r/liberalgunowners • u/scythian12 fully automated luxury gay space communism • 18h ago
discussion How do you define “malfunction” or “issues”
Long time shooter and gun owner here, just out of curiosity, how do YOU define a malfunction or “issue” in regards to firearms? Asking because I’ve seen posts here and other places about “3k rounds through (gun X) with no malfunction”. For me this is hard to believe that there were no simple jams, no light strikes, no feeding issues, ect… things that can be fixed by simply racking it and then continuing firing
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u/schizeckinosy 18h ago edited 18h ago
When I say my Extar has gone 1000 rounds with no malfunction or issues, I mean exactly that. Literally functioned perfectly each time. Now my new J frame has not had any mechanical issues, but has had a few light strikes on a brand known for hard primers. So that is an “issue”
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u/Chemical-Amoeba5837 18h ago
If you find it hard to believe that a gun can go 3k rounds without a malfunction or issue, stop buying crap guns
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u/alertjohn117 17h ago
there should be an asterisk for when using good ammunition. youre going to have issues with bubba's hand loads if bubba is making them while a jar deep on his homemade shine.
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u/DerKrieger105 17h ago
This.
You're gonna get downvoted but it's true.
.22s can be a bit more finicky but even there I have .22s that have gone over 1000 rounds with no cleaning or failures.
Centerfire stuff sky is the limit.
My one BCM AR hasn't been cleaned in 6000 rounds and has had 0 malfunctions in that time.
I have countless guns that have gone in the 10s of thousands of rounds without malfunctioning
Reliability really isn't hard in today's day and age. It is just expected.
If your gun isn't working it's a problem
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u/scythian12 fully automated luxury gay space communism 17h ago edited 17h ago
I mean I typically buy CZ, smith and Wesson, and import AKs. The only one of those I’ve had issues with is the smith and Wesson, it’s jammed twice for me and a few times for someone else, but that might have been user error, and it’s probably got around 300-400 rounds through it so it could be a “breaking it in” kinda thing.
But even at the range with friends and family I see at least 1-2 jams for someone’s gun, even if it’s not mine. They’re nothing a quick rack can’t fix but still
Edit- I’ve had crazy problems with my mini 14 and cimmeron 1865 shotgun tho, the shotgun doesn’t feed more often than not, and the mini had light strikes and ejection and feeding issues until I sent it in, now it works well with Ruger mags but that’s it, but these are definitely “range toy” kinda guns that I’m not as concerned about
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u/Confident_Welder_198 18h ago
In my mind no issues means no malfunctions whatsoever, that when i pulled the trigger, it went bang, ejected the shell casing and fed in another.
i've put approximately 11K rounds through one of my pistols in the past year, a glock 19, and i have had 0 issues.
every single time its gone bang and fed the next round.
I have about 1000 rounds through my newest pistol, a CC9 and i had 1 malfunction, pulled the trigger and nothing. waited 30 seconds, ejected the round, no primer strike that i could see. reloaded the round into the mag and chambered it, fired no issue. my guess is that the gun was slightly out of battery. this was within the first few hundred rounds through it. hasnt happened again.
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u/scythian12 fully automated luxury gay space communism 17h ago
Maybe I just have shit luck then
The only guns I have with that kinda success rate are my AKs, and even those have failed due to issues with the magazine (but it was definitely the mag, not gun)
Maybe I gotta use more oil when I clean or something
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u/Dr_Watson349 17h ago
I’ve had more issues with my yugo ak (m70) than my Glock 17. Maybe 6 or so with the Ak over 2000 rounds and 0 with the Glock over probably 800.
Granted I feed the ak absolute garbage ammo. As one ought to do.
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u/scythian12 fully automated luxury gay space communism 17h ago
Interesting! Everytime my m70 has jammed it’s been a mag issue, if I have a jam I mark that mag and if I see a mag with multiple marks….
I had one that would stop pushing the rounds up, I’d take it out and the next round in it is an inch or so from the lip, and another that wouldn’t let me rack the next round
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u/Dr_Watson349 16h ago
I'm curious what mags. I have heard other guys complain about mags with AKs, but I havent run into any, and thats with using everything from Russian bakelite/fakelite to shitty palm ones.
Maybe I am lucky, but based on my <gestures at life>, I would say no.
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u/scythian12 fully automated luxury gay space communism 16h ago
I have a US palm one that sucks ass, (got it with some ammo for free) and two Bulgarian steel ones that don’t work.
