Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns How many rounds before you trust a carry gun?

Watching that video on the Sig P365 is one reason for asking. They had close to 900 rounds through one before it failed. I don't remember on the striker failure pistol.

You can never know for certain that the next shot will fire or not. My new Ruger LC9s failed after about 50 rounds. Sear spring came loose. Ruger fixed it but it shook my confidence in the gun so back to square one on it. The Ruger failed on the second trip to the range, three shots in. Good thing I wasn't in a gunfight.

I just bought a Glock 19. Based on reputation, I have more confidence in a Glock product than most others.

At what point do you trust your weapon and why? Are some designs more apt to fail than others and which ones are they? This may be where revolvers have it over semi autos.

If the gun is an established model that's been long adopted by police forces and militaries, then a few hundred rounds in enough. If it's a new introduction, like the P365, I think it would be more like a thousand rounds without a bobble.

I think a couple of boxes of your carry ammo will tell the tale. Inspect the brass for marks that would indicate poor cycling mechanics, headspace issues etc. Make sure that each magazine is tried several times and that the machine acts as it should with last round hold-open.

I had a Springer XD that went 850 rounds without cleaning during a school, and nary a bobble. That's not to say 851 wouldn't have jammed or caused a broken part.

Every month or so, a range trip to fire your loaded mags and refresh the carry ammo.

500 rounds, 1911's and P226, dusty, dirty, wet dry and lubed and clean, they gotta run, and run right.

You bought a G19 when other's failed; good call.

I for one don't like brand new guns. Because regardless of the name on the gun, they all get it wrong from time to time. And these days, it seems to happen quite often. I mean, look at the G19. Few pistols have a better reputation fore reliability than the G19. Yet when Glock first introduced the 5th gen G19 many weren't real reliable. And that wasn't a whole new pistol, that was an upgrade of a VERY well established pistol...and there were still problems. As it turned out, it was a very easy fix...but it happened nonetheless.

When it comes to completely new pistols, its not uncommon that they have issues early on. To my mind, I personally won't even consider a handgun for self defense that hasn't been on the market for at least 2 years. Even then, I'd have to be awfully hot for that pistol. I really feel far better if it's been around for at least 5 years...that's usually sufficient time to sort out most issues.

And for a handgun I'm going to trust my life to, I greatly prefer one that is in service with multiple large agencies (military or law enforcement), because those agencies will push the pistol hard and find any issues the pistol may have.

The history of firearms in military service is full of arms that would become famous; that initially had serious issues.

If I suddenly was handgun-less. I would feel quite comfortable buying a brand new 5th gen G19. And since that pistol has such a well established track record, after an absolute minimum of 250 rounds of flawless function, I would be comfortable to use it for defense. Of course, more rounds down range would be preferable, and I would of course shoot it much more...but you asked about minimum.

I find the Sig 365 a very interesting pistol; one I would consider adding to my collection. When it first came out, I told everyone I would take a wait and see approach; and I'm still waiting to see. Unfortunately many have reported issues...and I'm not surprised at all. With a company like Sig, I'm confident they will sort those issues out. But it takes time to find the issues, identify the cause, formulate a solution, and then implement a solution.

A pistol that is targeted primarily for civilian ownership, or civilian CC. Finding those issue will take much longer than a pistol that is being used by a large law enforcement agency or a military. Because those agencies have people pushing those guns every day...there are more people on the job of trying to break it.

I think you'll find I'm in a small minority with my viewpoint. Most are much more trusting...but I think that's because most just have much better luck than I have. But with my personal policy, I also haven't had any handguns that were subject to a recall. The last gun I sent in for a factory recall was my first S&W 686...and predictably, the first one to hit the shelf in my town, I bought...And bought it to be my primary home defense handgun.

Since then, I always have a tried and true as my primary self defense handgun.

Looks like the consensus is a proven design and long track record or shoot a lot of rounds from a new, unproven model. That makes sense.

