Problems and complaints (mild rant)

[James K]

Hi, guys and gals,

I have only been a certified "gun nut" for about 50+ years, so I guess I am a newbie, but there is one thing I really don't understand. An awful lot of posts, mostly on this forum, are complaints that this or that gun failed, broke, didn't work, fell apart, or otherwise didn't do what it should do. Many people who have returned such guns to the factory praise the maker's customer service, or fast turnaround, or nice work in fixing the problem.

But no one seems to wonder why guns, some of them quite high priced, can't be made to work right. An 80 year old design is not rocket science; even the newest handgun technology is pretty simple stuff. A target pistol or rifle that doesn't work is a figurative pain; a defense pistol that doesn't work can result in a very literal pain or maybe the end of all pain. Customer service doesn't mean much to a corpse with a broken pistol in its hand.

Yet, you not only keep buying the junk, you keep praising people who can't do the job right in the first place, the job you pay them to do with your money. You keep finding excuses for the maker of deficient products. You keep believing makers who tell you that they make only the best, even while you are complaining about their products failing.

I don't understand. If you bought a car that was in the shop more than on the road, you would scream bloody murder to everyone, not talk about how nice the service manager is.

Jim

 

[Bert125]

Truly, I must agree with what you say. I've had a bit of a sight problem with my Springfield 1911. I want to get night sights put on it but will definitely not send it to them. It's a widespread problem and I figure they had the opportunity to do it right the first time (or several hundred times) so I won't give'em a second chance to screw it up. I had a buddy wax philosophical one time to me and he told me that if a company is really good at what they do nobody should know if they have "Customer Service" or not. A bit extreme maybe but......

 

[Blue Duck357]

Lower pride in workmanship, standards of customer service and an "accepted" return rate are obvious. But just to be different:

I think the car analogy is a good one, If you buy a Saturn you expect it to get you to and from work without breaking down or using much gas (simple car, simple goal). Things break, screw-ups happen but it'll likely fulfill that role most of the time very well.
If on the other hand you want a supercharged-twin turboed full out race car that will blow everthing else off the road, you can buy one of those and it will fulfill it's function-when it's not "In the shop" (more complicated machine, lower tolerances).

I bet you see where I'm going with this Most defensive handgunners don't want an ugly gun, with plenty of size and weight to handle it's cartridge for thousands and thousands of rounds. Handguns built with loose tolerances to handle all the grit that builds up in all firearms are considered signs of shoddy workmanship.

Most people want a sleek gun as small and light as humanly possible to handle the biggest cartridge possible. They also want it to shoot 3 inch groups at 50 yards, and feed any shape of ammunition anybody anywhere can come up with (even well after the gun is introduced). If it's a belt gun it should also be able to fire anything from your favorite 165 grain .45 plinking load to the 45 super with complete reliability. People want specialized tools, thats what they get.

In short some of this is our own fault...

 

[SpecialK]

The solution is to buy a SIG SAUER!

 

[Ala Dan]

I agree with Special K. Just something about the
QUALITY after the merger of Sig and Sauer.
Sure, once every blue moon they may turn out a
lemon; but it does not occur very often, and your
chance's of being struck by lightning are greater
than getting a lemon from this firearms company.

The timeless age ole' saying, "If it ain't broke, Don't
fix it", holds true with these fine weapons.

Best Wishes,
Ala Dan, Life Member N.R.A.

 

[bullet44]

"Most" products are not what they used to be....
Now its profit at any cost,(to the consumer)...

Some years back I worked in quality control(not
firearms)in the beginning we rejected anything
that had a remote chance of causing customer
problems, in the end as a new generation of
managers took over it changed to get it out the
door and if returned then we fix.
More profit yes,but guess who it hurts.

 

[Will Beararms]

Jim:

My point exactly on an $800 Sig with nickle flaking off the slide or a $550 Kahr with pins falling out and a polymer frame warping-------------------------unacceptable. I had similar experiences with the above mentioned makers---------------I won't buy another.

 

[Hemicuda]

There's ALSO something to the "You get what you pay for..."

I dislike Sigs a bit... (don't QUITE fit my hand) and Glocks ALOT... (fit worse, and the trigger is ATROCIOUS to me... BUT they DO turn out QUALITY pieces... the "tupperware wonder" is WELL BUILT, and seems to work "as designed" very well... I dust don't like the way it WAS designed...

but y'all CAN'T buy a cheap copy 1911, and expect it to funsction like a "Les Baer"

nor can you buy a Bersa 380, and expect it to function like a PPK...

I prefer used (pre-agreement) Smith's I have YET to have a Malf, worse than an occasional stovepipe, and THOSE are always on reloads... (I also have a soft place for "Monson" Dan Wessons)

I paqy a bit of a "long dollar" to have these guns, but I think they are "the stuff" because they FIT me, and they FUNCTION...

I DO agree that it is ALOT the manufacturers fault for alotta problems...

so, remember, if ya want the best, you gotta PAY for it...

 

[gryphon]

I think that the bigger problem is that I CAN buy a $300 1911 that can keep up and surpass the $800+ 1911s.

