Should a semi-eat all ammo?

For SD it should, in reality very few do. In all my life and many semi auto pistols I've only had two that do. First is my Ruger LC9s, and second is my CZ75B SA. I have over 3000 rounds through the Ruger, but only about 500 through the CZ. I have several that have been very reliable except on handloads, but these two have had no issues with the handloads. And since 99.9% of what I shoot are handloads it's pretty important for me that a gun functions 100% with them.
 
Ideally any gun should work with any ammo in its caliber. In practice ammo/gun incompatibilities aren't really that uncommon.

I don't find them too troubling as long as I understand what's going on and as long as it's consistently reliable with some loadings.

Same thing applies to an SD gun. As long as the gun is reliably consistent with the SD ammo I carry, that's good enough.
 
If it's a modern carry gun aimed at the defense sector, I think so.

If it's an older design whether military or for target, and it runs ball, I'll give it a pass.
 
If it's a modern carry gun aimed at the defense sector, I think so.
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I would mostly agree for full size and compact pistols for that market. Subcompacts are a different story in my opinion. Some of them have fairly specific requirements to work flawlessly. They all will not function properly with some light target loads. They're really not designed to.
 
Unless one tries every ammo available, including foreign junk, it would be impossible to tell if a particular firearm will work with any ammo.

However in my experience my SIG P226s and P229s are garbage disposals when it comes to ammo, though I am only concerned that any of my pistols run well with quality made "mainstream" USA made brass cased practice and self defense ammo.

I don't live in a fantasy either that some day I will be marooned on a desert isle with my pistol empty and have to rely on whatever ammo I can find or take.
 
Yes. That is how it should be. By normal standards, if a round meets saami standards, it should be able to feed into a chamber cut to those same standards. The magazine, ramp, and other factors should allow almost anything to feed. No matter what the gun is, it should be able to feed rounded or conical hp rounds. If that handgun can only feed fan, or a specific weight, either the design or construction are defectiv.

Under "implied warranty" laws, a product must live up to the expectations of a "realistic standards."

If a handgun is sold, labeled "9 mm parabellum" it must be capable of firing ammunition designed to those saami standards.

This sort of warranty isn't about defective products, it's more about design. Any, every product must do the job that it is supposed to do. It's not always clear, in fact, implied warranties are probably very difficult to enforce.

But, the fact remains, the US has laws and codes concerning those. Ammunition that will not work in a large group saami approved pistols does not meet the standard of "fit for the purpose sold". A handgun designed for that specific cartridge that cannot reliably use most of the cartridges designed for it is not "fit for the purpose sold.

The reality is that some rounds won't work too well in certain guns, some guns will be picky, and most of the time the shooter just has to put on his big girl panties and adapt.

I once read a rant about the ruger o/u shotgun. The guy was literally exploding about the thing shooting a few inches off of point of aim. Not feet, inches.

There was nothing physically defective, it worked. The implied purpose of the shotgun was to put a load if shot through the barrel and choke that formed a specific pattern with common ammo. If that charge reasonably hits the point of aim, that meets the requirements.

I don't know how he could determine that one barrel was shooting five inches off point of aim. Did he use slugs? If so, well, what part of that fits the implied warranty of an o/u clay pigeon gun?
 
Great idea....however it doesn't matter for my purposes.

My SD pistols are all fed the same type bullet, grain, OAL, and charge. They never get the chance to find out if they'll eat any factory stuff.

For factory HPs I only shoot gold dots or federal hst.

So basically if a gun will eat two types of ammo that's it for me.
 
IMHO, there's a few different faces on the same coin, here.
Should a semi eat all ammo? Yes.
Some do, many don't. Are you willing to limit your SD
EDC selection to, as sigarms228 so eloquently put it,
"garbage disposals"?

I'm not...

But how about the guys who get a reliable pistol, which cycles all the
ammo types and brands superbly, but insist on ruining their own ride
by running +P+ ammo thru it?

A wise philosopher once said "Nothing will satisfy a man for whom
enough is too little."
 
I wouldn't run +p or +p+ as range fodder.
but in SD I don't see a problem with it, how often are you going be shooting your SD ammo at the range? and how many SD shootings are you gonna be in? So round count wise it's pretty small for most people.

In a SD shooting you probably will not feel the extra recoil but at the same time im not really convinced +P loading's are ballistics all that much better.

My ammo of choice is 9mm Federal HST's in 147gr
But the standard pressure 147's can be hard to find, last time I bought some all I could get was the +P loading.. so I took it, price was too good to pass.