FYI the Glock 19 I bought is a Gen 4. I didn't like some of the changes on the Gen 5.

They made some mistakes with the Gen 5, IMO.

I've read a bunch of posts on this same topic and it really amazes me that someone would expend 500 rounds of $1.50 a round defensive ammo to make sure it is reliable...that's $750!!!...and what happens if on round 499 the gun chokes??? Start over again? Sell the gun??

For me when testing a new semi-auto gun/round combination:

Stage I:
Load the magazine
SLOWLY cycle the rounds through the gun watching and feeling for anything hanging up

If all is smooth...

Stage II:
Load the magazine
Rapidly cycle the rounds through the gun letting go of the slide at the end of the cycle
Listen and feel for anything hanging up

If everything cycles

Stage III
Load magazine
Shoot the gun trying to feel anything hanging up.
Shoot with a full mag and with a full mag with one in the chamber.
Shoot some of the rounds using any magazine that is going to be used with that gun/round

I'm usually done in 30-50 rounds...

That would be fine for a newly acquired Glock, but no way that would be enough for a newly acquired gun of a new design.

I should have been a little more clear. That is only for the defensive rounds to be used in the gun. Before carrying any gun I would have shot at least a few boxes of target grade ammo through it just to get used to it.


Bob.

With a Glock I have run each mag through the pistol once and went about my business.

A 1911 might need a little longer courtship, lol.

^ This.

The problem we’re dealing with is that it’s impossible to predict with absolute certainty the exact moment when a mechanical failure will occur in a specific pistol. Life is uncertain and each of us decides our own tolerance for risk. Absolute reliability is a myth and evokes visions of ‘safe spaces’ and ‘security blankets’.

The most proven 1911 with all ‘bullet-proof’ parts could break a mainspring for the first time after 20 rounds or after 25K rounds and 30 years of CC use.

I saw a brand new Glock 29, in a shooting course, break an extractor on the 3rd magazine on day one. The shooter had a back up Glock 30 and shot it the next 4 days without a blip. Go figure.

Functional testing with the intended ammo seems the most reasonable course, as Bob describes. OTW We would engage in destructive testing with each new pistol and it would be Ground Hog day each time we buy a new one.

It kind of depends. I would much rather have a new untried gun on my side than nothing at all. If the gun has a good reputation,I would carry it with only a few mags through it.

If I were buying a Glock in 9mm to carry, I’d run each magazine slowfire with cheap fmj. Then I’d run each magazine through it shooting as fast as I can. Then I'd run each magazine through it with carry ammo at variable rates if speed. Thats about 130 to 150 rounds. I’d be watching for funny marks on brass, inconsistent ejection, stuff like that. If all is well, I’d trust it.

For just about anything else, I’d do same x2 at least.

50 rounds (qual course).

Piece of cake RJM, 100 bucks worth of nosler fmj seconds and a buds progressive loading machine, in the case of my 1911 38 Super, I bought 1000 cases from someone in Alaska for 90 bucks shipped, and 1000 plated 147 gr fmj fp's from Berry or somesuch for 60 bucks, took it all to Buds, loaded 500 rounds and started ripping it hard the next weekend.

Run em dry to failure, clean and re-oil, run to failure or not, keep repeating until everything is smoothed/worn in, re clean, shoot 5 or 6 mags of handloaded Sd ammo and call it good.

The only failure I have had on my G19 was a cheap metal mag.
Am I not to trust it yet? Or did I screw that up by cleaning and relubing.
Gotta know, I just bought it in '97, and don't trust it yet.


Tongue in cheek!



P.S. when I typed G19, spellchecker changed it to God.

That's the final word on self defense guns.

LOL.

I run at least 200 rounds of mostly ball ammo to break in the pistol. Then a couple of boxes of SD ammo, making sure I put all magazines into the rotation. Then I'm good to go for carry.

A couple cylinders full.