What's the most regrettable firearm purchase you've ever made?

[joebogey]

A Jennings 22 and a Davis derringer in 22 Mag.
Those two I could understand cause you get what you pay for.
I still have the Davis.

My biggest disappointment...a Colt, I think it was called the "American"
Biggest POS I've ever owned. It would only fire like every other time. Traded it to a dealer who even tried to talk the buyer out of buying it the last time. But it was a Colt and he just had to have it.
More power to him.

 

[spooney]

Well, this was a few years ago when I got this information. I don't know what I did with it, I'll have to dig around and see if I can find it again. If my information turns out to be wrong, don't worry, I already said the gun is worthless anyway. It's not like I'm trying to pass it off as a rare piece of history and sell it to a collector for a million dollars, so it's not necessary to throw it in my face like that.

By the way, welcome to the forum.

I think whoever shot Garfield used an Iver Johnson.

 

[old4x4]

Ruger Mini-14. Crappy trigger and shotgun accuracy. Hated it
58 Cal Spfld-type (repro) muzzleloader. Sh1t accuracy as well.
S&W 59-jam-o-matic, but it WAS my first autoloader.

 

[Koobuh]

ugh

Two guns, both from the same face-to-face seller. An M44, and a Ballester Molina pistol.
Mosin M44, the barrel is just terrible. Of course, I dropped a couple hun into it before I was able to get out and shoot it to find out if the crusty barrel belied an accurate rifle, but alas it was all in vain. I did manage to solve the terrible stringing impact problem by dremeling out 30% of the barrel channel in the ATI stock so the barrel isn't pushed to the right by the huge bow in the foreend. Still shoots patterns like a turkey gun at 50 yards though.
Now it's either the rifle itself or the ebay purchased Bushnell red-dot sight I'm using...

I only hate the Ballester Molina because I can't shoot for crap with it. A coworker managed to make a string of shots you could cover with your thumb at 25 yards, while I can't stay on paper. :banghead:
That's OK though, I next borrowed his S&W .40 and shot a respectable group. He took it back and proceeded to shoot as poorly as I had with my own pistol. Arm fatigue, we decided, but I got a damn good laugh out of it.

 

[jtward01]

I bought a Colt single action from a well known outdoors writer who had advertised it on GunsAmerica. He described the gun as "mint" and "like new." When the gun arrived the base pin screw and nut were installed backwards. Then I discovered the grip frame and back strap were not Colt parts, and it was clear the gun had been refinished.

Unfortunately, I was not able to contact the seller for five days because a hurricane had knocked out our electricity and phone service. When I was able to reach him he refused to refund my money or make any adjustment since I had "disassembled the gun" and because I hadn't contacted him within three days after receiving the gun. The only disassembly I had done was to reinstall the base pin correctly and remove the stocks to check for corrosion. It cost me an additional $550 to buy Colt parts to return the gun to its original condition, but of course with the replacement parts the gun has no collectors value.

Out of some 25 online purchases this is the only time I've ever been screwed by a seller.

 

[foghornl]

Uhmm... OK, I'll play..

I've had a few...A Rohm/RG double-action .22LR revolver snubby. Could not hit a 9" paper plate at more than 2 yards past muzzle contact distance. Seriously...I started with 150 rounds of mixed maker .22LR ammo from 15 feet. By the time I was down to round 140 or so, I was 6 feet away and had 2 hits.

"Buffalo Scout" .22LR/.22Mag knockoff of a Colt SAA (F.I.E. brand, IIRC Firearms Import/Export from Miami,FL..maybe) Only ammo it liked was the CCI Maxi-Mag hollow-point. Those rounds it managed to keep in the same Area Code. With any other ammo was as bad as the Rohm/RG.

Oh, yeah..one more

I bought one of the first CETME's from Century. In the 18 months I {ahem} 'owned' it, it spent 17-1/2 months in one of 3 places..In transit to Century for repair, at Century "Service", in transit from Century. I have never seen ANY firearm with this many issues..Failure to Feed, Fire, Extract, Eject, Return to Battery. As to accuracy, well if you were more than 20 feet away, you had a much higher chance of getting hit if I threw the CETME at you than if I pointed it at you and mashed the trigger till the mag was empty, or it jammed, whichever came first.

 

[repsychler]

Hi-Point Carbine. Total POS.

 

[Texfire]

FrankenFAL built on a CAI reciever.

Never could get it to feed an entire mag without jamming. Fortunately the local dealer I bought it from took it back and gave me a store credit, which I used to buy a much nicer gun. Number one reason why I buy my firearms from him.

Tex

 

[TF_FH]

My first one, a M44 Mosin Nagant. I love the gun, its pretty accurate, but I got hosed on the price though. I paid around 130ish and the finish was horrible, it would come off if your fingernail scratched it the wrong way. Me and my friend refinished the stock, it looks great now, but I just paid way too much.

 

[scubie02]

A Tikka Master Deluxe in 25-06--man, what a lemon that sucker was! After over a year of messing around trying to get it fixed right by beretta, I finally got it back intact and traded it on something else.

 

[Richard.Howe]

My only regrettable gun purchases were those during which I decided to sell one I already owned. Don't make that mistake unless you hate the one you're selling.

 

[Manedwolf]

Uhmm... OK, I'll play..