If you truly get what you pay for, then I think that most people overpay. As I have stated time and again on this and other forums. I paid $350 for a brand new 1911 from Charles Daly. I have put it against Kimbers and other major brands and my CD has had no problem keeping up or in some cases out performing the models that cost my friends $500 more.

The door can swing both ways on this issue.

 

[J. Parker]

Well, you only have to hit me in the head two or three times with a two-by-four to really wake me up.
Take my Glock experiences for example....bought my first one....didn't work right....bought another....didn't work right....dahhhhh....geeez, hit me in the head will ya.
Take my S&W semi-auto experiences for example.....had a M5906, a M4006, two M457's and they all worked just fine. Matter of fact I just got back one of those M457's from my brother-in-law. According to many on TFL S&W auto's are junk. Well, through my eyes it certainly doesn't look that way does it.
Folks on TFL just don't understand my distain for Glock's.
Ya know, you can only hit me up side the head so many times

 

[Rovert]

Jim, good point. I just touched on this last night with another TFL'er that lives in my area.

One part of me agrees with you. The mechanisms and physics of gun manufacture are not new sciences. One would think that machinists have had hundreds of years to figure it out, and quality control should prevent a lemon from getting into the hands of a customer.

The other part of me recognizes that since the 1800's, goods are mass produced, often machine assembled, not hand fitted, and perhaps we consumers in this day and age of computer precision don't understand that there's a huge difference between printing a newsletter out of our laser printer, and the art and science of machining, assembling and tuning a 3 dimensional object.

At the end of the day, I think it's important to look back, and see how far the industry of firearms has come. I have been watching A&E's 'Story Of The Gun', and as a newbie, I'm blown away (no pun intended) by the ingenuity of the men and makers that have gotten us to where we are today.

Yes, most things are not what they used to be. They're better! Cars are better. They're more reliable, more comfortable, go farther on a tank of gas, pollute less, accelerate faster, corner quicker, and brake harder. And that's just the average, run of the mill, ORDINARY car that John and Jane Doe have in their driveway right now... not a Ferrari.

I think guns, and gun makers, are better. We have greater safety, accuracy, reliability, ergonomics, performance... who would have guessed 20 years ago, that we'd have a G26, P99 or a 92fs or Kimber, or... well, you get the point.

I think that in this modern age of internet communications, we tend to hear immediately about the little problems that often develop, but not the zillions of guns a maker has that are reliable.

In decades past, if there was a problem with a product, nobody knew about it. Who's to say for sure that quality is worse today than it was 25 years ago? It's likely things were WORSE back then, but since nobody heard about it, we're left with the PERCEPTION that guns were better back then, 'cause we didn't have this thing called the Internet, so we get nostalgic about the 'good old days', not remembering the quality of a 1970 Ford.

All in all, I think that the quality and consistency of guns is far and away better than it has been in the past. Yes, there will be phases where any given maker has problems with the quality and pride of its craftsmen and assemblers. Yes, there will be designs and models that are just 'lemons'. And, yes, that's when we consumers reward another maker with our business. For instance, shying away from a given maker during a phase when they have QC problems.

Overall, I think the gun industry is like the Stock Market. There are peaks and valleys, but taken over time, I think we're pretty lucky to get the kind of gun technology that we can, at the incredible prices that they are.

Ok, I'm done now.

 

[Azrael256]

Now we know why I'm sticking with my old S&W revolver. It just doesn't break.

If I bought a gun, particularly a new one, that failed on me, even at the range, I would be LIVID. If I didn't take good care of it, that's my fault, but I don't believe in repairs on a new gun. New guns get neato combat sights and hogue grips, not repairs. If something broke on me, it would be returned with a letter inviting the manufacturer to go f*** themselves.

I also have the same reaction about ammo. I've had winchester wildcats and PMC .22 jam my rifle. It's a spotless Marlin 39! If it doesn't feed in that, the world is, indeed, coming to an end.

I can't believe some of the things I've seen with factory stuff. There is, without question, a QC problem, but I think we're forgetting that our $$$ is the ultimate QC. If you get a lemon, learn from it and don't buy another one.

 

[Zundfolge]

So Jim, you wanna point us to this manufacturer of magic guns that never ever break?

All mechanical devices, no matter how well designed or made have the potential to fail (for that matter all organic devices do too).

 

[Tamara]

Mr. Keenan,

As someone who has spent years behind a gunshop counter, may I politely point out that your rant has a substance-to-holes ratio that compares unfavorably to the head of a tennis racquet.

Which manufacturer are you talking about that turns out such junk? Who is defending them?

As far as I know, if you buy from most any name brand gun manufacturer, you are better than 99 and 44/100ths percent certain to get a serviceable product right off the showroom floor. Some may be better than others, but they most all work.

Secondly, who in their right mind would buy a self defense gun, pick a random box of JHP's off the shelf, and load it up for defense duty without test-firing it first? There are some guns out there that just don't like certain combinations of bullet weight, bullet shape, and powder charge. It's a simple fact related to their being mechanical devices and not magical objects from the gods. Test your gun thoroughly with your chosen load before carrying it.

