Least/Most High-Maintenance Pistol You’ve Owned

[Sniper 79]

My Ruger color case blues Vaquero sucked. You could sneeze and that sucker would flash over with rust. Every time you shoot you have to tighten the screws back up.

All I own now for pistols is Glock. You shoot them until you're out of ammo or too tired, holster up and go home. Maintenance free. All they require is more ammo and mags.

 

[WebSnyper]

Repair issues? Llama 1911 clone almost 30 years ago now that I purchased it & then got rid of it. Plastic safety plunger spring housing that cracked and fell off and had to be replaced with a metal one, jam-o-matic, and that thing had more sharp edges when disassembling than any firearm known to man. I sliced myself a few times with that gun. Could have done more damage throwing the pieces at someone than trying to shoot. Sold it to a pawn shop as there was no way I would have sold that to someone directly.

Least maintenance, carefree, etc, = probably any of my Glocks. I've switched over to M&Ps & a 365 for carry now for other reasons, but my carry Glocks have been sweated on, carried in heat, cold, etc mowing grass, fishing, etc and never an issue. Some finish has been worn, but not much else of an issue. Will see how the M&P's & the 365 do with potentiall similar treatment.

 

[gglass]

Least would be a tie between my 2 Glocks from years ago and my many M&P's. They have all been phenomenal in the dependability department.

The most would either be a Kimber 1911 that I had years ago or a particular Bersa Thunder 380. Both were POS bricks that I was glad to be rid of. most

 

[churchmouse]

It's certainly not a Nighthawk or even a Kimber CM but for the money it's not bad. I replaced the ignition parts with cylinder and slide parts and it hasn't given me any trouble since. Only reason I bought it is that I like the 22TCM caliber and I always wanted to play with a 9mm 1911 so it serves both purposes.


[FONT=&]NRA Life Member / [/FONT]Basic Pistol instructor[FONT=&] / RSO[/FONT][FONT="]

[/FONT][COLOR=darkorange][FONT=&]"Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. That's why we train so hard" [/FONT][/COLOR][FONT="]
[/FONT][FONT=&]Unnamed Navy Seal[/FONT][FONT="]

[/FONT][COLOR=firebrick][FONT="]“Ego is the reason many men do not shoot competition. They don't want to suck in public” [/FONT][/COLOR][FONT="]
[/FONT][/COLOR][FONT="]
[/FONT][FONT=&]Aron Bright[/FONT]

OK I had on of those. Loved the muzzle flare in the TCM set up.
On that one the thumb safety would fall loose and the gun would malfunction. Grew weary of the CS people so like you I fixed it myself.

 

[Ark]

I will never purchase ANYTHING more from ATI (American Tactical Imports).
Worst customer service in the business.

Funny you mention that. I sent it in for a repeated failure to go into battery, and all they did was bubba up the feed ramp with a dremel and send it back with the same problem. A local guy finally found and fixed a disconnector hangup issue and fixed it for pennies.

The gun shoots well and runs okay now for a cheap 1911, but it's certainly nothing I would ever want to bet my life on. It is unlikely that I will purchase any ATI products in the future.

 

[Mgderf]

Funny you mention that. I sent it in for a repeated failure to go into battery, and all they did was bubba up the feed ramp with a dremel and send it back with the same problem. A local guy finally found and fixed a disconnector hangup issue and fixed it for pennies.

The gun shoots well and runs okay now for a cheap 1911, but it's certainly nothing I would ever want to bet my life on. It is unlikely that I will purchase any ATI products in the future.

I've related this story here before, but it bears repeating.
I purchased a brand new, in the box, complete AR15 upper receiver chambered for .410bore shot shells.
I thought it would be cool...

Pinned it to several different uppers, used different ammo, complained to the company, I even filed a report with the B.B.B. because the company would not even return my calls.
I finally called Turkey, where the P.O.S. was manufactured.
I explained my problem and was told they would replace the bolt and asked for an address.

I received a replacement bolt, notice I did not say "new", some weeks later that looked like a six year old used a grinder on. It was in worse shape than the original.
That didn't work.
I sent the upper back, they lost it, then found it after I threatened to sue...
They sent it back, with both bolts, and STILL not operating properly.

I said something in disgust to a local gunsmith.
He offered to look at it for free. He said it was because he wanted to see how they made a .410 AR15, but I think he also wanted to do me a favor.

He played with it for all of 10 minutes and pronounced, "it's a problem with the extractor. There's not enough room under the extractor for the rim of the shell!
Less than 10 minutes worth of Dremmel work and it now runs like a raped ape.
Still, I have a hard time actually relying on it to fire.
I keep expecting it to jamb up again...

 

[chenowethpm]

I’d say my least high maintenance pistol would be a tie between the CZ75 spo1 and the SA ultra compact 1911, they both seem to run without problems no matter how clean or dirty they are.

the most is a sig mosquito.22, that thing will act up if it’s been cleaned with a toothbrush till it’s insides sparkle. And if it gets dirty forget it, failure to fire, eject, stovepipe, double feed, I just about don’t ever shoot it anymore. I haven’t yet taken it apart and machine polished the internals which I read is supposed to fix these problems.

 

[Tryin']

Least would be a beater Taurus 85UL. Thing has never received any care from me outside of the yearly drop of oil and occasionally blowing the lint out with 50 rounds or so at a time. Got pocket carried a LOT.

