For me, I suppose it was a Charter Arms Explorer II pistol that I bought
way back when I was a Border Patrol Agent in Calexico, CA. I got it at the Yellowmart
in El Centro, CA (that was my go to store for guns & ammo, camping gear, hiking
stuff and fishing tackle. The pistol was both the worst and
the most disappointing for me of any guns I have ever owned. I thought I
was buying a pistol that would be lots of fun, it sure looked cool.
Instead it had lots of jams no matter what brand or type of 22 LR ammo I
used in it and I tried plenty. Some other folks had better luck with
theirs but that model pistol became know in the firearms community as a
Jam-o-matic; so, I guess plenty of others besides me had their share of
problems with it. Mine certainly lived up to its oft used nickname.
My next was another 22, the Smith & Wesson 22A-1. Let me just say, I
considered it a total cheaply made piece of junk. That was due to lots
of jams (again with many different brands & types of 22 LR) and
seeming lack of quality parts and those parts were obviously lacking
before I ever shot it. The white nylon buffer, of which they gave three
(3) in the box, was a surefire indicator that those parts were not built
to last so when the buffers for it run out of stock - and you need
another due to yours wearing out - the gun will become useless. Then
there was the mag release that almost required the strength of Hercules
to release the magazine; that wound up being a problem only with one of
the two mags that came with the pistol. So, it probably was not a mag
release problem but likely a faulty magazine. I actually had to hit a
brass punch with a hammer to get the mag release to go in and then pry
the one mag out of the mag well. The next problematic thing was the
take-down release. Even the manual said it may be difficult to depress -
so S&W manufactured this pistol knowing that would be a pain in the
users neck. Next was a bent recoil spring when I took it apart for its
initial cleaning before firing it. Now back to that nylon buffer, it was
part of the recoil spring & rod assembly. The one in the gun had
evident stress fractures in it when I first examined it out of the box.
Finally when I looked over the recoil spring again, I counted 15 coils.
In the manual a picture of the recoil spring showed one with 13 coils. I
guess that something was stressed too much, thus those stress fractures
and thus the bent recoil spring, I imagine the extra coils could have
caused the stress. My initial impressions of this pistol are here.
Even my RG26 pistol(s), I think, were better made than the two above
even though each of the RGs were each just another Jam-o-matic but I
will not classify them as the worst or most disappointing - and they
were pretty terrible. If you are wondering why I bought two, it was
because the RG26 was my first pistol. I eventually took it apart,
destroyed the parts, and disposed of the parts. Many years later I
bought one at an auction due to nostalgia and nothing more; that wore
off soon enough and I sold the second one here in TX.
The third and final of the guns that were the worst and disappointed me
the most was a stainless steel Ruger Mini-14 with synthetic stock. I
bought it new. When I cleaned it before shooting it, I noticed lots of
machining marks on surfaces in the receiver and a bunch of sloppy welds.
When I shot it, I could not hit paper at 25 or 50 yards with most
shots, no matter what type or weight of 223 ammo I tried with it. On one
target, I think I hit it five times probably out of around 100 shots. I
had a few jams with it too as it was not extracting or ejecting
properly. Then I needed something to whack the bolt handle to open it -
that happened a couple or few times. That gun was an utterly dreadful
disappointment to me and its performance was extremely lacking to say
the least. It's not like I was unfamiliar with Mini 14s and somehow was
causing these issues myself. I had been shooting a bunch of them at work
and thought they were good to go so I bought it. I have shot plenty of
Mini 14s both before and since buying that one and never had similar
problems with any of those others. I even took it apart and cleaned it
again, probably as good as I had ever cleaned any gun, and while it
worked a bit better, most of the issue prevailed and it still shot like
shaite. Ruger told me to send it in but I decided I just did not want it
even if they worked on it and got it right. So, I sold it instead (and
was very forthright about the problems). The buyer got it and loved it.
This is the feedback he left me, he also contacted me later to tell me
it shot just fine:
Go figure.
