Wearing Out Firearms

[CapnMac]

I've not worn anything out.
I bought a real lemony 1911A1 that was a real frankenpistole, it had a shot-out barrel (as in only 50% rifled), but I did not know then if the barrel was original to the loose (very loose) assemblage of parts or not.

Closest I can get is my Colt Series 70, which was close to new when I bought it used.in 1986. It's had around 10k rounds run through it. Been through 3 barrel bushings (two collets before going to solid), and it needs the front sight staked again. But, no signs of being worn out.

 

[JTHunter]

Gridley - I inherited a .38 revolver that was an old policeman's duty gun. I did shoot it a few times with .38 Sp. ammo BEFORE I found out it was so dangerous. The gun is an estimated 100-110 years old and the cylinder no longer locks up properly. That misalignment between the cylinder and the forcing cone could have had disastrous consequences, so I consider myself VERY lucky. While I still have this gun, it has been permanently retired.

 

[mstreddy]

I wore out a Walther P22. In my guesstimate I put somewhere between 12K to 30K rounds through it, mostly suppressed. The slide cracked in three places. When I sent it in to S&W, they informed me that the frame was also cracked. They sent me a new gun as a replacement.

 

[chicharrones]

The only gun I own that I consider to be worn out is my old Beretta 21A. Where the slide is engaged by the recoil levers is severely rounded over. The frame rail on the left side and the slide rail on the left side is damaged from the ejector pins walking out. The pinned barrel has severe dings in the portion where the cartridge rim seats causing chambering problems. It still has light strikes when used in double action mode.

Cleaning up all those issues and replacing some internal parts did not fix the gun. Technically, I could replace the slide and pinned barrel. But it isn't worth the money to me. A new gun would be the better fix. Due to that, I consider it worn out.

As I used it as a fun plinker and sometimes early carry gun, I figure it only has a two or three thousand rounds through it. Any other .22 I have has sailed past that round count with ease.

 

[GE-Mini-Gun]

I have Beretta 687 that has close to 200k through it and nothing has been fixed on it since I've owned it. I shoot with a guy that has a Beretta 682 that has over 750k through it and only has replaced a couple springs. If I had to guess both guns could go to 2 million plus without any damage to speak.

 

[Hacker15E]

John Travis, the famous "1911Tuner" from this forum and others, had a pair of Colt 1911s (by my memory, at least one of them was a 1991), that each had more than 200,000 rounds through them.

I saw and shot one of them 10+ years ago when I visited him in North Carolina. He had replaced barrels and many other components, but the slides and frames were still original.

Edit: Here's a recent thread on a Glock forum where he mentions them:
https://www.glocktalk.com/threads/roles-of-springs-in-the-1911-pistol.1640713/

which mirrors my own experience with my pair of beaters...which are approaching 400,000 rounds collectively, about evenly split.

 

[Creed Bennett]

I’ve seen a few worn out firearms in my day but they were really old guns that you would kinda expect to be worn out. Old cheap revolvers and single shot shotguns. The one recent worn out firearm that was fairly modern was a Marlin Camp 9. It’s been a while but I think it was something about the bolt and locking back on the last round. I took it apart to see what was going on and found the bolt worn completely out and the recoil buffer all brittle and crumbling into a million pieces. In my mind the metals today are far superior to the ones that you’d sorta expect to be worn out. The Camp 9 really surprised me! It was returned to the store and my $ refunded. That gun was on my short list too.

 

[Jenrick]

Particularly appreciate this one as my CC is a S&W M&P 40. I've only replaced the magazine catch so far - do you remember whether you did that, and how many times? Internet lore says some of the early production had the metal insert improperly hardened (the one I replaced did appear worn). I'm a little worried about seeing 12 slide releases in 150,000 rounds; would you please describe the failure that was having you replace those? Apparently I need to keep an eye out for that. :-(

I did the mag catch once, for some reason I got a little burr going on it that was driving me crazy. We had a bag full of mag catches, so it was faster to replace it than pull the old one file it down and re-install it. The slide releases would shear off on the left side usually (well that's when I'd notice at least, I had a couple break on the left side that I didn't notice for a bit as a righty shooter). Now part of this was that I had probably a quite a bit higher than normal number of cycles on the slide release, due to how our qualification course is structured, the drills we taught, etc. However I'd say on average most officers could expect to have to replace a slide stop within 5-10,000 rounds. Now this usually didn't render the pistol unserviceable (as in the slide wouldn't lock back). If you used sling shot or monkey paw to action the slide, it really doesn't matter. We taught a thumb release so most of our officers used that technique as well, leading us to have about a 1/8 replacement rate on slide stops (total anecdotal evidence, I don't have any numbers to track it better).

So for you average CCW I'd imagine you might see one break in about a 5-10 year time span, unless you run your guns hard. Their not expensive to replace, and if you put in a new AR trigger or detail strip a glock, you can certainly repair it yourself.

-Jenrick

 

[readyeddy]

When ever someone asks about guns wearing out, I think about this oldie but goodie.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/H...ow_they_have_handled_on_our_range/118-677135/