Didn't say they were immune to malfunctioning. However, they are immune to stovepipe jams..
Stovepipe, Jam, Etc.
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Didn't say they were immune to malfunctioning. However, they are immune to stovepipe jams..
FL-NC
Member
SO many reasons malfunctions can happen. Here's a partial list:
- poor quality gun, with inferior or improperly fitted parts
- a dirty gun
- "bad" ammo- insufficient charge for recoil spring, or a projectile that "hangs up" during the cycle. An example of this would be firing wadcutter type bullets in a GI 1911. In the case of my shield 9, it will malfunction with cheap steel cased ammo.
- a worn out gun or parts
- faulty magazine. Put a cheap aftermarket mag in an expensive custom 1911, expect problems.
- "limp wristing"- (this was common in the military for new handgun shooters w/ the M9)
Some guns are inherently reliable. I have a Glock 17 with close to 100,000 rounds through it. It will function filthy with steel cased ammo. I only use factory mags. At one point, an internal slide rail broke, and it still continued to fire.
- poor quality gun, with inferior or improperly fitted parts
- a dirty gun
- "bad" ammo- insufficient charge for recoil spring, or a projectile that "hangs up" during the cycle. An example of this would be firing wadcutter type bullets in a GI 1911. In the case of my shield 9, it will malfunction with cheap steel cased ammo.
- a worn out gun or parts
- faulty magazine. Put a cheap aftermarket mag in an expensive custom 1911, expect problems.
- "limp wristing"- (this was common in the military for new handgun shooters w/ the M9)
Some guns are inherently reliable. I have a Glock 17 with close to 100,000 rounds through it. It will function filthy with steel cased ammo. I only use factory mags. At one point, an internal slide rail broke, and it still continued to fire.
BSA1
member
I think the main cause is being a GUY. "Real men" don't read instruction manuals, seek out (and /or accept) training and fix things themselves even though they totally lack understanding of even basic gunsmithing and, of course, don't spend the money for the proper tools.
Work or spend time on a shooting range and these types are easy to spot.
Another common problem is Bubba. That Bubba fella sure works on a lot of guns. Bubba may the owner I described above or someone else.
Gun design is another problem. Some guns are just not designed right. For example years ago I brought a new Mauser HSc 380 and that dang thing would not simply not work, It would not even feed FMJ. I traded the dang thing off and later learned that about half of them coming into the country had the same problem. If you had one that worked it was a great pistol. If you got one like mine there was not anything you could do to get it to work 100% of the time. Traded for a Beretta 380 that worked fine. Come to think of it most guns are designed by guys.
Semi-auto ammunition requires attention to close tolerances, bullet style and a relatively narrow velocity range. Compare that to a revolver such as .357 magnum or even the .454. With the .454. I can shoot butterball 45 Colt loads and, OMG that sure gets your attention ones. The only failure to feed I have had with my Beretta 92FS is some early 1990's Cor-Bon. Cor-Bon over the years has used several different brands of bullets and this particular bullet mouth was wide with lead showing. I never had confidence in it which is why it was sitting on the shelf for all of those years. It choking in my 92 proved my fear was correct.
But looking my comments over it is mainly caused by being a GUY.
Work or spend time on a shooting range and these types are easy to spot.
Another common problem is Bubba. That Bubba fella sure works on a lot of guns. Bubba may the owner I described above or someone else.
Gun design is another problem. Some guns are just not designed right. For example years ago I brought a new Mauser HSc 380 and that dang thing would not simply not work, It would not even feed FMJ. I traded the dang thing off and later learned that about half of them coming into the country had the same problem. If you had one that worked it was a great pistol. If you got one like mine there was not anything you could do to get it to work 100% of the time. Traded for a Beretta 380 that worked fine. Come to think of it most guns are designed by guys.
Semi-auto ammunition requires attention to close tolerances, bullet style and a relatively narrow velocity range. Compare that to a revolver such as .357 magnum or even the .454. With the .454. I can shoot butterball 45 Colt loads and, OMG that sure gets your attention ones. The only failure to feed I have had with my Beretta 92FS is some early 1990's Cor-Bon. Cor-Bon over the years has used several different brands of bullets and this particular bullet mouth was wide with lead showing. I never had confidence in it which is why it was sitting on the shelf for all of those years. It choking in my 92 proved my fear was correct.
But looking my comments over it is mainly caused by being a GUY.
herrwalther
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Shot anything made by AMT and you will probably equal that number.
As far as revolvers, yeah I have had malfunctions with them. I had a duty issue S&W 64-6 that would fail to fire at least 4 of the 6 rounds. Turns out some bubba armorer at the company shaved off part of the hammer spring trying to make the trigger lighter. I ran away from that company.
Pat Riot
Contributing Member
FL-NC and BSA1 pretty much summed up what I was going to say.
Also, one thing that has always fascinated me (not in a good way) are folks that buy a new gun then immediately start changing parts on it for any number of reasons...tacti-coolness, friend Johnny has this on his gun, gun writer said part was awesome, whatever...
