Why do most people want to dump on inexpensive guns?

[John4me05]

I have a newer Hipoint C9 9mm and a Bryco/Jennings model 58 380... I needed to find how to take down the Jennings for cleaning (got it when my father-in-law passed and have ran over 1000 rounds through it in 2 years so it needed it)... The Hipoint i bought new and paid about 180 for it 3 years ago.. Both guns are very inexpensive... I ran a google search on the Jennings and found how to take it down.. Cleaned it and then went on looking at other webpages pulled up by the search and found THR archive posts where people were dogging the Jenning like crazy... Saying it was best used as a doorstop and would take a rock over the Jennings... Its amazing how much bad publicity these guns get... And to beat it all mine both work flawlessly... I can rapid fire 2 clips through the Jennings where everything i read said they are just single shots cause they jam... Same with Hipoints.... I had some fail to chambers with my Hipoint when it was new but i learned the smack the mag on your hand before you load it trick and have never NEVER had a fail to chamber since then... Same with the Jennings... It stopped working a few times when i first got it but it was because the F-I-L broke the asfety lever sometime and it kept slipping to engage... I removed the safety all together and it works flawlessly.... As a matter of fact it is my defense gun i carry in my Explorer.... And yes i would trust my life to it...


Why do so many people crap on cheaper priced stuff??? 99% of my guns cost less than half or what msot peoples do but do the same job... While i may not be as accurate i can hit a 10X10target at 25yds all day... Thats what the gun is for and it does that just fine....

 

[41magsnub]

Why do people crap on cheap cars, small houses, and etc? Some people get self validation from having "better" stuff than others and want the lesser beings to know it.

 

[macFarlaine]

Snob value,people nowadays like to be noticed,they believe it says iv'e made it.

 

[Cougfan2]

I personally wouldn't have any of the real cheapies, but then I can afford to make that decision. That being said, if it was a choice between having a Jennings or HiPoint or no gun at all, I'd take them. Hey, I've had FTF's with $1,000.00 guns! It's kind of like people on this forum and KelTecs. Some people, like my brother swear by them, but the first time my brother let me try one of his, the thing jammed after the first shot and a screw fell out of it. Not something I want to trust my life to.

 

[MCgunner]

My stuff is better than your stuff. My gun is better than your gun. My house is nicer than your house. My bike is faster than your bike (or in the case of HD, has more farkles). What I always countered with at the plant was, "my 401K has more money than your 401K" and without exception, I was right. That's why I live in my little house right now, paid for, retired from that death trap at age 55, and can go hunting any danged time I want! I also have land I invested in. I have a place to hunt. I have some folks I once worked with come to ME asking if they can go hunting. ROFL, yeah, okay, right. Whazza matter, can'r afford a lease?

I've got some nice guns. They might not cost the most, but they shoot danged decent or I wouldn't have kept 'em. I've owned and do own some that the snobs won't touch, Ruger, Taurus, Kel Tec, Rossi come to mind. I never really cared what others thought so long as I was happy.

BTW, Kel Tecs are pinned, not screwed together. I've got a P11 with over 11,000 trouble free rounds through it. I WILL, HAVE, and DO trust my life to it.

 

[John4me05]

Thats the thing about this Jennings... It is solid... Push a detent button on the back and list the slide off... Only screws i know of are holding the plastic grips on... Its all solid metal and heavy.. No recoil.. Very quick back on target after firing... And it holds i think 13 rounds... I got 12 in it now... If i got in a firefight and was just wasting pot shots by the time the other guy ran out at 7 or 9 i would still have 6-4 more rounds to take my time with... The Hipoint dont hold that many but its really accurate up to 12-15 yds and pretty good at 25... I can atleast put half a mag on a 10X10 target at 50yds.... Granted ill never use it that far but its nice to go shoot that distance and see what it will do... These guns are first and foremost fun for me (very low violent crime rate where i live) but function beautifully enough to be a home or even concealed defensive pistol... I know all about the "Im better than you" syndrome as there are lots of people this way with their vehicles and such where i live... But im with you MCgun... My wife works 20-25hrs a week and i work 15 or so hours every 15 days and between the 2 of use we make enough to buy our home (would probably run in the upper $100,000 to near $200,000 dollar range in very large expensive cities) and pay our bills and drive our vehicles (94 Explorer 4X4, 94 Sable 4 door, 88 Isuzu 4X4)... We do this right now cause our daughter is almost 2 and we have been living it up with us both having sooo much time with her at this age... I have 13 total firearms and while they are cheapies on the majorities view they do the job just fine for me... I would like to get my hands on 1 of these "crap" guns by these manufacturers that someone gripes about jsut to prove to me that there are some that would be worth turning into door stops...

