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Torture Tests


DD123

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Does anyone find torture tests useful?

 

I mean some are, but I find that I there are very few that actually gives me any sort of useful information. Here's what I mean...

 

I remember when I was looking for a new carry gun and after holding a VP9, and the SK, I decided to do a bit more research on them.

 

I don't recall who the "youtube personality" was, but they shot thousands of rounds through the VP9 SK, then dunked it in water, buried it in dirt, sand, then whipped it against the concrete a handful of times and continued shooting it.

 

I guess it's entertaining, but where those kinds of reviews fail for me, is putting thousands of rounds through it without cleaning. At most, I'll have 500 rounds through a gun before I clean it, and only if I'm putting that amount through in one range session.

 

Personally I feel a better example would be to take a freshly lubed and clean gun, dunk it in water, and then shoot it. Then clean it, dunk it in water and throw it in some sand, dirt, or mud. Then shoot it. Does it run? How about cleaning and lubing it, dropping it from a reasonable height and then shooting it. Does it still run? Great, because those are the only possible scenarios that I may actually run into with my EDC.

 

I maintain my firearms very religiously. If I shoot it, it gets cleaned. I shoot competitively, and have put 600 rounds through one of my expensive limited guns, but immediately after coming home, I cleaned it. It ran great and didn't have a hiccup during those 600 rounds. Had that been a two day match, at the end of the first day, I'd have cleaned it.

 

I just think that many of the torture tests we see are pretty unreasonable. Test it along the lines of what most of us will experience carrying day to day. Stuff some lint into the slide rails after cleaning it. Does it run? Awesome.

 

Whipping the gun onto concrete multiple times does nothing for me, just as extremely high round counts and then adding dirt, sand, and mud into the gun don't.

 

That's just my take on it. This is why I tend to like Hickok45. He shoots the gun as it came out of the box, with an initial clean and lube. It would be nice if he tested it as I mentioned above, but he needs to send those guns back so that they can be sold so there's only so much he can do.

 

 

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...

I don't recall who the "youtube personality" was, but they shot thousands of rounds through the VP9 SK, then dunked it in water, buried it in dirt, sand, then whipped it against the concrete a handful of times and continued shooting it.

...

That's just my take on it. This is why I tend to like Hickok45. He shoots the gun as it came out of the box, with an initial clean and lube. It would be nice if he tested it as I mentioned above, but he needs to send those guns back so that they can be sold so there's only so much he can do.

Tim from Military Arms Channel does dirt and water tests like you describe. If I believed in the testing method fully, then striker-fired guns are superior to hammer-fired guns, because hammer-fired guns jam when you pack dirt and sand between the hammer and the firing pin. I'm disinclined to buy that.

 

Hickok OTOH seems never to have met a gun he didn't like (until recently, maybe it's the lack of NRA funding). He doesn't like the new Colt Python, because he managed to jam the hammer and cylinder. TYM points out you can do that to any revolver if you don't let the trigger reset fully. I think Hickok is good for seeing how any particular gun operates. Otherwise, Hickok just promotes Bud's.

 

My version of a torture test is to get a gun hotter than it will see in a normal range trip. If it still runs after three or four magazines shot rapid fire, it's good to go.

Then I go home and clean it.

I think that's probably a reasonable test. If a gun is going to malfunction, it's more likely to do it at a high repetition rate, which may or may not be related to overheating. Then you need to find a range that'll let you do it, which is a different issue. You don't actually have to melt it down, though.

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To me it's interesting to see how dirty an AR15 can get before it starts malfunctioning. I've only watched a couple, and they were on BCM rifles. Both of them on youtube, one by AK Operators Union and the other Military Arms Channel.

For me it's not. There are so many variables with AR's that you couldn't possibly cover them all.

 

What if you built your own using a variety of parts? What about the thousand different manufacturers with the thousands of different configurations. I think for a test like that to give me something useful, it would need to be pertinent to something I have, or am interested in buying.

 

Using me as an example, I have an upper that I spent a great deal of money on piecing together specifically for 3 gun. The upper is a nickel boron coated upper to reduce wear, adjustable gas, Armalite tunable brake, stretch 16 barrel, raptor charging handle, and a skeletonized titanium BCG with TiN coated titanium firing pin. When I describe this upper to non competitive shooters they say "I'd never trust my life to that rifle because it tuned on a fine line where if it gets dirty, it'll start malfunctioning". I haven't had a malfunction with it. But for a torture test, I'd be SOL trying to find something similar.

 

The test you describe is interesting, but because of the variables involved with AR's, to me it's not providing much useful information.

