Who makes the best junk gun?

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coosbaycreep, Hello neighbor! I finnally moved out of that liberal, hippie heaven called Eugene and landed outside Junction City.
Anyway, how about the Davis derringer? I've had one in .25acp for 20 years and have several hundred rounds through it with no troubles.
 
Who make the best junk guns? That is real easy Smith and Wesson hands down!
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Well... why don't we say Les Baer since this is apparently a sliding scale, and no one around here would pay for anything less:rolleyes:
 
Don't know about junk, but here's a short list of inexpensive guns that have proven reliable for me:
used ruger p-series, star model-B (great guns, if you can find one for a good price), used rossi revolvers, PA-63(sp? the little polish one that looks somewhat similar to a makarov), tokarev.

These are all going to run somewhere between $100-250. I'm not convinced that you are going to find a reliable handgun for less than $100. The exceptions prove the general rule that <$100 hangun = unreliable junk.

Coosbaycreep, you may want to try more carefully wording your post to get more useful responses. Some folks around here tend to take every word literally and aren't that good at reading between the lines.

BTW, I grew up in Coos Bay, left when I was 18.
 
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First, price is not an issue. Many military surplus/police surplus guns are cheap, but only because they are obsolete. It is a given that no nation issues junk weapons to its army or police. Some, like the Nagant, may be obsolete and cheap today, but in the 1890's they were costly modern guns of high quality.

Chuck Hawks has a hate on for S&W and none of his rantings can be taken at face value.

Just a comment on the term "pot metal." While some folks associate it with cast zinc and the like, the term originally referred to the cheap cast iron from which cooking pots were made. (At one time, no working class home was complete without a big iron pot of soup or stew boiling away on the stove.) The Spanish revolvers and auto pistols imported by the ton in the 1920's and 1930's were usually made of such metal and quite a few blew up.

Jim
 
Just a comment on the term "pot metal." While some folks associate it with cast zinc and the like, the term originally referred to the cheap cast iron from which cooking pots were made. (At one time, no working class home was complete without a big iron pot of soup or stew boiling away on the stove.) The Spanish revolvers and auto pistols imported by the ton in the 1920's and 1930's were usually made of such metal and quite a few blew up.
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So, basically... calling a cast zinc gun "pot metal" is actually a compliment. Scary.
 
Any gun made of plastic, aluminum or zinc is junk in my opinion, so the best, from what I hear, is glock.
 
Although they aren't made anymore, I recently worked on a .22 Llama that might qualify as a junk gun. The machining work was pretty poor on that pistol and misfires were often until I polished it up. I still wouldn't trust it for a SHTF gun. One good thing I have to say about it is that it was really comfortable in your hand when firing it.
 
Bersa is a $250.00 South American inexpensive pistol. It will just never be a $600.00 Walthers
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Hooter

Labor rate and no advertising budgets (andn no glossy brochures) may have something to do with that price difference....never had any problem with my Bersa (nor my friends)...the Thunder full size are used by various Police departments and the Argentinian Armed Force....so it's a service rated pistol.

You maye want to give Bersa another try....I saw my fair share of Kimber lemons...

Going back to the OP, there is no "best" junk gun...it is a contradiction in terms

There is an enormous difference between:

1) Inexpensive (Bersa, Kel-Tec, Makarov Taurus, etc..)

2) Cheap (rudimental mechanics and design but still reliable, for example Hi Point)

3) Junk (Lorcin, Jennings and any "Ring of fire" firearm)


I would say the best "cheap" brand (lowest dollar figure but still reliable and decently accurate) is Hi-Point.

Rudimental design, cheap non-steel materials (excluding the barrel) for frame and slide, extremely unbalanced, no ergonomics, horrendous triggers, very heavy, impossible to carry, ........but reliable when you squeeze your finger.

They are ok if your budget is extremely tight....you would be still better off buying a used "inexpensive" pistol (category "1" in my list) but as nightstand or truck pistol Hi Point are ok...and for some non serious plinking at the range.
 
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Originally posted by hooter2010 :
To me Chuck Hawks makes valid points I can relate too as the past owner of the Sigma .380. What a clunker that was from S&W. They also refused to repair it.
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I have a Sigma .40 bought new in 2007. Right off the bat I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. All my shots went low and to the right. I didn't have much time to shoot and I had a shotgun for HD so I didn't really care.

Last year I got more into handgun shooting so I sent the gun off to S&W, it came back and now it hits where I aim. They smoothed out the trigger and it doesn't stack as badly. It's still heavy,but more manageable. All I had to pay was shipping.
 
Milkmaster said:
Although they aren't made anymore, I recently worked on a .22 Llama that might qualify as a junk gun. The machining work was pretty poor on that pistol and misfires were often until I polished it up. I still wouldn't trust it for a SHTF gun. One good thing I have to say about it is that it was really comfortable in your hand when firing it.
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I had a .45 Llama. One of the nicest looking pistols I've ever owned. But my ex wife was also one of the prettiest women I've ever known. Neither of them could be trusted.
 
