Good Experiences with Saturday Night Specials?

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Kiln

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Hey guys, I've got several cheap guns now along side my $600+ stuff. Among my collection are a couple of RG revolvers, a Raven, a Phoenix HP22, and several other various guns from cheap manufacturers.

Long term durability is obviously not going to be great with $75-$120 guns but for occasional shooting they work great as long as they're clean.

Anybody else have good experiences with cheap guns or am I getting the only functional junk guns in the entire world? I'm interested in hearing your experiences with cheap guns that are actually positive.
 
I had a buddy give me a Jenning's .22 one time. I took it to the range and it literally jammed every other shot for 3 mags. I then figured out I was holding too high on the grip and the slide was barely contacting my hand as it cycled causing feed issues. I lowered my grip position and it functioned somewhat better but still pretty bad. I then polished the holy heck out of the feed ramp and basically everywhere within the frame and slide where metal contacted metal and ever since then as long as I held it correctly and only used mini mags, it performed flawlessly over probably around 600-700 rounds before I passed it on to another buddy of mine. It turned our to be a very reliable and fun little pistol!
 
Years ago a buddy of mine owned what he referred to as a "Saturday Night Special". Memory is a bit muddled but the name "Davis" comes to mind.

He owned a fab shop and put that little clunker in a 100 ton press and mangled it a bit. From the look on his face I always thought that was a pretty good experience for him.
 
Ive owned a couple. Theyve all worked fine granted you treat them rite. Bought a hipoint c9 last month. After I polished the feedramp. the dolls head. tweaked the mag lips. broke the gun in. and keep clean the gun works 100%.
 
My experience with Jennings is that they are cheap, highly reliable single shot pistols with a non-zero probability of multiple shots.

Terrible choice for anyone who can afford ammo and range time, but for poor folk in bad areas they beat the heck out of a sharp stick! Statistically, most defensive use of firearms succeed without a shot being fired. You pays your money and take your chances.
 
I half-melted a Jennings once.

I disassembled it, ruined the barrel with a hacksaw, and packed it in a coal bed in an old steel grill shell. Suitably ventilated and cautiously and lovingly fed accellerant- adulterated fuel, I got it hot enough to liquify anything plastic, chrome, or zinc-and-heaven-knows-what alloy. The rest of the frame and slide de-tempered and warped to the point of never ever mating together again, nd were surprisingly easy to mutilate further with a 3-lb hammer.

All in all, for not having access to thermite at the time, a very thorough and satisfying afternoon of destruction.
 
cannot say that I have.... I bought several ring of fire guns back in the 80's when they were 35-60 bucks NIB. not a single one made it to the 90's...
 
Texan Scott said:
I half-melted a Jennings once.

I disassembled it, ruined the barrel with a hacksaw, and packed it in a coal bed in an old steel grill shell. Suitably ventilated and cautiously and lovingly fed accellerant- adulterated fuel, I got it hot enough to liquify anything plastic, chrome, or zinc-and-heaven-knows-what alloy. The rest of the frame and slide de-tempered and warped to the point of never ever mating together again, nd were surprisingly easy to mutilate further with a 3-lb hammer.

All in all, for not having access to thermite at the time, a very thorough and satisfying afternoon of destruction.
Click to expand...
Well, it took seven whole posts for the a "sawed one in half/burned it/threw it in a lake" comment.

*Hands prize to forum members*

Think we might have set a record here. Lol.
 
I had several Jennings .22s back when they first hit the market at $45.00, couldn't resist trying one out. The ones I had worked fine, but only with CCI Stingers. I carry a P3AT as a BUG now, a lot of people would consider that a SNS, mine works just fine though.
 
Back after the gca of 68 the Raven came out. You could buy them at any pawn shop for $49.95 and they worked better than a lot of much higher priced pistols of the day.
 
Had a Sterling .22LR quite a few years ago, after polishing the feed ramp it performed ok. Also had a Davis derringer in .22Mag. that never would shoot both barrels. Took it back and exchanged it for a .38 Derringer which shot fine, however gave it to my youngest son here a few years ago. He loads it with snake shot for when he goes out prospecting here in the desert. Has to wait for it to cool before he can reload it though, otherwise the empty cases stick in the chambers.
 
My Jennings J22 has been nearly 100% reliable with CCI Stinger; kinda funny to have to feed a cheap pistol one of the more expensive rounds found at most stores, but at least it doen't demand Eley Tenex. It also shoots Aguila SSS but sometimes fails to eject the last empty.

I also was gifted a .25 Raven in 1992. Each year I take the gun and the two loaded magazines to the range, shoot them dry, mentally note POA and POI, clean and reload with fresh ammo. So far it has been 100% reliable. Left clean and untouched for a year.


OK I have seen, handled, and possessed for a while .22 short RG10 and a .32 Clerke First, both of which were inaccurate and low powered even if they did do bang most of the time, and they are out of my sight with no sense of loss. However, when I went into the woods one winter to get a Christmas tree, I did feel the Clerke was more comfort than a knife.
 
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Yeah my RG revolvers are both RG23's. I had an RG10 and I can honestly say that I believe every bad thing said about that particular model. I've said it all over the net but it seems that the later models are better. The RG10 and RG14 were pretty bad guns but I've shot several later RG rimfires and they were much better.

My RG10 on the other hand had the front site fall off, the loading gate break under normal use because of how fragile it was, and had one of the cylinder holes bored so large that I believe it would have been dangerous to actually load said hole.
 
I had a raven .25 about 20 years ago. Would not feed winchester pellet nose but would always feed and fire fmj.
 
Bought a J-22 back in 1987. Has always worked great, though it has admittedly only seen maybe 200-300 rounds. Only time it malfunctioned was the day I found out you should not shoot hyper-velocity ammo through them. A run of a few dozen Stingers ended with the gun field-stripping itself after one. Only other ammo that's been through it is Mini-Mags, which was all I could buy locally back then. Haven't shot it much since.

I have an HP22A I got in 2009. Dandy little shooter, good-feeling, and quite accurate. Like all the little blowbacks, it does prefer ammo with balls, like the aforementioned Mini-Mags.

I'm actually acquiring a Hi-Point C9 as we speak (okay, read/type.) I have taken possession of it two days ago from a friend who is selling it to me to check it out, but I have no immediate opportunity to fire it. I have told him I will pay for it when I see him at work next week. I expect it will need at least some magazine tweaking.
 
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