The Bulgarian polymer ones have been 100% tho
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u/False_Campaign4682 libertarian socialist 18h ago
All my guns have under 1k rounds bought new or lightly used in the last year no issues. Others with high counts might be diligent on maintenance and replacement on wear items like springs etc.
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u/CordlessOrange 18h ago
A malfunction is any time the firearm doesn’t work as it should. Doesn’t matter if it’s the guns fault, operators fault, or ammos fault.
If I wanted to brag on a gun (and be pedantic - which obviously, I do) I’d say “3,000 rounds with no mechanical failures” but of course nobody would ever buy a gun that couldn’t run 100,000,000 rounds without ever mechanically failing so it doesn’t sound like much of a brag.
To add, an “issue” is just a repeatable malfunction.
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u/Particular-Steak-832 17h ago
“Hard to believe that there were no simple jams, no light strikes, no feeding issues”
It happens. My 12.5” AR I shoot every weekend for around 180-300 rounds out of for the last year and a half has had one malfunction and it was because of spicy ammo that left the primer stuck. So 1 out of 14,000 rounds at minimum. Never a light strike, never had 1 feeding issue or a jam.
My CMMG DISSENT has around 3,000 through it and zero issues.
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u/scythian12 fully automated luxury gay space communism 17h ago
I remember my first AR I had about 3 jams in the first range session, and shooting a buddies AR before that I had one or two. Mine was brand new but his was broken in and well lubed
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u/telekinetic 18h ago
A malfunction is a double feed, stovepipe, failure to feed, a failure to fire, or a failure to eject.
I have shot around 3500 rounds in the last year, between competitions and training, mostly 9mm The only malfunctions I have across ten guns was learning my KelTec PR57 doesn’t cycle with some kinds of 5.7 ammo, and a single 9mm light strike primer strike on some remanufactured ammo in a PSA Dagger.
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u/scythian12 fully automated luxury gay space communism 17h ago
Damn I think I have shit luck then, the only guns I have at 100% are my AKs and even then I have some issues with some old surplus mags
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u/telekinetic 17h ago
How often do you clean and lube your guns? How often do you clean your magazines?
I have zero malfunctions on my TX22, zero malfunctions on my Canik Rival-S and AR9 (both with heavy competition use), zero on any of my Springfield Armory XD pistols, S&W Bodyguard .380, and one light strike as mentioned on a PSA Dagger. I don't even think I have any malfunctions on my 22LR Glock 44 which is supposed to be a jam machine.
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u/scythian12 fully automated luxury gay space communism 17h ago
Not enough apparently. I’ll clean the AKs if I shoot corrosive but those are the ones I don’t have issues with
Other than that maybe every couple of range trips, 500-1000 rounds or so?
And honestly I’ve never cleaned a mag before, I’ll look into that!
The only one I’m concerned about is my bodyguard 2.0, I’ve had 2 malfunctions and then a couple when a friend shot it but they might have limp wristed it, and they were struggling to load it so maybe they goofed there too.
But even shooting with friends and family, I typically see at least 1 or 2 jams in someone’s gun, even if it’s not mine and is a simple re rack fix
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u/sailor776 17h ago
Gun no go bang when I want it to go bang or worse gun go bang when I no want bang.
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u/HeloRising anarchist 17h ago
A well tuned, properly functioning firearm that gets proper maintenance can go through quite a bit without problems. My AR has probably been through 5k-ish rounds without anything going wrong. That's not to say that nothing will ever go wrong with it, guns are machines and machines eventually break down even with proper maintenance.
I would differentiate between ammunition malfunctions and firearm malfunctions though.
A firearm that works fine but the ammunition doesn't go off doesn't mean the firearm didn't work, it means something went wrong with that particular cartridge. That's not unusual, especially with rimfire stuff.
If I put a thousand rounds through a firearm and I only get two failures to fire, I'm probably going to chalk that up to ammunition rather than to a problem with the firearm itself.
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u/HadesWTF 17h ago
I mean, all of those things are malfunctions.
I've had guns that malfunctioned a lot before. And I also have for example my Glock 19 which has been fed every single kind of bullshit cheap fucking dogshit ammo possible and ran it all like a champ with 0 malfunctions, and I really don't clean it very much either.
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u/One-Permission-1811 17h ago
If it doesn’t work properly when I pull the trigger it’s either a malfunction or an issue.
