never malfunctioned.

i don't think they were lying, i just think the chemicals in their brains are conspiring against them to suppress memories.

LOL! I think you've hit the nail on the head. I'll go one further and say that some people rationalize to maintain the 100% rate.

 

[Potatohead]

It doesnt matter if its ammo related or not, I still count it as a malfunction

Agree. It's almost a cop out to blame it on the ammo IMO. Like the few posts above this one mentioned, I think folks often try to rationalize a malf away so they can say their firearm is 100% reliable. Either people reason it away or people are having much better luck than me selecting firearms. Even my hammer fired p238 that's been 100% reliable hasnt been 100% reliable

 

[Teachu2]

If you shoot enough WWB or PMC ammo, every gun you own will fail. OTOH, a semi that won't feed hollow points IS a gun failure.

Limp-wristing, slide riding, or loading 9mm in a gun chambered for .40S&W is NOT gun failure.

 

[rskent]

Teachu2 said:

Limp-wristing, slide riding, or loading 9mm in a gun chambered for .40S&W is NOT gun failure.

I'm sorry but I think you are rationalizing. A gun that’s not functioning, for whatever reason, has failed. If your gun wont shoot there is a failure somewhere. If it's so easy to load the wrong ammo maybe you need a sign (think Bill Engvall) on the side of your gun. If you are prone to slide riding maybe you need a new grip. I pretty much only shoot my P238 one handed for that reason. If you have a problem with limp-wristing maybe a steel frame gun would help. Maybe a softer recoil spring. I don't know. I have shot most of my guns two fingered without any limp-wristing.

My point is that if you are in a social situation and the gun is nonfunctional because the slide broke in half or your trigger finger just plane fell off you are in trouble. Something has failed.

 

[tarosean]

I've noticed that many lower-ranked competitors could improve their HFs if they took the trouble to reload ammo that runs their guns.

Or they will be missing stages beating squibs outta barrels.

 

[herrwalther]

Agree. It's almost a cop out to blame it on the ammo IMO. Like the few posts above this one mentioned, I think folks often try to rationalize a malf away so they can say their firearm is 100% reliable. Either people reason it away or people are having much better luck than me selecting firearms. Even my hammer fired p238 that's been 100% reliable hasnt been 100% reliable

Not really, to a point. It all depends on how someone says it. If you say your gun is 100% reliable with good ammo, that is still accurate if it has been good with XYZ brands of ammo. Because that is a true statement. Now if someone says it is 100% reliable but it did have 2 failures per magazine of this ultra cheap crap, then that is a cop out.

 

[jeff-10]

Oh yeah. This is also why I never buy used semi automatics. People tend to dump the lemons and hold onto the reliable accurate ones. Makes sense because that's what I do.

Also, I have a Kimber Stainless Target II in 10mm that can be finicky. I've held on to it because I expect a gun like that to have issues with certain ammo and magazines.

 

[Warp]

i think people are psychologically blinded by the malfunctions they experience. multiple times, I've gone on range trips with people, personally witnessed their firearms malfunction and them fix it and keep shooting, and later have that person tell me in all honesty that that particular firearm has been 100% reliable and never malfunctioned.

i don't think they were lying, i just think the chemicals in their brains are conspiring against them to suppress memories.

i have no other explanation for why i see dozens of malfunctions every time i go to the range, but everyone says THEIR gun never malfs

I agree with this.

In one instance a guy I know was shooting right next to me when he had 2 failures to fire out of 5 rounds. He was using very reputable factory ammo. He then warned me about that ammo, saying he had some failures to fire somewhat regularly. He totally blamed the ammo, even though it is a VERY reputable ammunition.

Then I took one of the rounds that failed in his rifle, put it in mine, and it worked.

He still says the rifle is perfect, and still blames the ammo.

---
I have only personally encountered one malfunction in my AR's. Mostly that is because I haven't shot them nearly enough. I'm at maybe 4k rounds total. The one and only malfunction was magazine induced using a magazine I knew wasn't the best, that I only used the range, that I no longer own.

With respect to AR's, when people use a good rifle, good mags, decent ammo, and LUBE the damn thing, they are exceptionally reliable.

Example: When I went to a Vickers class, the only rifle that malfunctioned, to my knowledge, was a new home build with a loose gas block (owner/operator/builder error). I think the guys there were maybe better than at the average range for selecting good gear, and lubing.

 

[JohnBiltz]

I shoot about a hundred rounds a week every week. I also tend to shoot the cheapest crap I can find. I tend to get a few "light primer strikes". That is fine with me. I get to do a failure drill. I look to see how big the dent is and generally it is the that should have fired and put the round back in the magazine and it fires almost always. I don't consider it a gun problem. Its a cheap ammo problem.

Now once I was getting a lot of light strikes and they were true light strikes. I needed to clean the striker channel which was full of gunk and brass shavings that had built up over ten years. I learned a lesson there. That was a true stoppage but was it the guns fault or my ignorance? I'm putting it on me not the gun. Failure of long term maintenance. I once was shooting a .380 and then switched to my 9mm and locked it up pretty good. I put a .380 in my 9mm. Clearly not the guns fault.

I've had a Glock start cycling way too slow. I mean you could see it straining to get back in battery. Replaced the RSA and it was fine. I did not have enough rounds on that RSA for it to be acting like that. The thing was still putting rounds down range. I'd call that the gun but an RSA is an expendable item, you know they will go bad eventually. Is that a failure of the gun? In this case yes, it happened way too early. If you shot out your magazine is it the gun's fault? Again a magazine is an expendable item. Failure to replace one that is bad is really operator error.

So I don't think it is really cut and dried on whether it is the gun's fault. But yes people do have selective memory on failures.