Caleb breaks guns!

After this weekend, the 2009 shooting season is pretty much over for me.  I usually take December/January off from “serious practice” since it’s usually too dang cold to shoot anyway around here.  However, this year I’m going to try something new: the winter torture test.  What we’re going to do is take a current production firearm and over the course of 2 or 3 months shoot 20-25k rounds through it, and see what happens.  Even better, the shooting will be recorded and broadcast on the Gun Nuts Youtube Channel so that you’ll be able to follow along with the progress.  However, we need to determine what firearm you guys want to see us shoot the wheels off of, so to speak.  The three options I’ve come up with are as follows:

I was kind of reaching with the third option, I couldn’t figure out what else to put there, so I just kind of dropped that in because I saw one in Gander Mountain yesterday. Write ins are also an option – post your idea for a write in handgun in the comments, and if I think it’s cool I’ll add it to the poll. I’ll leave this poll active for a week and post reminders about it so that we can max out the votes. Voting is Chicago style, so vote stacking is encouraged!

31 Comments

  1. Of the three, I’m most curious about how the LCR will hold up.

    If you’re still taking suggestions, the Walther PPS, since I’m considering buying one.

  2. Man I wish I could vote multiple times, (the Bersa is somthing I’d love to see put through it’s paces)

    That being said Ruger is going after the S&W J-frame market and that’s a BIG solid target, and the LCR not only challenges the J-frame but how revolvers are put together as a whole. I wanna see if their revolution is a good one or a dud!

  3. It would be interesting to see one of the Kahr Arms compacts wrung out … a PM9 or a PM45. Few guns have such a hard split between the detractors and supporters … both sides with little hard information. Attempting to put 25,000 rounds through a PM9 would answer a lot of questions.

  4. A Hi Point, pick your caliber. Mostly because I’m curious to see some empirical data-driven results after the smack talk about them being cheap junk guns, with a couple of their fans saying that you’re totally wrong.

    Alternatively, an H&K pistol. Just to see what something forged in the Fires of Mount Doom can do in your torture test.

  5. Will – one of the things that I will do during the test is properly clean and lubricate the firearm. I’m not necessarily interested in intentionally breaking the gun, I want to see if it does something unusual at high round counts when it’s been properly maintained.

    Most people will never shoot more than 5,000 rounds through any given handgun. I want to put 5 times that amount through the gun, cleaning and lubricating every 500 rounds or so, as well as changing springs when necessary.

  6. The LCR needs a torture test. It’s a huge departure, but potentially game changing. The Bersa has already seen lots of use in South America, and the Judge is overbuilt for .410 and cowboy loads — they aren’t interesting.

    Um, but, please don’t run .357 Mag through the LCR.

  7. I would be really interested in seeing a small pocket auto like the ruger LCP or A keltec and see it subjected to a test like that.

  8. A big +1 for the Kahr PM9 or PM45.

    Plus maybe Caleb will notice that they are nice solid guns with sweet triggers and fit easily in a pocket holster and carry duty-type calibers.

    Obviously I’d suggest PM9 as a companion to your 9mm 1911

  9. Just a bit of drift, you should head east and shoot the IDPA Indoor Nationals at the end of Feb…it would give you a reason to keep dry-firing and will give you a nice jumpstart to next season. Just a thought.

    Oh, and if it were me, I would test the Taurus Slim. The one I got my hands on at ’09 SHOT had a great trigger and wonderful feel in the hand. You can’t beat a little 9mm.

  10. Most guns at SHOT have great triggers though – by the time I get to them, they’ve been dry fired by about 1,589,387 times.

    The Taurus 9mm is actually a pretty good idea though. If the Bersa wins, which it looks like it’s going to do, I’ll try to get a Slim out of Taurus and a Pro from Bersa and shoot ’em up together.

  11. Whichever you choose needs to be louder than your chattering teeth.

    I’m looking forward to seeing the video of a Caleb-shaped snowdrift ejecting empty cases, though.

    🙂

  12. I like the idea of the Taurus and/or Bersa test. The vast majority of complaints against those guns is that because they cost $1-200 less than a comparable (insert brand name of Well-known WonderNine here), they can’t be any good. It’d interesting to have some empirical data on this.

  13. 1851 Colt Navy?

    Okay, that’s just plain evil of me. Go with the LCR, it is worthy to be either subject or victim of your test.

    Given the .38 spl. cartridge, what sort of loads might you anticipate running through the beastie?

    Jim
    Sunk New Dawn
    Galveston, TX

  14. I voted LCR. I want to know how well all that polymer holds up.

    I would be also very interested to hear how the Ruger SR9 holds up.

  15. If I did the LCR, I’d try to run as much “carry” ammo through it as possible. In a perfect world, I’d split 50/50 between mild practice loads and +P defensive loads.

  16. I voted for The Judge just ’cause I wanna see how much YOU can take. Ten thousand rounds of both .410 AND .45LC will be an excellent test of both gun and shooter. Have fun.

  17. Maybe I am nuts here but I would love to see you it with a .22lr pistol. You could afford to maybe even do 50k rounds. Say a ruger Mark II or Buckmark.

  18. I already have a good idea how a Taurus would fare…… I am curious about the LCR, though.

  19. The LCR needs a torture test – it’s the first polymer framed revolver that I’ve heard of. Nobody’s done that before, and we need to see how that frame design with the heavily fluted cylinder holds up over time.

  20. I don’t think there is any real advantage to burning through carry-ammo.

    Why not run through 25,000 rounds of standard ammo. And if it survives. Run through some really hot custom loads and see how many rounds it survives.

  21. caleb: of the nearly 3000 votes, how many unique IP addresses voted? How many of us took a shot at Chicago style voting, (“vote early, vote often”) ?

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