Anyone ever have a major failure with a gun?

[dglock]

Originally Posted by wolverine_17

I tend to hear things online that this gun or that has major problems after a large round count, such as the frame or slide cracking. Or people saying i need to replace all the springs after 5 thousand rounds or buy a buffer to keep my gun from breaking.

I want to know if anyone has actually had these type of major problems, especially if you have put several thousand rounds through your gun, or if they are isolated to one or two people and just get posted all over the internet. I hope my guns to last 10's of thousands of rounds without problems

I had a major problem, not the guns fault, ammo related.

Blew the mag out of the gun and the extractor was no where to be found!

This was with a sig not a SA, sig fixed the gun for free despite it being a ammo problem not the gun.

don

[AirForceAce357]

I had an issue where my Remington 1100 wouldn't fire several years ago. turned out there's a small nylon buffer that was worn out. The guy I took it to said it was probably the original (my gun was made in the mid 1970s) and I had a lot of rounds through it, plus whatever the past owners did, so not a big deal. Was an easy replacement though and it's been 100% ever since.

It was a "major" problem in that the gun couldn't fire, but was "minor" in that it was relatively easy to fix.

Never had any major issues with my Ruger 10/22 or my new Glock 17 Gen 4. Hoping it stays that way...

[Cuda66]

Originally Posted by wolverine_17

So is buying a buffer a good idea??

No, it is not.

It's a piece of rubber that can break apart and cause your pistol to fail. Also, whether or not they actually protect your pistol is dubious at best.

Unless you're shooting tens of thousands of rounds every year, you'll never stress your gun enough for it to be an issue.

[M1A4ME]

Not sure what qualifies as major/minor.

My 742 Remington once broke the firing pin return spring which blocked the firing pin from hitting the primer. The rifle went bang, click, click. The ejected empty had normally dented primer. The next two rounds only got a click before being manually ejected. Very small dent in primer of the first one and no dent in the primer of the second one. Took it home, tore it down, found the firing pin return spring had broken about 4 coils from the end and that piece of spring turned sideways in the firing pin channel inside the bolt body. The strike of the hammer pushed the firing pin firmly into the spring piece locking the firing pin inside the bolt. I was only target shooting, not bear hunting. The 742 never went to the woods with me again.

My M1A cracked the operating rod twice. It cracked, I had it welded, it cracked again. I bought a new op rod and stopped using IMR 4350 powder (this was just over 30 years ago.) The gun was still working and I found the cracks during field stripping/cleaning after the range sessions.

The rear sight on my M29 S&W broke the first weekend I had it (the little flanged nut in the frame stripped out allowing the rear sight to pop up and flop around. The gun still fired just fine.

[carstensxd45]

have had 2 "failures" with my xd pistols. BOTH WERE NOT THE FAULT OF THE GUN!!! In fact, when I accidently double charged a reload (just started reloading), the force blew out the mag, blew the slide half way off the frame and cracked the frame about 1/8 inch. I picked the gun up off the ground, put it back together and kept shooting. The crack eventually grew to about 1/3 of an inch, SA fixed it for me, no problem!!
The 2nd "failure" was when the trigger "pin" shapped off the trigger bar. Fault of the trigger job setup I was using. The vendor took care of me in that instance. Both times the gun was not the fault, xd family is ultra reliable, don't regret owning them for a second!!!!

[Sunday]

Well I bought a 10/22 in the 70s and can't imagine the round count but last December it quit ejecting so I thought it needed cleaning as i clean it when it starts to have function problems [I oil it on a regular basis though] I found out the ejector was worn out so I Bought a Volquartson Ejector kit and now it is better than new. Guns like any other machine can and may break,wear out or worse.

[gart]

My first gun was an XD. My second and current gun is an XDM. I have never experienced a failure of any kind,in about 7 years of shooting.

[DixieXD]

Due to poorly worded question:
XD = never
other (AR's to shottys) = yes

[Projektzero]

Had a pretty significant failure with my XDM after about a year of shooting. Turned out it was a cleaning issue as I neglected to clean/clear the firing pin channel. After a year of shooting and cleaning, carbon, debris, oil, etc., gunked up that channel pretty bad and caused frequent feeding issues. After that, gun shoots like a champ!

[wolverine_17]

Originally Posted by Cuda66

No, it is not.

It's a piece of rubber that can break apart and cause your pistol to fail. Also, whether or not they actually protect your pistol is dubious at best.

Unless you're shooting tens of thousands of rounds every year, you'll never stress your gun enough for it to be an issue.

I hear that the force of the slide hitting the locking block can crack the frame. Is the buffer just a gimic when you should really replace the recoil spring?