I've had a few...A Rohm/RG double-action .22LR revolver snubby. Could not hit a 9" paper plate at more than 2 yards past muzzle contact distance. Seriously...I started with 150 rounds of mixed maker .22LR ammo from 15 feet. By the time I was down to round 140 or so, I was 6 feet away and had 2 hits.

Sounds like something Mark Twain wrote of, regarding a .22 revolver:

"I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson's seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homopathic pill, and it took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult. But I thought it was grand. It appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon. It had only one fault--you could not hit anything with it. One of our 'conductors' practiced awhile on a cow with it, and as long as she stood still and behaved herself she was safe; but as soon as she went to moving about, and he got to shooting at other things, she came to grief."

 

[dhoomonyou]

S & W 637

much too snappy. traded it for a Glock

 

[Rock45]

Ha! I remember it well, though I know I will eventually cease to be haunted by it...
FEG SMC380

That little thing left permanent scars on the web of my shooting hand...I could not grip it in a way that would keep it from biting me.

Bryan

 

[trueblue1776]

Bought it because it looked so cute. Thought it would be fun.
Damned thing is a FTF Saga!!!!
I've had roughly 1000 rounds through it so far and am still looking for something it will be reliable with.
Sorriest $280 I ever spent.

get a tougher spring and shoot CCI stingers

 

[shane justice]

Smith and Wesson Model 21-4 TRS Special.

 

[cidirkona]

Davis 22LR Derringer.

Bought it to 'round out' my collection (just didn't have a derringer before that).... can't hit an 8.5x11 paper at 10 feet... seriously.

-Colin

 

[pharmer]

Oh my. Lets see: Maadi AK battlefield pick up. Black spray paint over rust. Worthless, Paid $200 and sold it for $375 to a dealer during the ban. FEG R-9, HiPower clone-not. Absolute crap with 40 lb trigger pull, traded it for S&W M10-5. Jennings .22, tiny little gun with 40 lb trigger pull, gave that one away. AMT Backup .380 tiny little gun with 40 lb trigger pull that would not feed any ammo. Traded it, a Iver Johnson TP-22 (another turd) and a Beretta .25 for a Sig 228, still have it. Probably have had more junk over the last 30 years but can't recall. Joe

 

[jtward01]

I've had a few...A Rohm/RG double-action .22LR revolver snubby. Could not hit a 9" paper plate at more than 2 yards past muzzle contact distance. Seriously...I started with 150 rounds of mixed maker .22LR ammo from 15 feet. By the time I was down to round 140 or so, I was 6 feet away and had 2 hits.

I had one of those! It was just as accurate as yours. It was given to me by the father of a friend (a cop, no less) when I was 16. I used to carry it in my car so I could go plinking with it after school. I had a little leather holster and sometimes I would carry it openly, if I was going fishing, or to the range or whatever. Boy, things were different then.

I know a lot of people thought the ban on "Saturday Night Specials" was just another gun grabber tactic, but hell, I always looked at it as consumer protection. No one should ever pay money for a gun that bad. Glad I got mine for free. It was worth every penny of what I paid for it.

 

[Ezekiel]

G21 in .45 ACP. Issues? "None, I've had it for years." But how do I CCW a full-size Glock .45? As a Parole Officer, 90% of the time, my only option was a ultralight S&W .38 snubby.

It was NOT the same.

 

[hhmorant]

Auto-Ordnance replica Thompson 1927A1. Unreliable, lousy trigger, rough machine marks visible through the finish, extractor broke after about 200 rounds, etc. - an $800 POS.

 

[jeremywills]

stupid mossberg 590 pawnshop special

some lovely idiot before me put the ejector screw in at an angle and jacked up the threading, I guess I could have had someone take a look at it but I just took it back, I figure theres plenty of other mossbergs floating around, I honestly just didn't want to mess with it

It sure was a lot of fun for while it lasted, Ill get another one. Im looking

 

[McCall911]

I was the first kid on the block with a new EAA Witness in .45 ACP, when they first came out in the mid-1990s. It looked and felt solid enough, but the problems began when I tried to shoot it. Jammed every other round!


To make matters worse, the magazine disassembled itself right before my eyes, dumping cartridges, floorplate, spring, and follower at my feet.


Later, I got a new magazine and took the pistol back to my "little spot of heaven" in the woods. Though the new mag didn't perform that "neat" self-disassembly trick, the gun jammed and jammed again.


It took a long time for me to realize that maybe Witnesses aren't total crap, but I, personally, would still think long and hard before buying another!

However, as we say, YMMV.

 

[lee n. field]

Over a decade ago, I bought a used Charter Arms made AR-7 for $35. That POS wouldn't feed for anything and I happily sold it a few weeks later for $20.

The other mistake was a Jennings J-22 bought new about the same time.

How very coincidental.

AR-7, bought new in the early '80s, traded off for a floppy drive around 1990. Unreliable jammo-matic. Better than the Jennings though, and it never got the feeling that it might fall apart in use.

Jennings J-22. Bought 1992, given away as junk 3 or 4 years later. I think one box of .22LR is about all they're really designed to be good for, then they turn to crap.

 

[1whobuys]

Ruger Mark II .22 caliber pistol.

Ditto...Pure junk, jammed every mag no mater what ammo I used.