Most Abusable handgun

K-2 said:
I have eight guns as of today and each one of them is a different make. I have three handguns, which includes a Colt 1911, a Glock 17 and a HK Mark 23. My future purchase list includes a Sig 229, Beretta M9, Ruger Mark 3, and Smith & Wesson 686. So you can see that I have no particular brand loyalty.

The MK23 is big, but that is not one of the criteria for this discussion. The question is which gun can take the most abuse and still keep shooting.

The MK23 was developed for the most elite units of the US military, so it meets the strictest standards of durability.



The internal components of the gun are oversized to make them far stronger than a normal gun. Here's a comparison with a HK USP Tactical:

hkmark23tactical67qs.jpg


hkmark23tactical76zz.jpg


One of the main features of the barrel is the polygonal rifling. This allows greater accuracy while making the barrel much easier to clean. So the gun keeps shooting with minimal or no cleaning.

I can go on and on, but the bottom line is that this is the toughest pistol that HK has ever produced and it could probably beat any individual model of Glock, Sig or 1911 in a head to head comparison.
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Glocks run polygonal rifling as well. The claim regarding accuracy is BS, accuracy is a function of the shooter not the gun. The Mk23 was selected by SOCOM, its not necessarily carried by those in the community(as in no one carries it). The torture tests were good and it proved the pistol was durable. The test did not determine in an absolute that the Mk23 is indeed the most rugged pistol. Have a look at the link earlier in this thread about the Glock 21 that was put through some rather ridiculous tests.

TDC
 
sendero said:
i support too, nothing can beat thoses old but excellent GP100
if i had only one gun to bet my life on for the rest of my life, it will be a GP100, GLOCK 2nd.
Some french law enforcement have (some still) used the manurhin revolver long time after most of agency have switched to semi-auto
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Revolvers are great, for the first three or four cylinders. Wheel guns are dinosaurs and will not outrun a quality auto.

TDC
 
GLOCK pistols may not be the prettiest but they are the best IMO. Even trying to "limp wrist" I have yet to make my 17 fail in any way. My 20 is much more finicky, but it's always with my handloads and the only things OEM on the gun are the slide, sights and frame.
 
Ruger single and double action revolvers are the tanks of the handgun world they will take anything that you can throw at them.

Glocks are the toughest semi-auto's... :)
 
History tells us one of the primary reasons for the US ARmy to switch to the semi auto platform was the lack of reliability of revolvers of the day. While improvements have been made with powders particularly I don't think I would argue to hard that revolvers were more reliable than semi autos. If going bang is the only test then a revolver may do well but eventually powder residue wil lock up a revolver's cylinder and or play havoc with the timing of the cylinder.

My old Model 27 was/is a great gun but gas cutting is already in evidence on the top strap just above the cylinder gap. I doubt the gun has 2,000 rounds through it.

Take Care

Bob
 
Something I haven't seen mentioned is the Springfield XD. I have one in 9mm that hasn't had anything more than a wipe and a drop or two of oil in the last 2000 or so rounds... It functioned flawlessly through a BB course, through two different 500 or so round weekend sessions of shooting fairly rapid fire, etc. with a variety of factory ammo with no FTFs at all...

Its got a beavertail that is easy to engage, and the same type of safety trigger you see on a glock... the pull is SA as opposed to DA and it has a loaded chamber indicator and the cocked striker extends outside of the slide so you can see when its good to go...

The only problem is there aren't that many aftermarket parts up here...
 
TDC said:
Revolvers are great, for the first three or four cylinders. Wheel guns are dinosaurs and will not outrun a quality auto.

TDC
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TDC this may come as a complete surprise to you but not all handguns are purchased so the owner can play tacticool and fight off the zombies. There is a guide up here who carries a .500 S&W while guiding clients for Grizzly Bears. I have seen him shoot the gun and he is very good with it. Your Glock 17 might need to take on weight before it is of any value to him in his trade. So based on his needs I guess everyone should sell of their Glock 17's.