 

[MCgunner]

Jennings? Well, even my cheap arse has limits....ROFL! If it works for you, though, hey, I can't complain. I carried a striker fired RG .25 auto for years. Hey, at handshake ranges it was accurate and it never jammed, so good 'nuf. It was illegal to carry at the time and a .25 was about all the choice you had in small and concealable. And, I figured if it got taken off me after a shooting, I wouldn't lose much and I could use what I'd saved on the gun for bail money. LOL Carrying back then was a class A misdemeanor and there was no CCW law. Fortunately, the one time I had to pull it, the guy ran and I didn't have to fire. It worked just as well as a top quality 1911 in that situation.

I also have a Phoenix Arms HP22. Now, this is a cheap, zinc gun just like the Jennings, but it's amazingly accurate. At .25 yards, I can put 5 stingers into 3"! That's with the 3" barrel on it. The 5" I have puts Fed Lightening into 2"! The gun is about 100 bucks new! It also has a hammer with rebounding firing pin, like that much better than a striker. Everyone HATES this gun, but I find it very useful as a field gun. I have better carries, of course, but it's just a fun little plinker and I've had occasion to shoot snakes with it, quite accurate for that and fits in a pocket. It's the most accurate pocket .22s I've ever fired at any price. Accuracy always wins with me.

 

[TAB]

The price is always the last thing I look at when I'm shoping for tools/guns/ machinery.

What I want is something that task it was designed for and lasts.

 

[Elvishead]

Inexpensive?

Cheap!

They are not inexpensive, they are "Cheap".

The High point has a really good rep., for being unusually/surpisingly good for the price.

The Jennings? "Down goes Fraser!"

I guess I'm pretentious because I own a S&W Sigma.

TBS. It's not the gun, nor is it the people that kill people. It's the Bullet or the vehicle that kills. The Gun, and/or the person is just a delivery system.

Good luck!

 

[Just Jim]

I have never seen a gun of any cost that I wanted to be shot with. Cheap guns can still ruin your day to be shot by one. However if the cheap gun fails you then you made a decision that may have saved you a few bucks but cost you your life and your families.

Choices, you live and die by them.

jj

 

[jakeswensonmt]

Why do most people want to crap on inexpensive guns???

I don't think they do. They crap on badly made guns. When a manufacturer sells a well made gun at an inexpensive price, people beat a path to their door. Some of my favorite guns are "inexpensive" but high quality guns, mostly Rugers.

It just happens that when you get to the very bottom of the price range, the really inexpensive guns, a lot of them are not well made.

re: Hi Point. I hear lots more disparagement about how ugly these guns are than about them not functioning. If I had $100ish and I needed a handgun right this minute, I'd probably be looking at Hi Points. Never heard anything bad about that carbine they make.

re: Jennings (Raven/Bryco... Jimenez?). I'd say you got real lucky on your purchase, because the Jennings that I've handled have been true garbage. The quality was so poor that I was concerned about being injured using them. I wouldn't bet a dollar, much less my life, on a Jennings firing two shots in a row.

 

[MASTEROFMALICE]

Just make sure you use the Jennings for what it was designed for.

Fire a magazine through it and throw it down a storm drain.

 

[nalioth]

BTW, Kel Tecs are pinned, not screwed together. I've got a P11 with over 11,000 trouble free rounds through it. I WILL, HAVE, and DO trust my life to it.

Kel-Tec makes rifles, too. These have screws in them.

As to the OP, I also will chime in with the low-cost firearms not being well made at times. All it takes is a few folks with major failures and everybody after that will think twice about buying them.

 

[Constantine-p89]

I just got rid of a Jennings because I couldn't trust that gun, now if I were to buy another cheapie it would be a Hi-Point 9mm for a cheap gun to shoot and for another addition to the collection and yes I do trust Hi-Point.

 

[TexasSkyhawk]

I remember meeting some NYC narcs during a big task force raid we did in the burroughs. Everyone one of them had a Jennings. Some admitted to having more than one!

Later found out over the years that, ironically, the vast majority of drug dealers and petty robbers that expired because they pointed a gun at a NYC cop did so with a Jennings in their hand . . .

Jeff

 

[Constantine-p89]

My guess would be Jennings is not made to fire over 10,000 rounds, I could be wrong but mine was very old and used and it jammed every other magazine atleast once and after a while every other round. In other words they could be a very good gun for the price but they dont last as long as people want them to. If you shot it once and a while and kept it clean it would last a good while.

 

[PCRCCW]

Well...Im not a gun snob! Ive shot hi points that shoot circles around other more expensive guns. But you have to remember their are good guns that are cheap to buy and just cheap guns! Jennings has a questionable rap on the net for a reason. They are pot metal frames and zinc slides...if I remember right?