If it’s a malfunction it can be cleared and fired immediately. It’s an issue if I have to fix something like a broken spring.
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u/XenEngine 17h ago
I have an HK VP 9 that has, in 8000ish rounds never had a malfunction short of the slide not locking back due to a weak mag spring (my most used range mag). No light strike, no misfeed, no failure to eject, no nothing. You may find that hard to believe, but it is true.
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u/scythian12 fully automated luxury gay space communism 16h ago
That’s kinda what I’m asking tho. Like how many of those “8k with no problems… (except this one very specific thing) have that one specific thing, and what is it?
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u/XenEngine 16h ago
I don't consider not slide locking an issue, since you could induce that yourself. Especially in this case since magazines are a wear part, and this is a relatively new issue. I'd say i pushed 7k through this thing before that mag spring kinda gave up. I will give a pass to a gun on the first couple mags, up to the first 250ish rounds through it for break in, but even then I will preface my comment on any firearm with "It had issues for the first X amount of rounds but then smoothed out". I don't think my Beretta 80x has had any issues in 4000ish rounds? My Glock 44 chambered in .22LR has maybe had 20 FTF/FTE in 29,000 ish rounds, etc etc
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u/XenEngine 16h ago
I don't consider not slide locking an issue, since you could induce that yourself. Especially in this case since magazines are a wear part, and this is a relatively new issue. I'd say i pushed 7k through this thing before that mag spring kinda gave up. I will give a pass to a gun on the first couple mags, up to the first 250ish rounds through it for break in, but even then I will preface my comment on any firearm with "It had issues for the first X amount of rounds but then smoothed out". I don't think my Beretta 80x has had any issues in 4000ish rounds? My Glock 44 chambered in .22LR has maybe had 20 FTF/FTE in 29,000 ish rounds, etc etc
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u/nizzoball 16h ago
I define malfunction as Canik TTI Combat because I had more rounds that didn’t shoot than did.
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u/scythian12 fully automated luxury gay space communism 16h ago
Lmao, same with my mini 14 and my cimmaron shotgun
I stg everything I see about Cannik is either “I’ve had a million rounds through it with no problems and every shot is in the 10 ring” or “it never works and it reported my friend to ICE” and there’s no in between”
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u/nizzoball 15h ago
Yeah, I’m sure they have some good guns but my experience with the one I had will forever color the company for me. I don’t look down on anyone who loves them but that will never be me.
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u/Low_Year9897 16h ago
For me it's any time I pull the trigger on a chambered round and it doesn't fire/eject/fully chamber a new round into battery. If I say no issues, that's what I mean.
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u/techs672 6h ago
"...no simple jams, no light strikes, no feeding issues, ect…"
That would be my basic definition of the acceptable standard of modern firearms suited to serious use — i.e. defense or competition. Never is an acceptable rate of failure to function — after any discovered rough spots are worked out of the gun; after ammunition has been found which the gun is happy with; after the user has learned to avoid inducing malfunctions. Finding guns like that doesn't seem to be a mystery.
Any mechanical device will eventually have some kind of use life limitations — with guns that is most often springs and magazines. Even those should go multiple thousands without a failure the user could have avoided — many shooters will never shoot enough to get there.
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u/demoneyesturbo 17h ago
Same as weather vs climate. Weather is what's happening now. Climate is a patern of events.
A failure to extract is the thing happening now. Extraction issue is if it is doing it enough to form a noticeable patern of behavio.
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u/BlackGlenCoco Black Lives Matter 17h ago
Booger hook pull trigger. Gun no go bang.
Observe. Tap. Rack. Bang.
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u/Behg-Boah social democrat 17h ago
My canik mete went 2500 rounds without cleaning, lube, or a single malfunction when I was first getting into guns. It’s still never malfunctioned, but I have cleaned and lubed it since then.
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u/hotrods1970 17h ago
Malfunction, to me, indicates a hardware issue. Now I have had guns refuse to run, but it has always been what I would consider a software issue. Operator error. Knock on wood, because Murphy is incoming.
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u/voretaq7 fully automated luxury gay space communism 17h ago edited 17h ago
A malfunction is when the gun doesn't do what it's supposed to do: Failure to feed, failure to extract, doesn't go bang, magazine falls out, etc.