I have not shot the +p's yet to compare but balisitcly it's not all that much better from the test's I've seen and not all guns are +P rated.


Those who want the hottest round they can carry for SD I don't think it's much of a problem from a wear perspective.
 
While I agree that incompatibility between certain guns and certain ammo is always going to exist, I think the OP's main idea, even though expressed with a certain amount of hyperbole, is valid: The more picky a defensive pistol is about ammo, the less I tend to trust it. I welcome correction from folks more knowledgeable than me about the mechanics of pistols, but it would seem to me that there would be a strong trend towards having closer tolerances as pistols get more picky about ammo, and thus a general trend towards less reliability.
 
Even some revolvers won't accommodate all ammo types for which they're chambered - too long for the cylinder - and some rounds won't work in tube-fed rifles due to concerns about a pointed bullet setting off the round in front of it, some autoloading rifles can be unsafe with sensitive primers, so you always have to select ammo suitable for the gun.
 
Sometimes it's picky about certain ammo, sometimes it's an imperfect round, sometimes you limp wrist it... there are reasons I prefer revolvers for SD. :)

Most of my handguns are plinkers or range toys, so if those ones are mildly picky, it doesn't really matter, imho.

Sometimes it's not the gun's fault at all. I have had a BHP for about 30 years that kept choking on a box of $5 Chinese ammo I bought for it ages ago. It had never malfunctioned before, and never has since.

All that being said, the couple of semiautomatics that I do keep around for occasional SD duty have coincidentally never malfunctioned. Neither have the others that I would confidently use for those duties if for some reason my preferred firearms weren't available.

Would I be okay with a SD handgun that only liked certain ammo, and I always used that ammo? I suppose so. I would feel more comfortable with a "garbage disposal", though.
 
I went to a talk given by a civilian survivor of the Kosovo conflict (war).
It was very interesting how they got guns and ammo in an area that was supposed to be free of guns. Some had guns that they had kept hidden but had no ammunition and others had ammunition but no gun to fire it. Ultimately barter was used and as warriors, on both sides, died the guns and ammo was stripped from the dead soldiers by the civilian population. Standard military and police ammunition was used and the guns were often converted to semi-auto function. The civilians, caught in the middle of the war, survived with what they could find, make or steal. Barter was employed more often than any other form of business and food, cigarettes, and toiletries were the big items. Alcohol and marijuana was shared to seal a deal or as a way to retreat from the reality of the events taking place around them.

All this to point out why I expect my guns to function with any ammo that is available and made in that caliber. I won't expect my 45 to use 357 ammo but I expect it will use any 45 Colt ammo made. The same is true for my 357s and 9mms. I have two guns that will digest any 223 or 556 ammo. I don't currently own a 308 win but I can use the 308 ammo to make ammo for my 358. I do own a couple of 30 caliber rifles and a couple of 25s as well.

When I first got my 9mm I loaded rounds for it starting at the minimum listed load and worked my way to the maximum listed loads. I then started at the starting load and worked down to find when the loads would quit functioning in my gun. After getting down to a bit under 60% of maximum I quit. That gun will take anything designed for a 9mm pistol.

It may never be necessary but I know that my guns will function with any ammunition designed for the caliber(s) which they use. With my current supply of reloading components it is unlikely that I will need to buy or barter for ammo. I also have a pantry and freezer full of food, a garden and a well for water.
 
Hopefully, no one will poison your well. Preparation is a good idea in these times, but no electricity will thaw your frozen stuff and rabbits will eat your garden. A pistol that functions reliably with the cartridge it's chambered in, will never let you down; one of the few things in life that you can count on to maybe save your bacon.
 
We can always eat the rabbits and the garden is set up to keep most of the critters from getting to it. The occasional deer walks through and once in a while we see wolves. It's a good place to be.
 
If my guns work reliably with my practice rounds of choice, and my carry ammo of choice, I'm happy. I could not care less if they would work with ammo I'd never use in the first place.
 
Autoloaders had a reputation for jamming and I still believe that stands true today. If the arm deviates from the norm used in, what I consider good, reloading manual, the greater the probability of having issues.
 
I would like for every gun I own, regardless of purpose, to reliably feed any round in the appropriate caliber that I choose to feed it. I recognize that may or may not happen. Since I don't use exotic rounds, I don't worry too much about whether they'll actually feed those. I test my HD and SD guns with my chosen rounds to ensure proper function before relying on them.
 
If you want it to function with all brands/types of ammo, best get a revolver. My 642s and Model 19s don't care, always work, HP, RN, wadcutter, semi wad cutter, lead, upside down wadcutter, it doesn't matter.
 
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