Lastly, even the best guns can fail; most likely at the most inopportune time. I've spent a fair amount of time slipping spent brass into the middle of loaded Glock magazines at the range. I do this to practice for an event that has occured only once at the range in all my years of shooting Glocks but that I am for some reason almost certain will occur should I need to use one in real life.

 

[Oris]

Jim is right. When I started working in the U.S. in 1991, it was
a very small company, but it had and still have very tough QC.
Anything that was not within tolerances is scraped, period.
I think that cost of scrap was very high, but we never had our tools not functioning because of manufacturing defects. The only problems were related to some stupid customers, and every
company has its share of stupid customers...

Any industrial company can have quality control which is capable of preventing scrap (lemons) getting out of the plant into the hands of the customers. It just cost more money to recognize more scrap, but it's the part of the business.

TFL is a great place - I learn a lot what not to buy.
I'm like Jim do not except any excuses.

 

[melglock]

Which manufacturer are you talking about that turns out such junk? Who is defending them?

Jennings? Bryco? Lorcin?

I'm still looking for people defending these guys. If I find any I'll let you know...

Seriously, I've had nothing but good experiences with the guns I've picked up so far. My Glock 19 works exactly as advertised. It has shot everything I've loaded into it so far and has proven to be an accurate, reliable gun. My Mossberg 590A1 has also proven itself. I've seen it jam a few times, but those were because of operator error. Yes, things do break occasionally, but with my two guns, I have yet to see it happen.

 

[Gewehrmutter]

Yet, you not only keep buying the junk, you keep praising people who can't do the job right in the first place, the job you pay them to do with your money. You keep finding excuses for the maker of deficient products. You keep believing makers who tell you that they make only the best, even while you are complaining about their products failing.

That's the d*mn truth...

 

[Handy]

Maybe the problem stems from the basic design of the DA revolvers and Browning type autos the buying public insists on. These designs can work well, but maybe they are too sensitive to manufactoring variences. Perhaps these designs make it easy to make a lemon.

Other designs, like some of the fixed barrel HK stuff, was completely new and different, yet were remarkably reliable. Yet these guns are too "weird" and the buying public insists instead that manufactorers turn out perfect copies of century old principles.

There are only:
4 modern pistols that use gas delay
1 that uses roller delay
1 that uses lever delay
1 that uses roller locked recoil

Yet many of these pistols are notable for accuracy, reliability, pressure handling, etc. Why haven't manufactorers embraced them? Because we don't.

 

[James K]

Hi, Tamara and folks,

I didn't name names because anyone who wants to can look them up on this forum and mainly on the semi-auto forum. Breakages, stoppages, complaints. Some, of course, are ammo related. But many are not. When a recoil spring takes off down range, there is something wrong that a nice customer service does not make up for. When a slide stop breaks or falls out, or a sear breaks, or a hammer falls to pieces, or a gun fires out of battery, a guarantee is not good enough.

"All guns break" and "even the old ones broke" may have a tiny bit of truth, but more often are excuses used by people whose guns break a lot more than others.

As to old guns breaking, I was selling guns 40 years ago, and the fact is that it was rare for a new quality gun of that period to have problems. There was less variety and less choice, but good guns (not the SNS types) worked, and worked right out of the box.

Tamara, if you follow my posts, you know I have always advocated a test period (200 rounds minimum) to be sure the gun works and that it works with the carry ammo. I have been flamed both by people who say I want to wear the gun out and by those who think 5000 rounds is not enough!!!

I am sure you didn't mean the figure to be taken literally, but 99 and 44/100 percent is not good enough if you are talking guns for serious use. That means that of every 1000 cops who engage in a gunfight, 6 will die because their guns failed.

The real problem is that manufacturers today don't make the best product they can and then sell it for enough to make a profit. Instead they calculate what the traffic will bear in price, then make the gun as cheaply as possible to maximize profits. This means using poorly made parts, parts made from the wrong metal, parts made in the wrong (but cheap) way, warped castings shoved into production, casting air holes welded up, heavy plating or parkerizing to cover defects, etc.

It also means lying and misleading. Guns are advertised as "machined" when the machining is done to a casting. If the reader wants to think forging or machining from stock, that is his problem, the maker says only "machined". Guns are advertised as "mil spec", although the term has no legal meaning and the guns are nowhere near military specifications. Guns are promoted on the basis of a famous name, even though that person may have nothing to do with the maker except to collect a royalty check. Guns are marked "Made in USA" when every part is made somewhere else and only assembly is done here. Quality control and testing are minimal or non-existing. Many companies have "engineers" with no degree, and no training, whose only role is to try to make something as cheap as possible.

Holes in my arguments? I don't think so, Tamara. People are buying junk and loving it. The semi-auto forum would die if guns worked; at least 50 percent consists of "my ____ broke" or "my ____ doesn't___". Guns that work are boring, and monotonous. There is no fun, nothing to write about.

Jim

 

[J. Parker]

I knew we were all in trouble when Tamara called Jim "Mr. Keenan".