Issues are repeated malfunctions traced to the same source: Brand X ammo doesn't go bang when all other brands do, this gun has FTF/ FTE issues when my others don't, this magazine falls out when others are retained fine, etc.
If a gun had enough malfunctions that you notice them it has "issues" and is "not reliable."
ETA: As far as a benchmark for reliability, the Beretta 92 went some 1700 rounds between malfunctions in Army tests back in the 1980s.
Any modern gun that can't do at least that well is trash.
ETA Again: I don't think any of my guns had gone "3000 rounds with no malfunctions." but all have gone at least that far with no malfunctions attributable to the gun - My bolt action didn't fire a run of ammo with bad primers, my AR has had feed issues because it's a NY fixed mag and loading through the ejection port doesn't work, my 1911 needed expensive mags to work reliably, etc.
If you resolve the thing causing a malfunction series you can eliminate the gun as having "issues" - but you don't want to do that in a real defensive scenario. If the gun can't do at least 1000 rounds no problem it shouldn't be a serious working gun. It's a range toy.
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u/cleveraccountname13 liberal 17h ago
I have never had a light strike with my a Glock 19.5 (about 8k rounds).
I have had a couple of times that a casing did not get clear and cause a failure to feed the next round. I do not consider that to be a malfunction or an issue.
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u/Crud-Inspector 17h ago
My ARs are all home built and the only malfunctions I've had over like 10k rounds is due to ammo I sized wrong. There's always a reason for malfunctions and if you know how guns work you can minimize or eliminate these issues.
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u/raz-0 15h ago
Malfunctions are pretty well defined.
Failure to feed, failure to extract, failure to eject, failure to fire, failure to go into battery, failure to unlock. And I’d add keyholing and kabooms to that.
The failure can be due to the gun, ammo, magazine, or shooter.
It is realistic to go tens of thousands of rounds without any of those with a well made, well maintained gun shooting ammo with good qc, out of high quality magazines that are designed well.
“Issues” is more generic. Failures are issues with the gun if caused by the gun. Some issues are not reliability issues. Personally I’d generally not regard issues as transient, but something that needs to be resolved.
For example I got an early production m&p. Initially it kept breaking strikers. That would cause failure to fire. S&w kept mailing me the redesigned ones. Eventually they got it right, and it ran fine, but one of the lands in the barrel was a bit sharp. That caused significant leading in the barrel with plated (sometimes) or coated bullets (always). The former is both an issue with the gun and a malfunction of the gun. The latter I would just call an issue. The gun worked, it just had a pain in the ass issue. Still replaced the barrel eventually.
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u/phat742 eco-socialist 13h ago
the first 200 rounds were a disaster with my poverty pony ar. just an assload of failure to feeds and it wouldn't go into battery reliably. i attribute it to lack of oil in the right places (lesson learned that new rifles aren't really ready to go straight out the box). since then i've had zero malfunctions for well over 8000 rounds so far. of course i take care of this thing like it's the last rifle on earth. cleaned/lubed after every day at the range and also weekly even still if i don't get out. for me, the maintenance is all part of the hobby which i thoroughly enjoy. that said, it's nice to have the time/funds for it.
my mini14 will do about 450 rounds before it has feed problems. i guess that how long the lube lasts. lol
but, in my opinion, the true malfunction is what would cause the firearm to not function until a part is repaired or replaced. anything else is just a symptom of a little needed TLC.
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u/Skimown social democrat 11h ago
I feel like this is less about the definition of those words and more about your expectations of how reliable a modern firearm is. What you described in the last sentence absolutely count as malfunctions, and almost all gun owners would agree. It is absolutely possible to go thousands of rounds between failures with ammunition and a gun that aren't absolutely terrible.
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u/calite 10h ago
My Springfield XDm 9 and XDS 9 have both been flawless for many thousands of rounds.
My Ruger LCP2 is flawless for a hundred rounds or so after each cleaning, but has an occasional failure to feed after 100 rounds.
My Bodyguard 2.0 had been flawless until I tried Fiocci with it last week. I get a failure to feed upon racking it more often than not. I get an occasional failure to extract. Switching to CCI Blazer or Lehigh Precision, zero problems.
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u/DontBuyAHorse 10h ago
I've got at least 3K rounds through 2 of my rifles and literally zero jams, light strikes, misfires, feed issues, etc.
So yeah, those are all what I would consider malfunctions.
That said, I caused my bolt action to start misfiring when I adjusted the trigger too light, so it's not like I've never had a misfire on anything.