Most was definitely my Kimberly CDP Pro. POS wouldn’t run ANYTHING unless it was in clean room condition on a sunny 70* day. Had some chamber work done by the factory to just get it to go through three mags of ball ammo. Never did get any defensive ammo to work and I think the most shots between failures I ever got was around 50. I have a Keltec PF9 that positively runs like a Swiss watch in comparison.

 

[Lt Scott 14]

My least issues are with my Glock 19,3G. and my Sig 226 9mm. @ S&W Revolvers do well too.(M10-5, M442). Had a couple 1911s. Colt Series 80 Officers Mod, Gov.Model 5in. both picky feed and extract. Various tune ups, traded off for Ber92F, and 5906 3gen 9mm. Both shot well. Bought a Rock Island Gov Mdl-5in, no issue with 230gr ball, HPs are hit miss. Use 7rd mags, no feed issues. 8 rds jam up. Wilson mags work well, and some cheapo surplus ones in brown wrapper. If I download 1 round from 8 to 7, seems to raise performance. Target gun, or nightstand is ok.

Seems best all over guns are 9mm. Also easy to clean and parts easy find if needed. Good luck.

 

[crewchief888]

i can run 4000-5000 rds through my springfield 1911 USPSA open gun before it starts acting up.
probably the worst of my guns is a mossberg 715T 22lr i use for steel challenge. sometimes it'll run less than 500 rds before it needs a cleaning.

 

[Tomc1947]

Least: Bulgarian Makarov
Most: Agree with everything said about ATI, had a 22mag, one range trip and sold it.

 

[Amishman44]

Which pistol that you owned was the least amount of maintenance/hassle in terms of cleaning, repair, issues, etc.?
Which pistol in your experience was the biggest hassle in terms of strip/clean, issues, repair, etc.? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I once owned a stainless Ruger Mark IV Hunter...it was a great shooter...
but it was a MAAAJJJOOORRRR pain-in-the-arse to keep clean!
Sold it and kept the 6.5" Ruger Single-Six!
Still happy with my choice...

 

[88E30M50]

Brand wise, it’s between Glock and CZ that have given me the most grief. With Glock, it tends to be the ammo picky nature of the G30. If I don’t run hot ammo, I get BTF. My first G19 took until 150 rounds before it would cycle reliably. There have been other issues with the latest being a G23 that was great through 3000 rounds but can now not get through a mag. In that case, it’s probably just a tired RSA, but frustrating none the less. The CZ issues have all been with compact .40s. 9mm CZs have been perfect aside from one attempt to use FrogLube on a 75B Compact.

The best of the the guns have been 1911s. I don’t know what some guys to to make theirs not run, but mine all seem to run well. My Kimber is starting to BTF on occasion though, so I won’t say that they’ve been perfect, but more so than either my .40 CZ Compacts or .45 and 9mm Glocks.

I did have a couple of Bersa .380 Thunders that had to go back to the mothership due to spring breakages with the staked in disconnector spring. There was a Walther PPK that took some serious effort to get to run well and didn’t finally settle out until north of 500 rounds with a lot of polishing and breaking of sharp edges inside.

The Bersa’s and Walther have moved on to other homes once the issues were corrected. The G19s both moved on too, replaced by CZ P10Cs. The G30sf’s are keepers though, as if I run a hotter reload, they do just fine and nobody else makes a 10 round .45 that size while also being a joy to shoot.

In the grand scheme of things, I’ve been very lucky to have had very few issues across more than 50 different carry guns being shot a lot. I shoot about 12k a year and 80% of that is through my carry guns so I tend to know what works for me and what does not. Like I said, I’ve been very lucky to date with one exception that’s still being sorted.

 

[cobber]

High: RIA 1911 9mm tied with Sig 938
Low: S&W M&P 9, Walther PPS M2 9

 

[dk598]

Least: Glock19
Most: Ruger Mark III. When you see a Ruger Mark III on gunbroker for sale in pieces because the owner can't put it back together, that says something!

 

[ashby koss]

Most Maintenance = Walther PPK (S&W Version no less)

Least Maintenance = Any Poly Pistol (Glock, P320, M&P)

 

[Mongo59]

Least: Glock19
Most: Ruger Mark III. When you see a Ruger Mark III on gunbroker for sale in pieces because the owner can't put it back together, that says something!

Rule #1. When properly reassembling the Ruger, gravity is your friend...

 

[Dean C.]

Sig P938 by a very very wide margin, something was very wrong with the mainspring assembly and magazine catch. I would shoot one round out of it and the pistol would just dump the magazine by itself. Sent it back to sig (they replaced literally everything internal but the barrel) and then I immediately sold that POS. Truthfully it's the only unreliable pistol I have ever owned.

 

[bkflyer]

Most maint would be my Glock 21. NEVER did get it to work. Between the light primer strikes and the failure to feed it was in the shop more than with me.
Least maint would be the glock 19 I carried in Iraq. Cleaned it with a t shirt every once in awhile and shot 1,000s of rounds (not in anger) through that thing without a hiccup.

 

[dudley0]

my carry Glocks have been sweated on, carried in heat, cold, etc mowing grass, fishing, etc and never an issue. Some finish has been worn, but not much else of an issue. Will see how the M&P's & the 365 do with potentiall similar treatment.

My EDC has NiB coating which I have sweated off on one part. Between my body salts and the rough environments I put it in I shouldn't be too surprised by it. I bought the gun with the finish because it was supposed to last forever tho.