The latest handgun to go through MAC’s world famous four-stage torture test is the CZ P10C 9mm. SPOILER ALERT: the Czech striker-fired gun performed admirably. It took the full gauntlet course of water, sand, dirt and mud to finally make it choke, and even then MAC managed to coax six rounds from the gunk-packed pistol.

Does that give you the warm fuzzies about the reliability of the P10C? Why wouldn’t it? As MAC is quick to advise his legion of viewers, the full gauntlet course isn’t a real-world test, it’s designed to push the limits of the gun. But it’s a reasonably objective measure of how a handgun performs under some extremely adverse conditions.

Most of us, of course, will never subject our guns to anything like those kinds of conditions. Harvey and Irma responders may give their guns a good dunking in filthy, brackish water, but again, that’s an extreme case. What’s the worst abuse you’ve ever put one of your handguns through?

 

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49 COMMENTS

    • Well that works.
      I left my SW mod 14 with so called friends. When rescued was covered in rusty finger prints. Oh, was I pissed.

  2. Generally speaking, I take very good care of my tools – especially the ones I have sentimental attachment to. Hmmm, well my EDC seems to fall on the floor occasionally, does that count?

  6. A gun I cared about was when I slipped and dropped a Ruger M77 coyote calling. It was the dead of winter about 10 below and I was climbing down near the middle of a steep arroyo. The gun slid down in the light powdery snow and hit some rocks on the way down. Cleaned out the snow and dirt and tested it out on a stop sign a little later, it shot like a champ with no issues other than some cosmetic dings on the wood. The Leupold scope was just fine as well. Gives the gun some character. As for a gun that I don’t care about, a little Remington 597 truck gun that has been through hell and back and still runs like a champ with very little maintenance and lots of abuse.
    I would never knowingly submerge a gun in water if I could avoid it. Feel sorry for those of you who live in flood prone areas.

  7. Forgot to clean my mosin after i shot corrosive ammo through it at the range.
    Yeah piece of advice. Dont do that.
    Took forever to clean it up and a trip to the ‘smithy to give it a once over before i shot it again.

  8. My two go to abuse guns for hurricanes (Florida) and other extreme activities is my bare bones underfold AKM and my XD .45. (Bought way before their treason). Both have endured a fair amount of mud and moisture. The only malfunctions I’ve had with either were due to old magazines or ammo related.

  9. My SKS got drenched once, the bolt cover was rusty and pitted. I cleaned it up with some #320 sandpaper and applied some cold blue. The bolt was also affected- buffed it with a fine wire wheel. Upon disassembly I found no other sign of water damage.
    Good as new!

    Unrelated incident: Do not rely on WD40 to provide rust protection.

  11. Your test is flawed how do we know the drop safety works until you hit the back of the slide with a hammer five-six times.

  13. On my first duck hunt probably 12 or 13 I unknowingly plugged up the muzzle of our ancient Ithaca 37 12 gauge with mud. Fired it and other than a huge blast of mud it seemed fine however since then it no longer ejects. The shells stay stuck in the chamber and have to be hammered out. What is bizarre is we took it to a well reputed gunsmith who had zero issues with it. I have tried many different brands and load sizes over the years and they all get stuck. I suppose a new barrel would take care of it but it’s been retired.

  14. Being relatively new to firearms, the only real “abuse” story I can share is the time I bought a spare barrel to teach myself how to polish a feed ramp and to duracoat the barrel itself. Yeah, it wasn’t an A+ result on either effort. It was only a $20 barrel to a cheap gun that I don’t even own (a Phoenix Arm HP25), so no great loss. But, I think I will leave such work to the professionals in the future.

  15. Ugh. I’m embarrassed to say, because it violated the spirit of the four rules, if not the letter. But here goes:

    I was shooting my FNAR and had a FTF. I was on the shot timer, so instead of a regular malfunction drill I stupidly used the bolt handle like a foreword assist and rammed the bugger home. It still didn’t go into battery, but now wouldn’t extract. I used all my strength; it wouldn’t budge. After struggling a long time, I began beating the bolt handle as hard as I could on the edge of the table. I mean, I was really swingin’ this thing. Like, I had to wind up and smash it on the table. The cartridge popped out and I saw it had a dented case. It bound up in the chamber when I tried assisting it into battery because of the dent.