Hooter

I understand yoru bad experience..your choice....your dealer may have stepped into a "bad batch"..it can happen with any brands...have you ever heard of Glock kabooms???

For me and the vast majority of owners, Bersa has been nothing but reliable, no one single jamming from the get going (I own a Thunder 40 full size)

I don't know in your area but around here the Thunder 380 literally fly off the shelves and are highly recommended by gun shops and firearms experts.

Hard to find one in stock, often backordered.

Look at just some of the reviews of the Thunder 380 by commercial and private reviewer...only praise (reliability, accuracy, ergonomics, look) for the little Argentinian pistol....the only real point of inferiority of Bersa compared to the "big boys" (Beretta, SIG, Walther, Kimber, etc..) is the finishing (mind you, not fit, just the finishing)....utilitarian and with tooling marks here and there, frankly I don't care.

Customer Service is excellent and you can service your pistol thorugh various repair centers around the country....however not many people that I know ever did need it.

To top it off, Bersas are very good looking pistols...the entire line.

http://www.handgunsmag.com/featured_handguns/bersa_thunder/

http://www.oneinchgroup.com/2009/04/bersa-thunder-380-review.html

http://www.genitron.com/REV-Bersa-380/P2-Bersa-380.html

http://www.chuckhawks.com/bersa_380.htm

http://www.pistolguru.com/bersa-thunder.html

http://www.gunblast.com/Bersa_Thunder380.htm

http://www.alpharubicon.com/leo/bersathunder380.htm
 
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I find it rather disheartening when someone buys one of these pot metal junk guns, fires tens of rounds through it, and then declares it to be reliable enough for serious self-defense use.

Lorcin, Jiminez, Jennings and the other guns from the so-called "ring of fire" are all not worth considering, especially when, for just a little bit more money, you can easily find used S&W revolvers, surplus Eastern-Bloc handguns, or guns made by reputable companies like KelTec.

Anyway, how about the Davis derringer?
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It is my understanding that these derringers do not have a built-in drop safety, and can easily discharge if dropped. Over the years, I've seen more than one news report of some doofus dropping one of these things and accidentally drilling a bystander. Tamara, who's been around firearms for quite some time, writes about such an incident here.

Again, many derringers do not have a drop safety in them and will likely discharge if dropped. Don't be that guy.
 
So if $40 is all someone had, you think they'd be better armed with a fist than a cheap gun? I haven't seen too many guns that wouldn't fire (even if it's only one round) with one in the chamber as long as they were using quality ammo.

And where are you finding these used S&W revolvers, eastern bloc pistols, and keltecs for "just a little bit more money", because where I live, makarovs, tokarevs(sp?), model 10s, etc., are all around $200 and up when you can find them. That's a big jump in price from what I paid for my pot metal plinkers.

Like I said in the original post, I don't plan on carrying a ring of fire gun for SD, and as long as someone could afford something better, I wouldn't recommend it either, but just because they're cheap doesn't make them "not worth considering". There's plenty of threads of high end guns failing, blowing up, etc too.

The main point of my thread had more to do with finding out the best cheap (occasional) plinkers anyway.
 
I find it rather disheartening when someone buys one of these pot metal junk guns, fires tens of rounds through it, and then declares it to be reliable enough for serious self-defense use.
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I would find this statement rather disheartening...
... or guns made by reputable companies like KelTec.
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... if it weren't so funny. But, of course, what would I know. I must've photoshopped my guns and lied about round count :rolleyes:

It is my understanding that these derringers do not have a built-in drop safety, and can easily discharge if dropped.
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My Davis has a hammer block safety, although it's not intuitive and rather awkward. I would suspect the problem is more having to do with being a Derringer than being a Davis.
 
Raven .25 - I had one for over 15 years, before I traded it for a nice Bearcat. I had fired over 1000 rounds through, the only malfunction was a weak magazine spring. I 86'd the mag, and bought a new one. Fairly accurate for what it was, but make no mistake, it was not a well designed pistol.

Astra firearms were always underrated, but better for me, undervalued. I have a 400, 600, and a Terminator. Very well made weapons.

I know that I'm going to catch flak for this, but I have to put CZ as my least favorite "junk gun." I've owned 3, and gotten rid of them as quickly as I could. Jammomatics. I imagine that I was very unlucky, as there seems to be a huge following of CZ fans.
 
Who makes the best junk gun?

I guess I am going to call junk guns those under 200 for this purpose.

Hands down it has to be either a Raven 25 or any Hi Point.
 
when i think of junk guns i think of anything under 100 so for me that the two that i got free

a Raven 25 and a Reck P8 both .25ACP

i dont trust them to SD but never had either malfunction or break

as for the countless claims of "i can find BRAND X gun for dirt cheap" id love to know where you guys live ive NEVER ever seen a smith for less than 200 even BROKEN ones on GB and in local shops always get that "collector" price tag a colt pffft forget that too
if a firearm has a brand name attatched to it forget it being cheap
but then again i guess your the same guys getting colt AR-15 brand new from the factory for 799 shipped with all FFL fees included right?
 
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