Pistol reliability

I never found Glock to be more reliable then anything else. After the break in period I never had an issue firing Berettas or M&Ps. At this point thats into the 20,000 round count.

Pound for pound I have a S&W Model 29 that has not had a problem in two decades of shooting 44 mag and 44 special, and on the other end of the spectrum we put over 100,000 rounds through a Ruger mII target before it finally gave up the ghost.
 
Most modern pistols?

HK, SIG Sauer, Smith & Wesson....

I don't get why Glock appears to be the standard of which all guns are measured to anymore. It's not the 90s... Wait, maybe that's why.

Look, Heckler and Koch created the first ever polymer-framed and striker-fired pistol HK P70. Yet people say Glock did. The SIG Sauer P-Series (classic) have been as reliable every step of the way and so have HK USP pistols. Yet people only look at Glock. Reason? Heavy marketing for law enforcement and citizens in the 90s. While Heckler and Koch / SIG Sauer marketed to the military to win military contracts. Simply put, Glock makes only one pistol and they make it well enough. HK and SIG make rifles, sub-machine guns, pistols, etc. So people thought Glock was the only way to go in terms of pistols.

Well, fast forward to 2017! There is a myriad of other firearms that are NOT "copies" of Glock. If that card is to be pulled then they're all copies of the HK P70. Except they're not. Patents do exist. The only company that was pinched for actually copying Glock was Smith & Wesson with their Sigma line. Which they were sued for.

So, striker designs aren't solely a "Glock" thing and it never was. Yes, Glock marketed well and no one had an interest in the 90s in manufacturing polymer striker-fired pistols. There are a ton of other pistols both hammer fired and striker-fired that are equal to or better than Glock in some ways and most ways. Glock is great. It's not the best. There are many viable options out there for similar prices like the HK VP9 which is coming down in price and the SIG P320 which is immaculate as well as almost identical in price with an arguably better trigger out of the box. Don't limit yourself! Times have changed.
 
I've never seen any evidence of one pistol or pistol design being dramatically more reliable than another.
Modern, well-maintained, centerfire handguns are all reliable; rimfires, considerably less so.
It may be the case that some guns withstand abuse better than others, but I have never shot in an abusive environment.
I would agree with those who think full-sized service pistols are going to be the best bet for expectation of reliability.
 
I have had comparable, and very high, reliability, from all my center fire pistols from major brands. One is a Glock, but others are from Beretta and Sig. The only center fire pistol I own that is unreliable is a Libia in .25 ACP that I inherited, and which stays around because of sentimental value.

I am like Constantine and some others in thinking of Glock as highly reliable, but not necessarily more reliable than other brands. The big names are so because they are all putting out pretty reliable product.
 
So for the sake of conversation, let's say Glocks are the most reliable pistol and will go bang every time. I would like to hear from others on which pistols they find very reliable, other than Glock.
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Most all of the modern polymer-framed duty-sized pistols are just as reliable as Glocks in my experience (S&W, Sig-Sauer, CZ, HK, Walther).

In fact, among those, the Glocks have tended to be one of the LEAST reliable in my experience (with failures of slide catches and poor/inconsistent ejection), with the Walthers (specifically the P99/PPQ series) being the most reliable. They will also cycle just about anything reliably.
 
Most all of the modern polymer-framed duty-sized pistols are just as reliable as Glocks in my experience (S&W, Sig-Sauer, CZ, HK, Walther).
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I have experience with a good number of pistols, from Glocks, CZs and clones, 1911s, Kahrs, Sigs... and I will say I have never had a problem with any of my pistols being unreliable. My highest round count is an Israeli Jericho pistol with well over 10k rounds. Everything else I own has over 1k rounds through them, easily. I'm literally searching for a time when I've had a problem, and this is what I can think of:

1 failure in the first 50 rounds of a Kahr CW9. I have not observed another and I attribute this to break in.

1 cracked feed lip on a 1911 magazine that would occasionally cause feed failures. Pistol works fine with every other magazine.

1 instance I did a detail strip of the Jericho and I failed to replace the firing pin stop spring. It would occasionally FTF, I found the problem and replaced the spring and never any other problems. Before or since. It has truly been an amazing pistol as I dropped it in swamp mud once and it still ran just fine after a rinse off. That was years ago and I was in my 20's... not the smartest guy either:o


I do not believe a Glock is any more reliable than most other modern pistols from well known manufacturers.
 
I bought a Glock 19 gen 4 late last year, and to date is has had 16 failures to go back into battery after firing a round. All of those were my reloads, which, as it turned out, were a tad too long, which created the problem. It has been flawless using factory ammo, and since I started seating my bullets 5/1000ths of an inch deeper, it has run all of my reloads as well. My Glock has run a little over 1,000 rounds to date.