    After taking the gun completely apart I found no peening on the parts that lock the handle and bolt together. It still runs great, has had a few thousand rounds through it, and is amazingly accurate. To date that’s the only time it’s malfunctioned. At the time, it was just a new gun. It’s grown to be my favorite.

  16. I abuse the crap out of my guns…

    Don’t clean them after shooting. Take them to training classes and run the piss out of them. Shoot cheap ammo out of them. Drop them. Hit them against things. Hunt with them. Hike with them. Carry them regularly, so dirt, water, lint, and sweat get on them. You name it.

    I don’t waste my time and money on high maintenance vehicles, guns, or women.

  17. I carry at 4:30-5:00. Had to use a public bathroom once while carrying and the grip touched the outside of the bowl. All I could think about was getting home to put some isopropyl alcohol on it.

  18. My often apparent lack of grip consistency session to session and trying to blame the poor accuracy results on the machine and not my lack of hand to firearm discipline.

  19. My issued rifle, Okinawa Japan, mud, sweat, and salt water.

    Some rusted so bad that the iron sights popped apart.

    My personal weapons? pistol fell from a shelf, unloaded and in its case. Rifle got a little sweaty.

  20. I once had to use my Benelli Nova for a wading staff after the tide came in duck hunting. Was kind of entertaining finding plant material inside when I took it apart. Still works great.

  21. 25 years ago, I had my one and only bad reloading mistake. I loaded up some very light .45 target loads with cast bullets. I failed to put powder in one. When I fired it in my 1911, the primer was able to drive the bullet about an inch down the barrel, where it stuck. I had a stovepipe and cycled the action. I didn’t see a new hole in the target, and assumed I’d put it through the already ragged hole I’d made. I fired again. The recoil was odd, and the pistol wouldn’t go back into battery, with the slide stopping about a half inch back. Couldn’t get it to go forward at all. I field stripped it, didn’t see anything wrong (didn’t look down the barrel), and put it back together with the same result.

    I took it apart when I got home, looked down the barrel, and saw a ring. The second bullet came up behind the first, and compressed the Air enough to ring the barrel, right under the locking lugs. Both bullets exited the barrel. My dad sent me a spare barrel, and the 1911 was back in business. That was a hard lesson. I was damned lucky that the gun didn’t come apart in my face. I keep that barrel on my reloading bench, and take a peek down the bore every time I start to load, to remind me not be a dumbass again.

  22. damn I feel dumb, remington model 783 chambered in good ol’ 30/06 springfield. first time taking out, freshly lubed and clean, brand new scope, fresh bore sight- In. I know, ugly, but definitely a good, budget hunting rifle, I was “careless” and set a new rifle, with bare buttstock on the passenger floorboard and barrel and most of the scope on the seat….

    where I shoot is six miles from my door, the last two miles being almost 4×4 rough dirt road. all went well on pavement, and I started up the side of a mountain, without thinking…

    as I’m climbing my way in my little 4×4, the rifle bounces, and drops the barrel into my center console, where I had a full rt.44 sweet iced tea from sonic drive in, the barrel of the rifle splitting the Styrofoam 44oz. cup 2/3 the way down, filling my unfired rifle, and new scope full of sticky, wet sweet tea. to pour salt in my wound, when I opened the door, the entire rifle falls out of my lifted ride, hitting barrel crown on dirt and rocks, summersaulting itself, scope first into the giant boulder convenient for bipod use. hated that day, but the rifle is still overall in great condition, and very accurate.

    I’ve gotten smarter….

  23. My 74u had to endure me pressing rivets in during assembly and some welding when I installed the bolt and ejector rails. That’s a lot of abuse for just a little fella.

  25. The worst abuse I’ve given a gun was just this weekend. During an adventure challenge my 941 Jericho was subjected to being submerged in muddy water, dropped (as part of my pack) onto hard dirt and rocks repeatedly, it was shot quite a bit, and it was exposed to more dust than I would really have thought possible inside the continental USA. It wasn’t cleaned at all during this time.

    Came through like a champ though!

