Additional guns of the same type, I just shoot it or let someone else shoot it. New models get more testing, less out of actual need and more out of my own interest. There are some particular cartridges I will use to establish reliability (combinations of bullet profile, OAL, velocity, etc).
الدهون القاع الفتيات لك جعل العالم هزاز جولة الذهاب
I always clean, shoot and clean a new firearm. I test it before carrying it. The most trusted brand can have a defect or misaligned sights.
Those wiser than I in such things claim that tight 1911’s or other metal frame guns benefit from additional mating of the frame/slide, bushing/barrel and other parts. I won’t argue.
Glocks, no. They don’t need “break in”, but one should always test to whatever round count you deem acceptable before you carry it. Especially if you insist on mucking about with aftermarket “upgrades”.
My last purchase, a G26 Gen5...
...disclosed during the short vetting process that one of the OEM 12 round magazines I had purchased caused stoppages with both carry and training ammo...
...while the other OEM 10 round and OEM 12 round magazines, as well as the 15 round magazine I carry as a spare, worked without incident.
So, it's not only the firearm itself that may exhibit a hiccup during the vetting process, however minimal.
I'd not have wanted to find out that the OEM 12 rounder was deficient on the two way range.
There's nothing civil about this war.
It still does:
Ordinarily I’d give the stink eye to such a statement in a manufacturer’s literature, but enough people have reported problems with their Kahr in the first 200 rds, that then just “went away” afterward, that I consider it a legit quirk for the brand and not just a cop out.BREAK-IN PERIOD - The KAHR Pistol must run through an initial break-in period before achieving fully reliable feeding and functioning. The pistol should not be considered fully reliable until after it has fired 200 rounds.
I dutifully gave my first Kahr the "break in" with no faults except that it kicked off the front sight on the second day. It is the bottom of the line E9 with plastic sights. Kahr replaced it and it has stayed stuck ever since.
My PM9 Just Worked. Magazines for the E9 are tight in the well of the PM9 and I keep them separate and marked.
Some minor manufacturer of a design standardized over a hundred years ago telling me his product needs to be shot a lot to "break it in" will send me elsewhere.
Code Name: JET STREAM
An improperly-heat-treated part may not reveal itself during relatively slow fire. One personal example was the extractor, in a Kimber Stainless Gold Match, which worked OK while plinking, on private land, and while shooting slowly, at targets, to test accuracy. When I started doing rapid firing, mostly controlled pairs, at close-range B-27 targets, to really begin “running it in,” I finally got it hot enough, and the extractor bent, like a banana, in the WRONG direction. Well, anyway, I simply replaced the extractor, rather than sending the pistol back to Kimber, but I did not keep it long, as it insisted upon being fed ONLY by McCormick Power Mags, whereas my two other Kimbers insisted upon being fed only by Metalform 7-round mags, with the metal followers, of the type made in 1997. (Not sure whether the followers have changed, since them.) When I thinned my 1911 herd, all of the Kimbers went away.
Another of those Kimbers would malfunction about once in every 400 rounds. That was not cured by firing several thousand rounds. Nothing seemed to be wrong with it. This was my training-only pistol. (Some told me “user error,” but, if so, why with my one trustworthy Kimber work OK, and my Government Models and full-sized Les Baer work OK?)
It is good to try various bullet weights and configurations. My third Gen3 G22 ran fine, with the 165-grain ammo that I normally used, but when I needed to stock-up for an ECQC class, the only FMJ that was available locally, in that quantity, was 180-grain. Well, I soon learned that this particular G22 did NOT like 180-grain FMJ .40, as the slide would lock-back, with live rounds in the chamber. The portion of the slide stop, that engaged the mag follower, was engaging the noses of the bullets. (Interestingly, I reflexively* dropped the G22 into the dirt, and transitioned to a pocketed SP101, without stopping to think about anything, when it first occurred. SouthNarc, and Paul Gomez conferred with each other, and I wondered if they were thinking about DQ-ing me, from the class, but then, all was well. I switched to my duty rig, and used my P229R DAK for the rest of the live-fire portion of the class.) I did not actually do a full-blown diagnostic, as a colleague wanted to buy that G22, as was comfortable with doing that diagnostic, himself. I had switched to the SIG P229 for duty, about seven months previously, so had already sold-off several other .40 Glocks; this was my last Glock, at the time, my “utility/trainer,” never actually carried on the street.
So, yes, I like to run plenty of rounds, through an autoloading pistol, before trusting it. I do not call it “break-in,” because a properly-fitted pistol should not require serious amount of parts wear, in order to function. When I used 1911 pistols, I did not concern myself, much, with failures to feed, in the first 200 rounds, and considered the 201st round to be the beginning of the statistical sample. The generally acceptable statistical sample, for my comfort level, was 500 trouble-free rounds, for a while, but I reached another level of comfort at 1000 rounds.
I have lowered this round count expectation, with pistols having more-direct cartridge-feeding pathways, no longer needing 1000+ rounds to reach a comfort level.
I do understand that no autoloader can ever be 100% reliable, but 99.0% is not quite comforting.
Of course, there is that whole conditioning of reflexes part. It takes several thousand repetitions to wire new things into the user’s reflexes, especially if something has to be altered from previous practice. That is why I do not adopt a new weapon that points differently from the weapons I already have. It is not just a matter of “grip angle,” as a 1911 and a Gen3/4/5 Glock point just fine, in my hands, though a Gen1/2 Glock will not.
*I had never live-fire-trained to drop a malf’ed-up weapon, but had certainly done “visualization” drills of doing so.
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
I assume that malfunctions of brand-new pistols are mainly due to user error - namely a new shooter limp-wristing the pistol. When dude takes the pistol a second time to the range, they grip it stronger - et voilà - it works.
When I shot my HKs, they never had a pistol-caused malfunction (only a few ammo-caused malfunctions). But when I took my cousins to the range, one of them a first-time shooter, my HK "Excalibur" P30 had its first malfunction when he shot it. On the other hand, I had put a new recoil spring in it and loaded it with 115gr ammo in order to soften the recoil for the first-time shooter. Then I told him to not grip the pistol so gay but hold it like a hammer. Et voilà - no more malfunctions.
I observed that the mag springs of my P30 became a bit shorter over time compared to brand new springs. So too strong brand-new springs can increase the malfunction risk maybe a little bit but mainly it's user error (applies at least for high-quality service pistols like HK and Glock).
PS:
The factors in short (ordered by amount of contribution as I see it):
limp-wristing new shooter
> lightweight polymer frame (perhaps with only few rounds in the mag)
> 115gr ammo (instead of 124gr with greater recoil)
> brand-new springs
If the pistol has a steel frame, then a very tight fit and too little lube are also factors (cf. the next post).
Last edited by P30; 02-06-2022 at 01:29 PM.