What is the worst revolver you have ever owned?

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I thought that the answer to my topbreak .22 quest would be a Harrington Richardson 999 Sportsman. That bubble burst pretty quick. My first impression was that the revolve was smaller and more light weight than images suggested. The hammer had side play , the da trigger was much worse than I had anticipated , (I was not expecting much , but UGH...) , the takedown mechanism was flimsy. I got tired of being stung in the face on a regular basis.

I moved it along and replaced it with an Iver Johnson Sealed Eight Super Shot. It is everything I was looking for in a well built old topbreak.

Happy ending pictured. IMG_0161(1).jpg
 
An R/G .38 that was inside a hollow book that was donated to my library. The zamak frame had stretched to the point that the barrel would wobble on its pin. Also, the front sight could be twisted around backwards by finger pressure.
I was never brave enough to actually fire it.
Oddly enough, the timing appeared to be dead on and the trigger pull was excellent.
 
Had big problems with my m206 Armscor revolvers.. The timing was way off right out of the box on the first and I sent it back. It would shave jackets right back into your face. My Wife spent 30 minutes digging out a sliver of jacket out my ear lobe that caught the pillow at 3am. I then had the worlds worst experience with Rock Island Armory. First the gun was lost in the shop and then when found it took 7 weeks for them to finally tell me that they were sending a new one to replace it. I never bothered them about it until after the 6th week. At that time several of my calls were lost while I was being shuffled around from person to person. It took a combination of my Dealer putting a guy on the phone every day after the 6th week and then I finally had to call them out on their facebook page to find out where my m206 was.


I finally received the replacement and it ran fine fine for about 50 rounds and then the timing went off again and it would dent the case around the primer in DA. This was all right at my dealers range. He sent the replacement gun back and received another replacement that was literally one of the worst looking guns I have ever seen. The gun looked like it had been drug on gravel and locked up tighter than spit at 100 rounds or so. The dealer sent it to a pistolsmith for me and he fixed it. When handing it over he looked my right in the eye and said sell it as soon as I could.. I totally lost my ass on it. I could have spent $500-$600 on a higher end revolver and been out ahead. Such a shame..it really was a nice looking gun but definitely not a reliable firearm.

Everytime I pick up a gun or buy a gun at that dealer he and I relive the whole fiasco.

I do have some RIA 1911's and they have been ok for the most part save for a front site drifting off but the dealer fixed that for me.
 
I'm pretty sure it was actually called the FIE Titan Tiger, not Titanic. But a lot of them had problems. I had an FIE blank gun that didn't work well either. I took it apart to smooth up the insides and was able after a few tries to get it working pretty well.

Nope, it's a Titanic...like the ship. I've still got the gun. This isn't it, but one that sold on GunsAmerica. Heck , maybe it's the one I bought! Watch out for icebergs!!

https://www.gunsamerica.com/952682230/FIE-Titanic-32-S-W-Long-FAIR-CONDITION.htm
 
When I've bought lower quality revolvers, I've known what I was getting into, and taking a purposeful exploration - kinda like going slumming, as I've been told.

But when it comes to revolvers which I had high hopes, but then became markedly disappointed, only one comes to mind - I can't abide the Ruger Bearcat. A petite single action 22LR sure seems like a lot of fun, but I found it to be a disaster for handling, balance, loading, and unloading of empties. Hated the revolver the entire time I had it. The Shopkeeper almost made me forget my better judgement and get another, but cooler-heads prevailed and resisted temptation.

So the problem with the Bearcat for me wasn’t low quality or poor execution, but rather a terrible design reality for its application.
 
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Ruger Old Model Blackhawk 7.5" blue in .30 Carbine...Worst muzzle blast from a revolver ever..flame thrower because of unburnt powder from a cartridge designed to be shot out of a carbine - length barrel...
 
Ruger Old Model Blackhawk 7.5" blue in .30 Carbine...Worst muzzle blast from a revolver ever..flame thrower because of unburnt powder from a cartridge designed to be shot out of a carbine - length barrel...


HMMM, didn't you see that coming before you bought it???
 
One of the worst I tested (I had intended to purchase it) was a Colt New Frontier in .45 Colt. Chambers were all consistently oversized but all differing measurements. It shot patterns. I was very disappointed. It did however look great...
 
Best & worst in the same model.
Ruger 44 mag Blackhawk 7'' barrel.
The first one I owned was easily a 100 yard revolver that was excellent function & accuracy, the year
I can't exactly put it for sure but about 1978 to 1980.
Wore it completely out & got another just like it brand new like the other & right off the rear sight had to
be set all the way to my left & it barley got on paper, & besides that it didn't group at all.
I was dumb back then & didn't try to return it for another like I should have, to this day I don't remember
what I ever did with it.
 