Heres the kicker...everyone has owned these guns at one time or another...most of them use it as part of there learning curve and move onward and upward. Some just wont admit it. Guns are like anything...you dont want to spend money on something that you may like or may not like. My Jennings 380 fell apart after about 1000 rnds.

But heres another take on them. We spend 99$ on a hi cap Jennings 9mm. Spent the same on ammo...a case years ago. We went into the desert and our goal was to shoot this thing into pcs.....literally. The gun got so hot from shooting mag after mag after mag...that you could barely hold it. The result of our endurance test is one completely dirty and one very reliable gun. I dont know that I would carry any of them....except that exact gun. But it stayed together and didnt have one failure.

Get what you like and what works for you and if you actually listen to what others say about your stuff...then you will suffer the good and bad of that.

If they say great things about it and you listen.....whether or not its true, then you have an ego. If you take the bad things they say to heart, then you need a better self image.

Thats true in all things............guns are just a very small part of it.


Shoot well and god bless

 

[MCgunner]

Is the only reason to own a gun for self defense? You guys don't own guns just to have fun with or to take hunting or something less than killing someone with? Just wondered. I own that Phoenix Arms, I like to shoot it, it's accurate, but I don't trust my life to it. It's a fun plinker, I've killed a few rabbits, and I've shot some snakes off a tank with it. I've never carried it for defense. I've got more reliable, better built guns for that.

Oh, and I don't consider a Kel Tec rifle a "cheap gun". I don't know how they hold up, but for 400 bills I can buy a Savage 110 or Stevens anyway, more my style. Hell, I paid 75 bucks for one of my SKS Norincos. Now, THAT'S cheap! It's amazingly reliable, too! I also have a paratrooper carbine I paid 115 for. Now, think about it, a battle rifle for the price of a Jennings or Hi Point!

 

[S&W45]

If it is made in the USA and works I am happy.

 

[jhco]

the fact is that hi points are ugly they jam and they arnt very erganomic i mean if colts cost $200 i wouldnt care about them being cheap because its a quality piece

 

[Redhawk1]

Don't ask a question if you are not prepare to hear the answer to. It is not the price of your guns that has anything to do with them being called crap. It is because of the constant jamming and having to get repaired that makes them JUNK.

I had a High point 9 mm also, I spent more time un-jamming it, than I did shooting it. The only time I enjoyed shooing it was, when I took it to the range and shot it with my 44 Mag. Yes it is true, I shot the piece of crap to pieces and threw it away.

 

[Phil DeGraves]

You get what you pay for. Inexpensive guns are generally not as reliable as more expensive guns, generally because the materials and quality control are inferior to the name brands. This isn't a slam on those guns, just a fact. The designs are fairly "glunky," have poor ergonomics and gritty triggers. All that costs. Personally, for a CCW gun, since I am betting my life on it, I'll go with the very best gun I can afford and I will practice with it a lot. In my experience, (since, like many people, I didn't start with the expensive guns) the inexpensive guns that I have owned were disappointing in performance, reliability and durability.

 

[John4me05]

I fore see a range trip with the digi video cam... How many people would believe i could run 2 12 rounds mags through the Jennings without a jam???
I think My Hipoint holds 8 comfortably... Dont have a extra mag for it though... Who would believe i could run through all 8 rapid fire with no jams...
And if anyone thinks i am offended by their replies i aint... Honestly this is a serious question i wanted to know the answer to...

 

[phoglund]

There are 6 criteria I look at when purchasing a firearm. Form, fit, function, reliability, durability, and aesthetics. Function*, reliability, and durability cannot be compromised upon if the weapon is to be used for defensive purposes. Form, fit, and aesthetics can be compromised if necessary for reasons of cost, availability, or other such reasons.

I had a Jennings once given to me by my Brother in Law that he had won in a poker game but didn't want. It jammed a couple of times per magazine and shot larger "groups" at 5 yards than a shotgun shooting buck at 100 yards! It was a pretty trashed pistol though so I wouldn't judge the brand by it's failures.

I don't own a Jennings or Hi-Point because I am suspicious of their reliability and durability and I don't like their aesthetics and I can afford better at this juncture in life. However I don't "crap on" other folks who own these firearms, particularly if they find them to be functional, reliable, and durable. Who am I to judge?

I say if they work for you I'm happy you are able to protect yourself and your loved ones and have something to go to the range with when the mood hits you. Carry on.


* "Function" includes inherent accuracy, pointability, ease of use, etc.

 

[macadore]

I think some people need to justify paying several hundred dollars more for their firearm. If they paid more, then their firearm must be worth that much more? Right??? Come on, say it’s right.