They start changing parts or springs and they get malfunctions. No one ever seems to say or think “Gee, maybe that new thingie I put on my gun is causing this” Nope! They go ahead and start fiddling with other things to “make the gun run right”.
Years ago I had a friend that had $2400 into his 1911 trying to get it to run right. My stock Colt Combat Government ran rings around his gun. He never shot the gun stock. He started fiddling and machining until he had so much invested his ego wouldn’t allow him to just start over. This was in the mid 1980’s. $2400 was quite a sum then.
Some people just can’t leave things alone and they end up causing themselves more problems.
Also, one thing that has always fascinated me (not in a good way) are folks that buy a new gun then immediately start changing parts on it for any number of reasons...tacti-coolness, friend Johnny has this on his gun, gun writer said part was awesome, whatever...
They start changing parts or springs and they get malfunctions. No one ever seems to say or think “Gee, maybe that new thingie I put on my gun is causing this” Nope! They go ahead and start fiddling with other things to “make the gun run right”.
Years ago I had a friend that had $2400 into his 1911 trying to get it to run right. My stock Colt Combat Government ran rings around his gun. He never shot the gun stock. He started fiddling and machining until he had so much invested his ego wouldn’t allow him to just start over. This was in the mid 1980’s. $2400 was quite a sum then.
Some people just can’t leave things alone and they end up causing themselves more problems.
Tallball
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- 7,815
Comparing malfunctions in revolvers and semiautomatics isn't really "fair"; they are different kinds of machines.
The semiautomatic pistol relies on "outside forces" for it to function properly: it needs the ammo to be shaped properly, the powder charge to be within a fairly narrow window, the shooter to grip it properly, a magazine (which is only "sort of" part of the pistol) to work properly, and probably some other things that I'm not thinking of. If any of those things goes wrong, even though it isn't the pistol's "fault", it's a malfunction.
With a revolver, misshapen ammo bad enough to cause a malfunction won't be put in the cylinder in the first place. It has to have pretty much a zero powder charge or a huge one to cause a problem. It doesn't care how you grip it, the magazine is basically your fingers and eyes. And so on and so forth.
Here's an example. If a round has a defective primer, it causes a "malfunction" in a semiautomatic pistol. In a revolver, you just squeeze the trigger again and shoot the next round.
I have a Russian Makarov that I've owned since 1988 that has never once malfunctioned. But it will, if I stick a bad piece of ammo in it, or limp wrist it badly enough, or use a poor quality magazine, or whatever. An equivalent single-action pistol will probably never malfunction until one of its parts breaks.
And I literally don't mean that revolvers are better. They are just a different kind of machine. They are slower to reload, and as I said, they rely on your eyes and fingers to be the magazine. Their capacity for a similarly-sized handgun is lower. Inherently, as machines, they are probably no more or less likely to malfunction than a semiautomatic pistol. However, since the semiautomatic relies on "outside factors" for it to function properly, it will probably "malfunction" more often. If someone is meticulous about their ammo, grips, magazines, etc, they won't experience these "externally-influenced" malfunctions. Thus they will disagree with someone like me, who shoves cheap range ammo into the after-market magazine and then grips the pistol haphazardly.
The semiautomatic pistol relies on "outside forces" for it to function properly: it needs the ammo to be shaped properly, the powder charge to be within a fairly narrow window, the shooter to grip it properly, a magazine (which is only "sort of" part of the pistol) to work properly, and probably some other things that I'm not thinking of. If any of those things goes wrong, even though it isn't the pistol's "fault", it's a malfunction.
With a revolver, misshapen ammo bad enough to cause a malfunction won't be put in the cylinder in the first place. It has to have pretty much a zero powder charge or a huge one to cause a problem. It doesn't care how you grip it, the magazine is basically your fingers and eyes. And so on and so forth.
Here's an example. If a round has a defective primer, it causes a "malfunction" in a semiautomatic pistol. In a revolver, you just squeeze the trigger again and shoot the next round.
I have a Russian Makarov that I've owned since 1988 that has never once malfunctioned. But it will, if I stick a bad piece of ammo in it, or limp wrist it badly enough, or use a poor quality magazine, or whatever. An equivalent single-action pistol will probably never malfunction until one of its parts breaks.
And I literally don't mean that revolvers are better. They are just a different kind of machine. They are slower to reload, and as I said, they rely on your eyes and fingers to be the magazine. Their capacity for a similarly-sized handgun is lower. Inherently, as machines, they are probably no more or less likely to malfunction than a semiautomatic pistol. However, since the semiautomatic relies on "outside factors" for it to function properly, it will probably "malfunction" more often. If someone is meticulous about their ammo, grips, magazines, etc, they won't experience these "externally-influenced" malfunctions. Thus they will disagree with someone like me, who shoves cheap range ammo into the after-market magazine and then grips the pistol haphazardly.
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Vern Humphrey
Member
Like airplanes are immune to train wrecks.Didn't say they were immune to malfunctioning. However, they are immune to stovepipe jams..
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