Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Competitive Shooting Para Ord

If any of you are thinking about buying a Para pistol, think twice. They are the most disreputable firearms company I have ever dealt with. They have no customer service and no regard for customers. Briefly:

Bought a Carry 9 LDA February 24 through Davidsons (an excellent outfit to deal with). Right out of the box it would not feed. I followed their instructions to the letter.

Sent it back through Davidsons March 4. Did not come back until May 18!!! Another pistol. Jammed every shot!!!

Back directly to Para June 12.

August 18 came back...with what they said they did to it. Replaced the rear sight with night sights....not so on front???
How is that supposed to work? Accuracy was now terrible - 7" high at 25 yards, salad plate sized groups, function was poor. Back to Para.

I called on September 14 and they promised to call me back on Sept. 20.....never happened.

September 24 I called. I was told they agreed there was a problem and would replace the gun.

I have called several times since then and e-mailed. No return calls or e-mails. Finally last week a secretary who w3as sympathetic to me plight told me she would check and get back to me.....obviously she could not get the so called customer service people to respond. She did, last Wednesday or so.
Told me service told her that a gun is being built for me (?)
but could not tell her when it would ship!!!!!!

I had also tried several times to reach a chap named Thanos who is supposed to be the head guy. Never returned my calls. Maybe he is lost in Greece/Grease.

Anyway, going on 8 months now.....avoid Para like the plague.

Interesting.. never had any call for warranty but know 3 LEO folks been running Para for years now with no issues.

BTW a night on front and not rear or vice versa would have no effect on accuracy at all. On POI maybe.

Don't even get me started about Paras. I have a love/hate relationship with them. I have owned seven Paras, now own four. My three LDAs (14.45 LTD, 4.45, CCW) run like a champ. Of course they are all well over 5 years old. I have carried my 14.45 as a uniform duty weapon for the last seven years. I have even shot IDPA with it. Off duty, I often carry the CCW and sometimes the 7.45. The only mods I have made to my Paras are metal mainspring housings (S&A) and fiber optic front sight on the 14.25 and Novak adjustable night sights on the other two. I currently have a new GI expert that I have changed the trigger, hammer, thumb safety, mainspring housing recoil spring and recoil spring plug. It now shoots, and shoots reliably and accurately.
The other Paras I have personal knowldge of have been new production Border Patrol commemoratives. I had a double-stack .45, one of my best friends had a doublestack .40, and another close friend had both a double-stack and a single-stack .45.
These did not work, ever. Even with part changes and local gunsmithing they just were junk. As previously stated by others, the factory just did not care. There was basically NO FACTORY SUPPORT. After jacking around with them for over a year (after waiting about a year and half to get them) we all sold ours.
Personal opinion: DO NOT BUY A NEW PARA. If you just have to have one, buy a used one. Preferably one over 5 years old.

P.S. If you do buy a new one, the first thing you do is throw away the factory magazines.

Good info... all the ones I've seen are 5 years plus old. Shame to ruin a good line.

Ruger,
I hate to hear about your problems. I bought a Para LTC 9mm about 3 years ago. I have to qualify on Saturday so I took it to the range yesterday. I ran 100 rounds thru it in about an hour. Second to last magazine had a FTE. Some powder debris had gotten behind the ejector and it was sticking. That is the first FTF I have had with it in over 1,000 rounds. I hope the dang thing holds together because everything I have heard about the factory service is that it is poor.

Best of luck with your issues!

Johnny $