Take care

Bob
 
redleg said:
I consider the life of a range gun here on our range to be symptomatic of a handgun's short hard life. Guns don't get cleaned as often as they should, they get dropped (more often than they should), and of course they fire alot of rounds and keep doing so until they are worn out.
It has been my experience that good quality 1911's, SIG's,HK's, and Glocks in that order perform the best over their lifecycle. Glocks are cheaper to fix, but they do not last near as long as the others on the list. The longest lasting guns I have on the range are Kimber 1911's and SIG P226's.
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This is the only post in this thread that means anything to me.

Wow - there are A LOT of Kool Aid drinkers here....
 
You didn't say what range you owned. If you don't, what happens to range guns may or may not have any bearing on your choice of guns. They get abused in ways you wouldn't dream of doing to a gu nyou bought for $1100. Folks don't care often when they rent.

Take Care

Bob
 
Canuck44 said:
TDC this may come as a complete surprise to you but not all handguns are purchased so the owner can play tacticool and fight off the zombies. There is a guide up here who carries a .500 S&W while guiding clients for Grizzly Bears. I have seen him shoot the gun and he is very good with it. Your Glock 17 might need to take on weight before it is of any value to him in his trade. So based on his needs I guess everyone should sell of their Glock 17's.

Take care

Bob
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The question asked in this thread was what is the most abusable, not the most appropriate for any one task.

TDC
 
Canuck44 said:
History tells us one of the primary reasons for the US ARmy to switch to the semi auto platform was the lack of reliability of revolvers of the day. While improvements have been made with powders particularly I don't think I would argue to hard that revolvers were more reliable than semi autos. If going bang is the only test then a revolver may do well but eventually powder residue wil lock up a revolver's cylinder and or play havoc with the timing of the cylinder.
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For once, I've found something I can agree on with Canuck44. The original single stack semi-autos of the early 20th century had only marginally higher capacity than revolvers, so that wasn't the main reason for the switch. When a semi-auto jams, most of the time the malfunction can be cleared simply by racking the slide. When a revolver jams, a trip to the gunsmith/armorer is usually in order. Also, the timing mechanism is the achilles' heel of the revolver design, being rather fragile and sensitive to abuse.

Almost all major militaries switched to semi-autos by WWII. With the exception of the hands of private gun owners, the only place where the revolver endured were North American police departments. This was largely due to the fact that for much of the 20th century, quality semi-autos were too expensive to fit limited police budgets.
 
Canuck44 said:
You didn't say what range you owned. If you don't, what happens to range guns may or may not have any bearing on your choice of guns. They get abused in ways you wouldn't dream of doing to a gu nyou bought for $1100. Folks don't care often when they rent.

Take Care

Bob
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I believe the name of the thread is the "Most Abusable Handgun", is it not?;)

Look - range guns IMO are a pretty good measure of overall firearm quality and durability. They get used and abused. If one brand or design consistently outlasts another brand or design then I think that's the best evidence for durability of any post in this thread.

Redleg is offering his opinion based on his findings of guns used extensively on his range. How can anyone claim to have better usable data? Other than their "my gun is best because I read it on the internet" opinions.

I'll take hard data over opinion any day. TDC's dedication to Kool Aid is admirable and Glocks are good handguns, just no the best....:D
 
Clobbersauras said:
I believe the name of the thread is the "Most Abusable Handgun", is it not?;)


Redleg is offering his opinion based on his findings of guns used extensively on his range. How can anyone claim to have better usable data? Other than their "my gun is best because I read it on the internet" opinions.

I'll take hard data over opinion any day. TDC's dedication to Kool Aid is admirable and Glocks are good handguns, just no the best....:D
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Thankfully we have someone like Redleg, who gives his informed opinion on this matter.
My next questions to him would be:
What is the weak link, or is there only a single problem, that commonly crops up with Glocks?
Is it a failure to fire? Does the slide crack anywhere after extended use?

Cheers................
 
Redleg's observation on a steel 1911 being most durable is interesting.

Patrick Sweeney, gunsmith and gun writer has written about how durable a 1911 really can be, he's also tested a Wilson CQB over 30K rounds with very minimal wear.
 
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