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My version of a torture test is to get a gun hotter than it will see in a normal range trip. If it still runs after three or four magazines shot rapid fire, it's good to go.

Then I go home and clean it.

Yep, run it like it'll potentially be run in an SD scenario. Unfortunately that would make for a very short video lol

 

ETA: "Welcome to my channel, today we review (insert whatever gun) today. *Loads mag* pop pop pop pop pop pop pop. *Does reload* pop pop pop pop pop pop pop *Does reload* pop pop pop pop pop pop pop *Does final reload* pop pop pop pop pop pop pop. Well as you can see folks, she runs like a dream. Tune in next time when we review (insert whatever gun)". :lol:

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...

I don't recall who the "youtube personality" was, but they shot thousands of rounds through the VP9 SK, then dunked it in water, buried it in dirt, sand, then whipped it against the concrete a handful of times and continued shooting it.

...

That's just my take on it. This is why I tend to like Hickok45. He shoots the gun as it came out of the box, with an initial clean and lube. It would be nice if he tested it as I mentioned above, but he needs to send those guns back so that they can be sold so there's only so much he can do.

Tim from Military Arms Channel does dirt and water tests like you describe. If I believed in the testing method fully, then striker-fired guns are superior to hammer-fired guns, because hammer-fired guns jam when you pack dirt and sand between the hammer and the firing pin. I'm disinclined to buy that.

 

Hickok OTOH seems never to have met a gun he didn't like (until recently, maybe it's the lack of NRA funding). He doesn't like the new Colt Python, because he managed to jam the hammer and cylinder. TYM points out you can do that to any revolver if you don't let the trigger reset fully. I think Hickok is good for seeing how any particular gun operates. Otherwise, Hickok just promotes Bud's.

 

 

You do have to take them all with a grain of salt. The reason I brought up Hickok is because he's doing what we'd all do with a new gun...give her a cleaning and lube, then take it out to the range to shoot.

 

For carry, the only reason I prefer striker fired over hammer fired is mainly due to Murphy's law. With more parts, come more points of failure. Striker fired guns are very simple, and have fewer parts than a 1911. Nothing wrong with a 1911, but there are more parts to them, and if it hasn't been tuned, you have a higher likelihood of experiencing a jam than with most other guns. I typically take people's feedback on guns with a grain of salt though because I've personally witnessed multiple people tell others that "I've never experienced a malfunction with this gun", when I've personally seen the same guns malfunction on them lol.

 

I'm brutally honest about guns. My 6" GP100 had a binding cylinder at roughly the 600 round mark. I sent it into Ruger, they fixed it, and now I have about 1600 through it without issue. I don't recall what exactly it was that they replaced, but I've since had the gun actually tuned, and it's more enjoyable to shoot.

 

Those crazy torture tests I referred to were entertaining, but not very helpful.

 

I think a combo of what TRJ said, while letting the gun cool off, cleaning it, and then replicating that with dunking it in water and doing it again. Cleaning again, then dunking in water and tossing it into sand, dirt, mud, whatever and running 3-4 mags through it quickly again.

 

I'm sure some folks shoot their carry guns at the range, load up their SD ammo in the dirty gun, holster, and then carry it like that until their next range trip, and then do it again until it gets to the point where they figure it's time to clean. For me personally, that's not a habit of mine so tests starting with a clean and lubed gun are far more helpful.

 

Like I said though, those videos are entertaining lol. "Check this out, we're gonna see how many rounds we can shoot before we melt the barrel". Umm, okay? lol

 

ETA: regarding the striker vs hammer fired. One additional point of failure is a big piece of lint getting stuck between the hammer and firing pin. Probably not likely to happen, but that's another way a failure can happen. I'd imagine it would deaden the hammer fall enough to not touch off a primer.

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Tourture tests are interesting, but I think they should be taken with a grain of salt. I've known people in the market for a carry piece who have chosen to buy gun A over gun B because gun A did better when covered in mud on a particular tourture test. But then you can easily find another tourture test for the same guns where the results are reveresed.

 

Seriously though, what are the chances that you're going to need to use your carry gun while it's saturated in mud? That shouldn't even be a factor in your decision IMO.

 

A better test for a carry gun would be to actually carry it around for a few months, get it covered sweat and lint, and then try to shoot it.

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Hickok OTOH seems never to have met a gun he didn't like (until recently, maybe it's the lack of NRA funding). He doesn't like the new Colt Python, because he managed to jam the hammer and cylinder. TYM points out you can do that to any revolver if you don't let the trigger reset fully. I think Hickok is good for seeing how any particular gun operates. Otherwise, Hickok just promotes Bud's.