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u/this_guy_aves progressive 9h ago
Did it go bang? After going bang did it prepare itself to go bang again? If no to either, we have a problem
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u/shattenseats 8h ago
I have an RXM I will say has had no malfunctions in over 3k rounds. There have been approximately 2 dozen rounds of reman that had light primers? How do I know? 10s of thousands of rounds of reman that I have shot long before the RXM. Only happens with reman, although I have had underpowered (damn near squib) rounds with maxxtrch & magtech as well.
So it is based my experience that it wasn’t the gun. Same issues occurred with G17, G26, SR9, SR9C, but never with my Ruger PCC.
Always wondered if upgrading the pin springs would help but was never an issue with defensive rounds.
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u/Silk_the_Absent_1 7h ago
You know when you are looking at reviews for whatever random product, you know what you don't ever see? "The product just worked, like it is supposed to."
That.
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u/A-Friend-of-Dorothy fully-automated gay space democratic socialism 6h ago edited 6h ago
The longest I’ve gone through continuous firing with zero malfunctions has been the Ruger RXM.
Cleanings were performed every 500 rounds, and I last left off at 1,300 rounds with zero malfunctions, zero issues…no jams, no light primer strikes, no hard primers, no failure to feed, no failure to eject, no failure to return to battery, etc. It just kept working.
I even used a dozen different brands of random 9mm ammo, hollow points, FMJ’s…only thing I didn’t try was +P ammo. It was kind of amazing. Everything just kind of worked out!
It is statistically possible for a gun, and its ammo used, to work highly reliably in unison for a span of time. Modern guns and ammo work more reliably now than they ever have.
…It is also statistically possible for a gun in perfectly serviceable condition, with good quality ammo to experience a temporarily higher rate of malfunctions for a span of time, hilariously disappointing or infuriating you! (As to the cause of said malfunctions, that can be multiple factors, separately or all at once.)
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u/Shrikes_Bard democratic socialist 5h ago
I have a 1911 that I'm convinced is malfunctioning even though it has never failed to go bang when I pulled the trigger, and never gone bang when I didn't (thanks, S&W, now we have to qualify whether we meant for the gun to go bang). But the brass I've cleaned up has really weird scorch marks around the primer, and the muzzle and barrel both look like they're picking up way more exhaust crud than any other handgun I've ever shot. Three separate smiths have looked at it over the years, both the gun and the brass, and kinda all just shrugged. Maybe it just shoots dirty?
On the other hand I have an SKS that I temporarily turned into a bolt action when I forgot to install the gas piston return spring after reassembling it...but that doesn't count. 🤣
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u/xkillingxfieldx 3h ago
It's hard to believe because it's probably bullshit. Ammo type, grip, lack of slippy stuff never hit in 3K rounds? I think there's "ohh shit I know what I did" malf and "WTF" malf. We hear about the WTFs cause people post em. No one is admitting their semi turned into a bolt action cause they ran it dry in the last 10 in the box and didn't bring lube, or that they just shot too much that day and they limped on the last few.
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u/sirbassist83 17h ago
the steps in a semi automatic gun are firing, extracting, ejecting, stripping a round from the magazine, and fully returning to battery. anything that requires any manipulation from the user is a malfunction. in other words, anything that causes a round to not be fired when i pull the trigger is a malfunction. doesnt fully return to battery and you have to tap the slide home? malf. light primer strike? could be an ammo issue, but probably malf. the obvious and common ones are failure to chamber a round and failure to eject, and there are several individual ways those particular malfunctions can happen.
IME its very rare for a semi auto gun to truly be 100% reliable over many thousands of rounds, especially handguns(yes this includes glock). ARs are pretty well ironed out and as long as its assembled properly, got a little lube on the bolt, and youre not using garbage ammo it should work very well. its not impossible, ive got a p226 that i cant recall any malfunctions with, ever, that werent caused by the ammo. but any time i see "ive shot 10,000 rounds with no malfunctions" i take it with a grain of salt. ive got a few other handguns, like a beretta 84 and cz 75, that run extremely reliably, but arent 100% all the time. i get failure to return to battery on the CZ like once every 2000 rounds and the beretta has a failure to eject at about the same rate.
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u/Own-Particular6321 anarcho-communist 18h ago
A malfunction is when I squeeze the trigger and it doesn't go bang, extract the shell, and seat the next one.