With a background in LE I get to see how pistols and revolvers have been used and abused. So with that said I ask what have been your personal experiences with weapons that required repair and what broke or failed. For revolvers very few things and this is based on Smith and Wesson and Ruger wheel guns. Hammer nose bushings one time and a Smith 19 with a cracked forcing cone. Semi automatic pistols that are duty issue. Glocks mostly the pins in the locking blocks of .40 cal pistols and one trigger spring. For Sig 226 in 9mm and Sig 220 in .45 the only problems I have observed was the older roll pins breaking. Now I must point out that this doesn't include any damage done by a kitchen gunsmith who did not know what they were doing. The number of Rounds fired was not considered for this discussion. tks VI

Ruger SP101 22lr cylinder drag, went back home for the fix.

Walther P99 chunk of plastic decided to depart the pattern unexpectedly.

Sig 320. After upgrade would stick out of battery when hand cycled. They said normal even though my other 4 never did this and it felt like chunks of something were in the slide. Yuk. They replaced slide after I bitched at them.

CZ Kadet roll pin always walks out. Ended up with spare and loctited the hell out of it. Works.

Beretta 21a. Love the gun but it’s a jamoholic. Don’t know what’s wrong exactly.


That’s what I remember.

off the top of my head over the last few years the things I remember breaking are several extractors, a hammer reset spring, a trigger bar spring, an inner roll pin, a grip panel and a firing pin. If I think about it some more I may edit this.

I was given a NAA mini revolver because "it didn't work".

The cylinder hand had cracked in two and I had to make a new one. A very tiny new one.

Works great now.

Taurus 85 blew up after a steady routine of +P ammo when the gun was not +P rated. Gun was replaced by Taurus without hassle.
Sig P320 .45 Compact shot the recoil spring out the front of the slide. Sig repaired without hassle.

My folks J-frame had a burr develop on the firing pin bushing after a dozen rounds and would no longer fire. Old gaskets/bushings in my SPAS12 and LAW12 deteriorated. My folks also got one of those Taurus revolver carbines against my suggestions, timing was hilariously off, even after returned for repair.

Hmm..I've seen at least two Taurus 85 light weight guns come apart in less than one hundred rounds with standard pressure ammo.

Smith 6900 third gens - I've seen numerous extractors crack or break. I've also seen numerous 6900 aluminum frames crack but surprisingly they still worked.

And then some 870's and Glocks rusted shut. They were exposed to the elements while in a leaky trunk.

S&W 642 snobby air weight, hammer stud broken off flush at it's base.

Beretta Tomcat .32acp. Broken firing pin after being dry fired. Gun was well out of warranty but Beretta USA sent me a new (free) part + spring. Was also told don't dry fire the Tomcat.

Let see Beretta Tomcat 32 frame cracked. Beretta 92 F trigger spring broke. Colt Woodsman extractor broke off. Early Colt delta elite 10mm frame cracked. Ruger 10/22 extractor and spring worn out. Colt AR 1980s extractor spring worn out.

Trigger bar springs on two SIG P-series, a slide lock spring on a Glock, and an entire frame rail off a Ruger LCP. The first two were easy fixes but the guns were still disabled until I could fix them. Ruger replaced the LCP.

Revolvers:

I had a 3" 65 that broke it's hammer nose twice. Both times it had to be repaired by a gunsmith because S&W no longer kept that part in stock and I couldn't find a replacement anywhere else.

I had a 2" 64 where the stud the cylinder release latch mounts onto broke off. I replaced the bolt.

My 642-1's hammer stud broke. S&W replaced the gun under warranty.

Semi-autos:

I have to admit, I haven't had too many issues with semi-autos.

I had a 1911 with a Millet dual-crimp front sight (remember those?) that kept coming loose. Same 1911 had grip screw bushings that kept coming loose as well as some erratic ejection. It was a custom 1911 and the smith who did the work also did the repairs.

Had another 1911 that didn't like Hydrashocks. Didn't bother doing anything with that one as it was a range gun and JHP reliability wasn't a big concern.

I had a Gen3 Glock 23 that initially had some failures to feed that went away after a while, but I suspect that was mostly due to limpwristing as that was my first polymer gun.

My Beretta 92FS has gone over 4k rounds without an issue, including shooting some bargain-basement commercial reloads.

While my Beretta PX4 Compact is still fairly new, it hasn't given me any issues, either. *knocks on wood*

The biggest issue I've had is broken springs in older Sig p-series pistols. Usually the trigger bar spring in my experience.

Other than that it's mostly lead buildup from shooting cast bullets. I had a P320 that had the firing pinchannelgum up and cause light strikes. My SP101 cylinder gummed up and didn't want to rotate freely for the same reason.

The only breakage I've experienced was the firing pin in my '94 P229. I found out inadvertently trying to simulate what happened to Jesse Paderez; it never failed to fire.

I've had stoppages occur from various causes in various platforms, but only the one breakage.

Several trigger return springs on HK P30, slide lock spring on a Glock 19, and a CZ slide stop, living to its reputation. Same CZ cracked the frame internally, also living to the reputation of early Shadow 2s.

Kahr/Thompson 1927-A-1, extractor groove in the bolt fractured, extractor popped out and jammed into the receiver. I'm not the only one that has had this happen, well documented on a couple forums. Appeared to be metal embrittlement.

Kahr while within their warranty terms denied any responsibility as gun was over one year old and second owner. Gun as acquired was never fired from 09-12, from 12-15 two boxes of factory ammo was run through it. All these facts I told them in the initial telephone call so it was not like I was trying to hide something.

After my second communication they offered to inspect it if I shipped it both ways my expense. I declined and pursued my own solution. Regardless for a gun that sold new for $1300 in 2009 money I was disappointed. If they had offered a 50/50 split I would have jumped at it. But they were very non committal.

Lost me for any chance of a future purchase together with the owner of the shop I work at. He was considering carrying Kahr for awhile.

I sheared a slide stop on a 1970's vintage Series 70 Colt Government Model. On an early Series 80 (1985) Colt Government I lost the front sight in the grass after only a few hundred rounds. On a KA coded P220 45 auto, the locking block fractured in the area of the feed ramp. And of course, I replaced a hammer rebound spring on a post 1993 P220.

New in the box S&W 686. Left factory without the forcing cone being cut into the barrel. I borrowed the cutter and hone from our department armorer and did the cutting myself. I discovered the issue when I was bleeding from multiple very tiny pin holes in my biceps from copper jackets and the cylinder seized from copper build up .

When I was in service, many M9’s failed due to cracked locking blocks...

Granted, we shot them much more than the 5k service life...once Beretta reengineered the block, the problem went away.

Slide lock on G19 (my fault).
Extractors on the G19 and a Beretta 96.
aftermarket barrel was recalled on my MPX that fell through the cracks and my barrel broke, causing failures.