IMO hes the embodiment of the statement that there are very few bad guns these days. With enough practice anyone can be deadly reliable with just about any modern firearm.

 

A good example, adjusted for inflation, you can buy a Ruger LCP 380 for the same price a Lorcin 380 sold for back in the day.

 

I feel the same way about torture tests, new guns hold up amazingly well. It seems like when a gun is unreliable its not the design but the manufacturer flubbed a model run. Yet even when that happens they always make it right. In the ring of Fire days when a company put out a bad gun theyd just reincorporate under another family member or employees name.

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Tourture tests are interesting, but I think they should be taken with a grain of salt. I've known people in the market for a carry piece who have chosen to buy gun A over gun B because gun A did better when covered in mud on a particular tourture test. But then you can easily find another tourture test for the same guns where the results are reveresed.

 

Seriously though, what are the chances that you're going to need to use your carry gun while it's saturated in mud? That shouldn't even be a factor in your decision IMO.

 

A better test for a carry gun would be to actually carry it around for a few months, get it covered sweat and lint, and then try to shoot it.

Mud is unrealistic, but slamming the gun over and over again on the concrete, then running over it with a pickup truck seems less realistic.

 

What are some conditions that most of us can potentially run into while carrying?

 

- It's raining. So wet is a useful test.

 

- You drop the gun from a realistic height, waist high, perhaps even eye level. Probably not going to affect it at all, but dropping a gun when shot could be realistic.

 

- You're in a hand to hand fight and the gun winds up coming loose and gets covered in dirt/sand. Realistic, however if you're losing control of your gun, then the gun being dirty is likely the least of your concerns, and highlights the need for actual hand to hand self defense training.

 

I like the lint idea, and think that can actually be easily tested. Grab some dryer lint, wet it, then pack it into spots that would normally attract lint.

 

I actually inadvertently tested the lint, sweat, etc., on a gun last summer. I had carried my LCP in my pocket holster, easily for 6-8 months without cleaning it, or lubing it. It's not my typical MO for guns I own, but for whatever reason it didn't occur to me that I hadn't maintained it. I realized it after some time and during my next range trip, I took it out of the pocket holster, and fired the rounds that were in the gun and that mag. No issues. I typically lube my guns really well, and after shooting it, I stripped it down to clean and noticed that there was plenty of lube still on it. I wasn't worried that it wouldn't run because the LCP isn't exactly built like a bullseye pistol with extremely tight lockup. I'd be more concerned with tight 1911's or similarly tight guns and lint becoming an issue.

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Hickok OTOH seems never to have met a gun he didn't like (until recently, maybe it's the lack of NRA funding). He doesn't like the new Colt Python, because he managed to jam the hammer and cylinder. TYM points out you can do that to any revolver if you don't let the trigger reset fully. I think Hickok is good for seeing how any particular gun operates. Otherwise, Hickok just promotes Bud's.

IMO hes the embodiment of the statement that there are very few bad guns these days. With enough practice anyone can be deadly reliable with just about any modern firearm.

 

A good example, adjusted for inflation, you can buy a Ruger LCP 380 for the same price a Lorcin 380 sold for back in the day.

 

I feel the same way about torture tests, new guns hold up amazingly well. It seems like when a gun is unreliable its not the design but the manufacturer flubbed a model run. Yet even when that happens they always make it right. In the ring of Fire days when a company put out a bad gun theyd just reincorporate under another family member or employees name.

 

Most modern guns do run well out of the box. I don't think I've ever shot a gun that didn't run when I took it out of the box, cleaned and lubed it, and then took it to the range. No malfunctions, nothing.

 

I generally like to have my buddy and gunsmith go through the gun to remove machining/chatter marks, and basically clean up the gun from the manufacturing process since most manufacturers don't.

 

The thing that surprised me the most regarding this subject is when I bought an STI DVC Limited. The gun cost me about $2800, and I had to pour another $600 in tuning and parts into it before I began using it competitively. The slide felt like crap, almost like they hadn't done a good job with doing the finishing touches on the gun. It surprised me that for that amount of money, it still needed tuning. Even the trigger pull felt terrible, almost like there was sand in the gun. That was all resolved, and I've probably spent another few hundred on modifying it even further as I learned what I liked. In comparison, I had a full custom gun made and it was ready to run out of the box, well technically there wasn't a box since it was built specifically for me, but you know what I mean. I'm having another built right now as a backup. This is a different class of guns though, so kind of off topic a bit.