Best & worst in the same model.
Ruger 44 mag Blackhawk 7'' barrel.
The first one I owned was easily a 100 yard revolver that was excellent function & accuracy, the year
I can't exactly put it for sure but about 1978 to 1980.
Wore it completely out & got another just like it brand new like the other & right off the rear sight had to
be set all the way to my left & it barley got on paper, & besides that it didn't group at all.
I was dumb back then & didn't try to return it for another like I should have, to this day I don't remember
what I ever did with it.


I'm wondering what it took to wear out that Ruger. I used to shoot silhouettes, and those guns took thousands of rounds of heavy loads and still stayed in the game.....
 
That was 40 years ago & I can't remember the most ammo I used , but it was about an every day thing,
plus my cousin was reloading for it. Also you can add the [dumb] I mentioned of myself earlier & mix
all that together for a possible multitude of suspects or combination of all.
 
A Harrington & Richardson Model 1905. Looked exactly like this 00722_r.jpg

It may have just been too OLD; this gun hasn't been made since the 1940s, after all. It actually did chamber and fir .32 S&W Long like it was supposed too (I made some VERY light handloads!) but spit shave lead back into my face. I bought it for $50 ... and sold ti for $25. :(
 
With out any doubt, the worst gun I ever had was a Taurus Model 85, .38 snub nose. It was given to me by my girlfriend whose father had recently passed away and this one was hidden on the top shelf in his closet and had the worst action I have ever seen in a revolver. Trigger pull was about 15 lbs with a gritty, rough pull. I took it to the first gun show in town and sold it to the first person to greet me at the door. Think I got $250 for it. Gave that to my girlfriend. She was happy, the guy who bought it was happy, and I was happy. Never owned another Taurus.
 
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With out any doubt, the worst gun I ever had was a Taurus Model 85, .38 snub nose. It was given to me by my girlfriend whose father had recently passed away and this one was hidden on the top shelf in his closet and had the worst action I have ever seen in a revolver. Trigger pull was about 15 lbs with a gritty, rough pull. I took it to the first gun show in town and sold it to the first person to greet me at the door. Think I got $250 for it. Gave that to my girlfriend. She was happy, the guy who bought it was happy, and I was happy. Never owned any Taurus.
Sounds like Phil—-happy, happy, happy:)
 
A Taurus 66 .357 mag. Stainless steel, it was beautiful. Well polished. Reliable. The only problem was that it had no chambers had no throats. It was as if someone drilled six holes in a piece of steel. You could drop six bullets, one into each chamber, and they'd just drop through. The targets I shot were well grouped...if I had been shooting from 150 yards! When cleaning, I couldn't feel the tapering in the chambers. It was really too bad because the gun was so beautiful.
 
Bought a Taurus 941 22 Mag. to teach my grandson to shoot. Wouldn't shoot more than 16 rds. before the cylinder would lock up.
Sent it back to Taurus, got it back and it wasn't any better.
Took it back to the shop I bought it from. Took a $100.00 loss and traded for a Ruger Target with a 6 7/8 bbl.
Best thing I ever did.
 
Bought and/or traded for several Taurus revolvers back in the day (20+ years ago). None were very good, some were awful. Their latest offerings seem much better but those old experiences put me off another one. Always had good luck with Colts, S&W and Rugers, though.
 
Best & worst in the same model.
Ruger 44 mag Blackhawk 7'' barrel.
The first one I owned was easily a 100 yard revolver that was excellent function & accuracy, the year
I can't exactly put it for sure but about 1978 to 1980.
Wore it completely out & got another just like it brand new like the other & right off the rear sight had to
be set all the way to my left & it barley got on paper, & besides that it didn't group at all.
I was dumb back then & didn't try to return it for another like I should have, to this day I don't remember
what I ever did with it.

Back in those years knew two fellers in east ILLinois that were serious Steel critter poppers that bought 10 (ten) new Superblack Hawks. They then set to shooting those 10. After testing sold the 6 (six) worse shooters. The two best became their "match" guns. The other two were for practice.
I shot a Dan Wesson .357 mag with a 10 inch barrel for my first two years. Used a 180 grain GC with W296. Then switched to a DW .41 mag 8 inch. Still the most accurate revolver I have ever had.
But my worse... My first revolver was an RG 38 Special. It always fired somewhere. As we said in armor "good area coverage".
 
North American Arms 22lr. Don't look at me wrong I love this gun, but the main spring in mine only lasts a hundred rounds or so before it blows up. It's also a huge PITA to replace the mainspring if you try to do it yourself. The 22 magnum main spring is much easier to replace.

I saw a Taurus 357 mag ( not sure what model) at the range that was ported , on just one side of the barrel !

That's interesting, I didn't see that but I found the same gun with porting drilled horrible uneven at a gun shop once. When I asked the gun shop owner about it he said that's how it was designed. Sure.
 
I don't know about worst revolver, but the absolute dumbest revolver I've ever owned was a 8 3/8" barreled, full-lug S&W 617 in .22LR. Not only was it insanely muzzle heavy, it wasn't that much of a shooter, either.

Wow. That WAS on my list to get, but I decided against it since I have a lot of Glock 22 LR guns.
 
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