Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Worst gun you have owned

Remington Model 700 Classic in 35 Wheelen. Waited for it a long time and when I got it, the receiver was "overcut" and the bolt would over-rotate and stick. Returned it and years later found a much better M77 MKII and bought it.

Mossberg Ulit-mag 12ga. Biggest POS I've ever shot, held, owned.

Win. 1400 that shot 4' high at 40 yards, check.
Mini-14s, they worked, but shot like Obama. Check.
S&W M24-3, shaved, wouldn't shoot for chit. Check.

Those are the ones that stick in my head, anyway. Probably because I laid out good coin on "good" guns with decent reputations, and got shafted.

Years ago I was working with a few outdoor shows doing some marketing and sponsor work... On two different occassions I was offered T/C Encores at a very, very, very cut rate price. With my liking of the T/C Contender I thought I'd fall right in love with the Encore.

BOY, was I ever "WRONG!"

I've owned two frames and three barrels (25-06, 7mm-08 and 300 Win Mag). None, I repeat none would shoot to minute of battleship!

I sent the 7mm-08 (entire gun) back to the factory 3 or 4 times and each time they claimed it was something different and that they had it fixed. Not so... I finally gave up on them. Sold one frame and all my barrels. Kept the stainless frame and found a 20 gauge shotgun barrel and was going to make it into a light weight turkey gun. Well, low and behold the shotgun barrel shot so low that at 30 yards it would hit the ground out about 20 yards. This was from me sitting and shooting off my knees. I got a local gun smith to mill the rib down and correct my POI. Now, after all that work and time, I have a really slick 20 gauge turkey killer from a POS Encore.

I will NEVER recommend a T/C Encore to anyone and I know there are fans of them out there but I'm "NOT" one of them.

Weatherby Vanguard ,270 Kicked like a mule. Have bigger guns that didn't kick as much. Didn't shoot real good either.

The only "bad" gun I ever owned wasn't really bad it just needed to be fixed. Bought a Remington 700 used that would hang fire really bad. I traded it to a guy who knew it needed fixing. I came out about even on it.

I think that may have been only 1 of 2 guns I have ever sold. I sold a Benelli shotgun to a friend for a good deal. I should have kept the shotgun.

Echols Legend, uh, oh never mind, wrong thread. Sorry.....

Remington 700 ADL in 30-06. Wouldn't group worth beans, zero changed constantly. Swapped stocks, tinkered with the bedding, etc. Finally swapped it to a buddy who was sure he could fix it. He couldn't.

1st gen Walther P-22, would set the safety as you fired it and the barrel nut kept backing off. I have a later production one now and love it, never buy any gun on it's first production run!

Friend bought a Charter Arms "Patriot" .327 Federal, after 3 trips back for a multitude of problems dumped it for a Ruger GP 100.

Was offered a "good deal" on what was supposed to be a very high quality and slick looking new Franchi 12 gauge O/U back when I lived in excellent quail country. Sounded perfect.

It was in most respects, except that the inertial re-cocker for the second barrel failed to work almost every time. It's bad enough to miss a quail on the first shot, but to squeeze the second and get no action is maddening.

Had some supposed O/U "experts" work on it - never got it right. Finally assumed I had made a bad mistake and took it to a gun shop to sell - some fellow got all hot to trade for it and I told him EXACTLY about the re-cocker and he said, "no problem - I can fix that". I hope he could.

It was a good trade for me.

Marlin 1894S in .41 Mag. Bought it new (old stock) and while it would chamber factory ammo, it would not extract or eject. It would split cases, lock up the gun, or my favorite trick was leaving half the case in the chamber. Marlin would not do anything about it as it was more than 5 years old when I bought it. Also couldn't hit the ground with it at 25 yards. Shot about a 18" group at that range.

70's vintage Ithaca/SKB model 300 12ga semi, feather weight.
This oddball was a jam-o-matic,couldn't get parts, and when it did work, the recoil would ruin you.

(New Haven) Winchester Mod 70 Featherweight .243 WSSM. Absolutely positively would NOT feed out of the magazine under any and all circumstances. Also shot literally 8-10 inch groups at 100!

Remington 700 5R Model. Everybody raved about the out of the box accuracy of these. The one I purchased shot 4-5" groups with 5 different people shooting it with FGMM and every handload known to man I think. Then one day I flipped the safety off at my Uncles house and BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Luckinly I bought it from a dealer that was a friend and he refunded my money. He got it to drop fire 2 more times and then returned it to Remington.

A customer built Harris Gunworks rifle. What a disaster - please don't get me started.

Sig P238.

Worst i ever had was a raptor arms stainless 270.this is the gun the mossberg 4x4 is now.mossberg bought the tooling and started building them.biggest single problem was the scope rings were out of alignment by. 050! Ruined more than one scope before i found that one. Also would shot pretty good most of the time,then suddenly would throw shots a foot high or right or left,then go back to good groups.sold it at a huge loss.when asked why i told him it was a pos.

Early Mossberg 500 muzzleloading conversion barrel, I had a really hard time finding a load that wouldn't shoot high and all over the place. I finally settled on a Hornady 425 grain Great Plains conical as something I could hunt with but still had to aim low.

mossberg 3 1/2 in mag. broke my cheek bone everytine i Shot it.

Remington 799 Mini-Mouser 22-250. Would not feed worth -- well you know!

AMT Automag II...


You want MORE recoil? Try the Baikal single-shot B/O shotgun in 3.5" 12 ga...

Oh, and be sure to close your eyes so your retinas won't fall out.. And have a couple compresses handy for the bloody cheekbones..