 

I even poured some cash into the VP9 SK I bought. I wanted Trijicon night sights on it, as well as having the gun gone over with a fine tooth comb. Even though the gun will run right out of the box, I enjoy having it feel a little better from a trigger pull perspective, as well as cleaning up the internals. I don't know how to do this myself, so I have someone do it for me that I trust to do it perfectly.

 

I think when you look at the gun buying market at large, how many do what I do? Under 10%? I'm sure the vast majority buy the gun, clean it, shoot it, then carry it without any sort of tuning done. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm very picky about my guns, in particular with striker fired because there's only so much you can modify on them to customize the gun to fit your hand and trigger finger. It took my a while to find a carry gun with a trigger length that matches what I use in my competition guns.

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Guns that didn't run out of the box....

 

1) Sig P290RS

2) Auto Ordinance (Kahr) M1 Carbine

3) S&W M&P 15

4) B&T APC9

 

These were all bought in the past decade. They either needed breaking in, or to go back to the factory for polishing on ramps (which seems like breaking in, just the express version). Always test your guns for function. Get them smoking hot then use your defensive ammo to verify that it runs while hot with that.

 

I've since sold the Sig after the factory fixed it, broken in the M1c with 300 rounds and found good magazines, sold the M&P 15 that just needed breaking in, and sold the APC9 because it didn't want to run HST ( but it was a sewing machine with ball).

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I've only had one 'regret buy' handgun in over 50 years of buying them - a Beretta 21a Bobcat rimfire. I could never get that durn thing to run two full mags without some kind of jam. It became someone else's problem after a gun show sale a while back and the money went towards a CMP Garand.

 

All my other firearms have run just fine and dandy since day one of ownership, no major issues, and I don't recall spending more than about $700 on any of them. Mostly I buy in the $300-$500 price range and don't do anything to a new gun beyond an initial clean & lube.

 

I think torture tests are pretty meaningless beyond showing that the tester has the discretionary $$ to blow it on wrecking a good gun.

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Guns that didn't run out of the box....

 

1) Sig P290RS

2) Auto Ordinance (Kahr) M1 Carbine

3) S&W M&P 15

4) B&T APC9

 

Interesting. I also have an M&P 15 which didn't run correctly out of the box. It's very finicky with mags and runs best with PMAGS. Using any other mags causes repeated jamming and feed issues, making the gun worthless. Even with the PMAGS, I probably get one or two jams per mag. It's probably something simple and I need to take the time to figure it out. I suspect feed ramps, or possibly a weak buffer spring.

 

On the other hand, I built an AR 15 from scratch and it has run perfectly with no malfunctions, no matter what mags I use.

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Does anyone find torture tests useful?

 

I don't recall who the "youtube personality" was, but they shot thousands of rounds through the VP9 SK, then dunked it in water, buried it in dirt, sand, then whipped it against the concrete a handful of times and continued shooting it.

 

Personally I feel a better example would be to take a freshly lubed and clean gun, dunk it in water, and then shoot it. Then clean it, dunk it in water and throw it in some sand, dirt, or mud. Then shoot it. Does it run? How about cleaning and lubing it, dropping it from a reasonable height and then shooting it. Does it still run? Great, because those are the only possible scenarios that I may actually run into with my EDC.

 

 

BH Spring Solutions (THE new High Power go to guys) did a 6000 round torture test of the then new (Turkish) Tisas BR9, a High Power clone, in 2018. The test was patterned after the US Military trials for the 1911 a century ago. There had been a few owner reports of failures (the extractor broke at 362 rounds in mine) so they wanted to determine if it was a reliable High Power. It is... with a few replacement parts. I had already guessed this was the case after running 1000 rounds through mine, having already become pretty familiar with High Powers.

 

BHSS also wrote a critical review of the Tisas BR9. This was far more valuable than your typical YouTube torture test.

 

The importer released a video where a shooter fired a couple magazines, dropped the pistol in a muddy puddle and resumed firing... changed mags, etc.

 

In my much shorter "torture" test, my own real world test, there was no bucket of ice water and the pistol was cleaned after each range trip. My extractor broke after the pistol had heated up to the point that it was too hot to handle the slide.

 

It was interesting for me to note that the BR9 performed well under conditions more extreme than I expect I will ever encounter and failed at about the same point mine did.

 

So yes... I find some value in "torture tests"... in conjunction with my own testing.

 

 

 

On another note... a plug for BHSS:

For the High Power and a few other pistols, especially high quality springs for the 1911 or if you've always wanted a safety for your Glock, you should definitely check out BHSS.

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