Two hammers and one sear wear out on a Kimber Custom Classic 1911 made in Clackamus. Kimber replaced the hammers but not the sear. When I took the pistol to Camp Perry and asked the Marine Armorer’s to do a trigger job, they made me get a milled/forged sear because they said the MIM sear had worn so much. So, I went to the Springfield Armory pavilion on Commercial row and purchased one of their forged sears.
I have not been a fan of MIM parts since then.
I purchased this new when it was a first year stainless Superblack Hawk. Early 1980’s. I must have dry fired this Ruger 44 Mag 50,000 times, and shot it thousands of times,
And then the transfer bar broke. It did fail safe.
The transfer bar on a FIE Hombre 44 Magnum revolver broke.
https://gunvalues.gundigest.com/f-i-e/4842/hombre/ this pistol was a poor copy of a Colt SAA, and the transfer bar was as thin as a spaghetti noodle and just as twisted, it was a poor design. FIE sent me a replacement, and since it was only time till it broke again, I traded that Hombre for a S&W M25-7 and boot.
This one, a pre 64 M70 target rifle. Cloward stock and handstop.
The cocking piece nose broke at the range. It no go bang till I had a Tubb cocking piece nose installed.
This is one of the few weaknesses of the M70 design, that cocking piece nose will break.
Yesterday at a match I mentioned that gunsmith James K Cloward, Lake Stevens WA, must have passed away. I wanted an extra Cloward handstop, which is the handstop in the picture, and Mr Cloward’s phone number no longer works, and the letter I sent to his shop never got answered. Mr Cloward was a National Highpower Champion in the late 1960’s and won the Wimbleton cup in 1976. RIP. My last supply source was Otto K Webber, who passed away in 2019.
I have had Garand firing pins and extractors break at the range. However I had been told these items did break, so I collected spare parts for a repair kit and was able to dig into my shooting stool and pull out an extractor, the extractor springs (which were ejected into the grass), and when the firing pin broke, I had a spare on hand.
I have seen lots of trigger malfunctions with AR15’s and the military trigger. Before good two stage triggers became available, shooters would perform trigger jobs on the single stage military trigger, and they would always wear and go full auto at a match. That also happened with M1 and M1a triggers.
I helped replace one push feed M70 extractor on the firing line during a match. Both the M700 and M70 push feed extractors wear and then the rifle won’t eject the round. Luckily the match director was a gunsmith, had a box of M70 extractors, and I helped the shooter push the plunger, slide the extractor out, and install a new one. If your M700 extractor goes, you better have an extra bolt in your shooting stool, as those extractors are not line replaceable units.
If your gas rings wear out on an AR15, you can still manually cycle the rifle, but I never replaced rings at the range.
The back end of this stainless steel firing pin deformed to the point the pistol would not go bang. Luckily I had a backup pistol at the Bullseye match.
In this application I do not need corrosion resistant firing pin as much as a impact resistant firing pin, so I purchased a Volquartsen tool steel firing pin and everything is fine.