  26. A friend dropped his Ruger Blackhawk into an outhouse. We were in hunting camp and said friend visited the two holer. He took off his jacket and removed the pistol from his belt and put both on the seat next to his. According to his account when he was finished with his business he stood up and grabbed the jacket first.The pistol slid off and went down the hole. We could hear the cussing in the cabin which was a good hundred yards away. Fortunately it was early in the season and the camp wasn’t used much in the summer so the pit was relatively dry.

    We could see the pistol so the big question was how to retrieve it. Friend didn’t like the idea of us tying a rope to his feet and lowering him in. We eventually made a hook shape out of a clothes hanger and duct taped it to the end of a broom handle. After a couple of tries we managed to hook the pistol through the trigger guard (the gun was loaded but the hammer was down) and pull it out of the pit. We threw it into a five gallon bucket of hot water, detergent, and a little Clorox and friend went to work scrubbing. The Clorox didn’t even hurt the bluing and the pistol survived – and was probably cleaner that it had been in years.

  29. The worst abuse any of my guns has ever endured is with my EDC gun. I carry it IWB every day where it gets a good amount of my sweat (and other bodily emissions?) and lint. And I only clean my gun every two months. Poor baby!

  30. Ruger LCR x 3″ in .38 sp. P+, but what I did was a tad more than that: I guess my eyesight has declined, I ran 5 rounds of .38 SUPER through it. I thought it was a little snappy ( I believed they were P+ defensive rounds, and they were, just in super). Just about double the pressure of .38 sp. I was a little freaked out when I figured it all out.
    Both the gun and I seem to be no worse for wear, thank goodness of over engineered, litigation averse products. Could have turned out much worse.

  32. I had a pistol stolen from me in 1992 and returned to me in 2013… rusted and used.
    Cleaned it up and it works fine, but lots of pitting and general wear.

  33. Riding in my fetid pocket or IWB holster on the gulf coast.

    I sweat in the shower so it’s bad….very bad.

  35. ATVing a couple weeks ago. The M&P shield 9 was in a shoulder holster. We got super dusty behind another ATV, then sank ourselves repeatedly in a thick mud hole, then ran at speed through many deep puddles getting DRENCHED, and finally rode all the way back in the dust cloud of the group leader again. We were caked in mud and dust. Took the handgun out that evening before cleaning just for a gut check, and she performed flawlessly with all that grit.

  36. I mistakenly bought a box of Wolf steel cased 5.56 ammo. Realizing my mistake, rather than burying it in swampy soil, I fired it in my Colt AR. I was so ashamed of myself I bought the rifle a dozen roses and a box of chocolates. Even so, my ‘pretty pony’ wouldn’t speak to me for nearly a week.

  37. Ran over my AR once. We were out prairie dog shooting and I stood it against tire while taking a break. Got back in truck and drove off. heard a clunk and knew exactly what happened. Looked in mirror and seen tire mark across action and scope. Old Colt SP1 and Leopold scope came out with just a few more scratches. Just had to re-zero it.

  39. Never abuse my guns. I don’t always clean my ARs right after shooting them but I wouldn’t call that abuse. The worst thing to happen to one of my guns is I had to hammer a stuck reman cartridge out of my Saint AR chamber with a brass rod. Eventually it came out and then I sent it into Springfield for a chamber polish and check-up. Gun still shoots flawlessly and accurately otherwise.

  40. Back in 2016, my guns and I had a damn near heart attack at the thought that Hillary would win the election, and we would all have to go underground.
    Whew!
    I don’t mind telling you- the tears on the faces of those Democrats were better than the sweetest moly lube to me and my guns!

  41. My brother has a Beretta CX4 Storm Carbine in .45. He hadn’t shot it in a while and thought it was a .40. He was in a different lane. After a few magazines, he called me over and said he thought that he had a kaboom. Apparently, the extractor was holding most of the rounds in place for the firing pin. However, on round or case went down the barrel. The next round chambered up against it and was able to be fired. I found the first case and the second bullet in the barrel. The second bullet had an inverse of the head stamp pounded into it. My brother remembered that he had wanted a .40, but he bought a .45 because that was what they had is stock. He bought some .45, and it worked fine.

  42. Whenever I load hay in the summer, doesn’t matter OWB FNX or pocket carry p238 they get filthy and full of sweat…

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