Interestingly, my Shield ran all of those rounds that my Glock could not without a hitch. My Shield has run over 1,100 rounds without a single malfunction of any kind so far.

My LCP (2nd gen) had two FTFs in the first box of 50 rounds, and has been flawless since. About 2,300 rounds through it to date.

As far as semi-autos go, so far my Beretta PX4 Storm in .40 S&W has been the most reliable gun I've ever owned. It hasn't had a single malfunction of any kind in six years, having fired more than 7,000 rounds of all manner of ammo. I even tried to torture test it a few years back by firing a minimum of 200 rounds per session doing no maintenance at all until it had a failure. I gave up trying to induce a failure after 2,800 rounds. For one session near the end I ran 450 rounds through it in one session. No issues. By 'no maintenance,' I mean that I didn't clean it, I didn't run a boresnake down the barrel, I didn't lubricate any part of it, I didn't even wipe it down. It was the Energizer Bunny; it just kept going, and going, and going . . . I finally just got bored with the exercise and also my hands were getting pretty dirty every time I picked the thing up, so I quit.

Never had any malfunctions with any of my revolvers (all Rugers and S&Ws), though I keep them pretty clean and I don't have huge round counts with them. I believe the highest round count on one of my revolvers would be my stainless GP-100, which has a little under 6,000 rounds through it, about half and half between .38 spl and .357 mag. The rest of my revolvers are all under 4,000 rounds I think. Two of them were my father's and I have no idea how many rounds he put through them before he gave them to me.

I do think Glocks are very reliable; likely in the top 5 most reliable handguns available. That said, I also believe that there are several production guns available to us now that either can give Glock a run for its money, or are flat out more reliable overall.

For myself;

Without question, if I had to choose a handgun, from my safe, to perform today, no matter what kind of ammo, and shoot all day long, I'd pick my PX4 over anything else.
 
And I'd choose any gun in my safe ahead of any gun from yours.
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Naturally. I added that qualifier since I have heard of people having FTFs with their PX4s, though not very many. All I was trying to make absolutely clear was that with my particular Storm, it has been perfectly flawless. :)
 
I've purchased more than fifty (50) pistols over the past three years. Shooting more than 45,000 rounds annually. Obviously, some of the pistols don't have a high round count. However, I can't say any of them are unreliable. I can't say the same about .22lr ammo; some of it is of poor quality.
 
Plenty of rounds through my sig p938, and after a hard 'break in' it has been quite reliable. During my "break in", I experienced some FTE's and FTFeed. After some quality time with this gun, I began to realize that it probably was not break in, but rather my error, limp wristing, seeing as it was the very first pocket pistol I spent any amount of time with. It also seemed to help using grease instead of oil on this particular firearm.

After my first 200 rounds with it, it has not had any failures of any type.

I do tend to trust my glock 19 a lot more though. :D
 
Ruger LC9s is the only one that has been 100% no matter what I've fed it. Once I straightened out some problems relating to my improper installation of the Apex kit and issues with my hand loads my M&P has been perfect. My PO7 and PT111G2 have been perfect as well once I got my handloads perfected. Pretty much all my issues have been my issues, not the guns.
 
I know that my Glocks are reliable as well as practically all of the rest of what I have. I've had a few bad apples over the years, but that happens to anybody who is handgunning for any length of time. And when I mention the ones I've had problems with, there will be members here who will attest to the fact that they have never had a problem with my problem children guns. And that is perfectly OK!

So I can't and won't speak for the reliability of anybody else's Glocks or anybody else's handguns in general. If you own & maintain what you have in your possession you know what you have & you know what to expect. You concern yourself with what you have direct control over & ignore what others with what might be questionable firearms handling habits might say about a certain handgun that is contrary to your own experience with that handgun.:cool:
 
The pistols I've had the least (meaning no) function problems with have been the Smith & Wesson "Third Generation" family of pistols. I'd also include the Beretta Model 92 as being the most reliable in my experience.
 
I've found that the CZ P-07 and Smith and Wesson M&P9 are every bit as reliable as the Glock design. I've got probably 15-20K through these two.
 
This is a glock forum :confused: and they are the most reliable :confused:. Pick up a Walthers PPQ and shoot it if you can. It is arguably the best trigger right out of the box. I did and sold my glock the next day. It sounds like you fell for the glock mantra. Test out several pistols and the one that feels the best and shoots the best is the one you buy. Most all the top makers have reliable pistols. ;)
 
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