Worst gun of all time?

E

EricReynolds

New member
On a few different threads, I have met some comradery in the fact that many others have had the same problem I once had. The Jennings J-22. A friend of mine had one and I thought it was a neat little mouse gun. He said it was junk and it had a good couple misfires but over all I liked it. This is when I was still a young lad that was still a novice in the world of shooting. I saw a used one in a local shop one day for $75. The gun I had previously bought had coste $600 and I thought I found a deal! It was junk. I thought the one I purchased was defective until I googled it and read a little bit on how it was crap. Since joining TFL, I read how common a mistake buying the J-22 is. Let's put it to a vote. Is the Jennings J-22 the worst gun ever made? If not, what pistol is actually worse?
 
Not taking anything away from the awfulness of the J-22, but it has some real competition for the title of "Worst Gun Of All Time".

My nomination for the title goes to the Nambu Type 94. As bad as the J-22 is, any of the Nambus have it beat, and the type 94 was the worst of the lot.
 
The worst one I've owned was a Kahr PM9. Granted it was one of the first ones (which I hear they've gotten better) but I will never own another. After I got it back from Kahr the 3rd time for FTFs and it still wouldn't feed properly, I ended up taking an angle grinder to it, cutting it up and tossing it in the trash.
 
Llamas produced during the '50s were pretty terrible.
They couldn't get good steel and their quality control was close to zero.
 
I am the proud :o owner of a J-22, and I guess it is the worst gun that I have ever owned.

That makes me a pretty lucky guy, because I shoot it frequently, hit what I am shooting at, and have a lot of fun with it. I also frequently carry it as my ccw as opposed to none at all.

I admire devices that are simply designed, economically manufactured, and reliable for the purpose they were intended for; VW beetles, Mr. Coffee coffee makers, Yard Man lawn mowers, are a few things that come to mind. Ya may as well throw in Remington 870s and Lee reloading equipment.

There are a lot of folks who will have trouble with almost ANY mechanical device, and there are folks who can make most anything work. I'd like to think that I'm closer to the second type. Maybe Jennings are made for guys like me.

Oh yeah, I guess I do get some kind of sick pleasure when I can ring the gong reliably at 50 yards with the worst gun that I own, and my buddy with his 800 dollar 1911 can't. $80 vs $800 ---hmmmm.;) jd
 
jdscholer said:
I admire devices that are simply designed, economically manufactured, and reliable for the purpose they were intended for; VW beetles, Mr. Coffee coffee makers, Yard Man lawn mowers, are a few things that come to mind. Ya may as well throw in Remington 870s and Lee reloading equipment.
Click to expand...

To compare the Remington 870, perhaps the most sturdily-built slide action shotgun on the market today, with a gun made of cast zinc is... well... it doesn't point to your job title being "gunsmith", let's say.
 
There could be some stiff competition for this.

The Jennings, Titan, Lorcin, Bryco and Raven pistols were all pretty crude guns. If you had one that was reliable it was a miracle.

Even some of the major manufacturers have produced some turkeys. HK with their 21-lb trigger VP-70 comes to mind. So does the Colt All-American 2000.

Pre-1968, you could open a lot of pulp magazines and For all of $14.99 order one of these Clerke revolvers through the mail...
Clerke32sw.jpg

I said you could - if you didn't have sense enough to come in out of the rain.

Then there was the Grendel P11/P12 which could either self-disassemble or eject all the remaining rounds out of the magazine during a single recoil.
 
To compare the Remington 870, perhaps the most sturdily-built slide action shotgun on the market today, with a gun made of cast zinc is... well... it doesn't point to your job title being "gunsmith", let's say
Click to expand...
.

Ah hell, I meant no offence to the 870 or the kazillion owners of them, of which I am one. I just included it in a list of wonderfully simple and economical (got my last one new for under $300) devices that has given me a lot of satisfaction for the money spent. We could find a fair number of shotgun ---afficianatos who might look down their nose at our beloved 870s for any number of reasons.

The 870 isn't gonna be confused with a cast zinc cheapo, and I'm not gonna be mistaken for a gunsmith. The Honda 90 isn't in the same class as Harley Low Rider, but I've had a lot of fun on both of them. And if I haven't crawled my way out of this one by now, I give up.:rolleyes: jd
 
RG 38 revolver

My sister actually owned this RG 38. Gave $110 for it I think in the early 80s. Spit lead first on one side, then the other. shot patterns instead of groups. Keyholed at 15 feet. Had difficulty going around the cylinder twice with out significant cool down time. I think it would have melted in the oven.

In fairness, I had a Jennings J-22. It jammed once in a while, but I carried it for protection in Colorado in the early 80s. I actually had faith that it would go off when I pulled the trigger.
 
You're forgiven jdscholer. :)

I honestly think Tamara misread your paragraph. Sounded like you were throwing the 870 into the category of good things that you admire.

So, there probably wasn't anything to forgive.
 
I have had cap guns with better fit and finish then that clerke...:eek:
And I can tell that from a blurry old picture:rolleyes:
Brent
 
I have had cap guns with better fit and finish then that clerke...:eek:
Click to expand...

I don't believe I've ever seen a Clerke before, but it certainly does look like they made it out of the same pot metal as some of those old cap guns.

I had an RG.22 revolver years and years ago, it was pretty bad, I bought it for $20 so I guess it wasn't too bad, when it was working. Ever so often I'd have to take it apart repair it.:p

I've never had one of the cheap, small .22s, or .25s, the Walther TPH, Colt 1908 and Beretta 950 are the least expensive ones I ever bought.
 
Bryco 380

The Bryco 380, what a piece of junk: slide bite, jammed, didn't feed consistently, and the magazines kept falling apart. I eventually traded it in on a Taurus 357. I saw a Jimenez Arms 380 at a recent gun show, looked amazing identical to the Bryco, which looked amazingly identical to the Jennings of the same caliber.
 
The Jennings takes more grief on TFL than anything else ever built, that's for sure. But I've got one and it's not the worst, most problematic handgun I own. That would probably be the Taurus PT-22.

Line 'em up: Jennings was $59, Taurus was $169. Both of them jam somewhat often. The Taurus is likely made from better materials. The nickel finish on the Jennings STILL looks new even though the pistol is about 15 years old. The 5-year old Taurus' finish looks like it was repeatedly drawn from a sandpaper holster. They shoot the same cartridge and the Taurus holds one more, but can't fit a pocket nearly as well as the slimmer, shorter Jennings. The Taurus has the flip-up barrel and a safer double action only setup, but the trigger pull is terribly heavy (smooth, however.) The Jennings has a decent trigger for what it is, but I wouldn't carry it with a chambered round. The Jennings' magazines are small and can't be taken apart, but they fit the pistol like they were built specifically for it. The Taurus magazines fit like some guy was handed a piece of sheet metal, a hammer, and a pair of tin snips and was ordered to make a magazine under duress.

Both pistols were very nice looking when new, but the Jennings which is 5 times older still looks new while the Taurus looks like it's been through the ringer.

I'm not naive-- I'm confident in the idea that the Taurus PT-22 I have is not one of their finer examples, and I'm even more confident that the Jennings that I have (circa '92) is one of the best that they built.

I'm also confident that if all the posters who bash the Jennings repeatedly had MINE, they would also believe that they had one of the finest examples.

There's no way that my Jennings is half as bad as what I read from folks on here. This pistol is worth every penny of the 5,900 pennies I paid for it.
 
Sevens,

It sounds like you have reasonable expectations of a firearm. And, yes, other than the ability to carry a round in the chamber and probably greater longevity, there's not much the PT has to recommend it over the die-cast Jennings.
 
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