When is it too many......
by Gunner 
, St Louis, Sunday, September 25, 2016, 10:19 (2920 days ago)
The 380 discussion below brought up a topic I have always wondered about.....when is it too much to shoot your carry gun??????
Theory is you shoot your carry gun enough to make sure it is reliable and that it is built good enough to be relied upon. BUT is that amount too many rounds that will start to wear components of the gun to a level close to failure???? With modern steels, manufacturing techniques etc the gun should last a long time. Do you limit the number to 200, 500 or 1,000????
Another but to that....I have seen big name modern guns have failures with low round counts. Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch has a saying about carry guns-
1 is none, 2 is 1
It goes to the thought process of your main gun breaking/failing etc you have a backup to rely on.
This is a big concern of mine with carry guns, do you shoot them a limited amount to ensure they will work when needed and stop short of abuse, wearing out parts! But what is that number? I know people that buy a duplicate carry gun to use for practice to save wear on the main carry one. I know shooters that run a minimum of 1,000 or 2,000 rounds thru a carry gun before they will trust it, had one guy tell me he never carries a handgun with less than 5,000 thru it before he'll trust it. Now that would make me pause with that many rounds thru it.
So the question is- when is it too many?
Gunner
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When is it too many......
by Cherokee , Medina, Ohio, Sunday, September 25, 2016, 12:01 (2920 days ago) @ Gunner
I don't know...but I'll share this:
EDC is XD9C that has about 4000 practice rounds thru it...never a failure
I also have an XDM9 with over 26K thru it. the slide was replaced at about 20K because it developed a crack but it never failed me.
If you take care of them and pay attention to their parts reasonably, they will last a lot longer than one might think.
PS I do have an XDM in reserve...like Clint said.
Excellent question Gunner
by Creeker , Hardwoods, Sunday, September 25, 2016, 14:11 (2919 days ago) @ Gunner
.
Good question without an easy answer...
by Bryan , Sunday, September 25, 2016, 14:12 (2919 days ago) @ Gunner
I just left Cabelas and was going to get some more 380 brass but then thought...I've got 200 Starline brass, which should get me at least 1000 reloads...I'm not going to shoot this LCP multiple thousands of times. I would like to but don't want to wear it out. If the LCP service life is 5k as Leahy suspects then I'm going to stay away from that kind of usage. I don't have multiples to wear out like Kent Lamont.
It goes to Gunner's question. How much is too much?
yes depends on a lot of things
by bj , Sunday, September 25, 2016, 14:40 (2919 days ago) @ Bryan
I've heard of Glocks going through a lot of rounds so there is probably no reason to worry about them. And maybe a similar thing applies to the larger XDS, M&P, etc. The little ones probalby go through more shock on firing and some parts may not last as long.
I've heard of competition shooters putting a lot of rounds through 1911s. The military was putting a lot of rounds through the Berettas but then some of the slides were breaking.
I think revolvers may or may not have it worse. Not that parts break that much although in some models they do, but screw construction seems to be a problem. Unless you are extremely careful with it, 200 rounds of practice and screws will loosen up, base pins come out, etc. So you have to really be on top of it. I'm sure Jerry Miculek and Bill Jordan put a lot of rounds through their S&Ws but they probably do keep on top of maintenance.
Seems that 500 rounds or 1000 rounds would be enough to give you total faith in the operation of the gun. If you want to shoot it a lot more than that for pracice then maybe it makes sense to buy a second model to use for practice.
To me the "2 is 1" thing includes malfunctions, screws falling out, ammunition jams, as much as it covers parts breakage from wear.
My take is that one shoots the primary (?) carry gun all
by Hobie 
, Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Sunday, September 25, 2016, 18:23 (2919 days ago) @ Gunner
the time for multiple reasons i.e. practice, pest elimination and fun plinking. One has a backup that is tested to be proven reliable just in case the first fails. Now, that takes us to the idea that one carries the back up on one's person.
I am not a uniformed functionary. I'm just a citizen who has to go around the community doing multiple things from lifting and reaching to hugging and shaking hands, not to mention going in and out of many different facilities some of which might not be legal places in which to be armed. In those instances the logistics of disarming come into play. If I am carrying multiple firearms, knives, trauma kit(s), flashlight(s), and reloads as well as ephmera such as mints, change, handkerchief, grocery lists, receipts, pen(s), phone, glasses, KEYS, and so forth and so on this constant juggling of all this crap (like Dennis the Menace's pockets with slingshot, frog, etc.) becomes problematic. For this reason I only carry one firearm, one reload, one knife, one SMALL flashlight, and have everything else located as handily as space and security of those objects allow. The days of packing about a large A.L.I.C.E. pack are behind me.
Back to the carry gun. I rotate what I carry to what is most applicable to my situation. Summer in shorts is different from hunting season and late winter post hunting season. Those days I was working outside on the farm were different from those days I was working inside in the shop. If you can only afford one or two and those must cover every circumstance, well, like all compromises it will be "make do" somewhere along the way.
Now I've drifted so far from the original question I considered just deleting the whole thing, but I won't... 
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Sincerely,
Hobie
It's kind of like picking avacados...
by Hoot , Diversityville, Liberal-sota, Monday, September 26, 2016, 06:43 (2919 days ago) @ Gunner
How does one know when to pick them?
Three days before they fall of the branch.
For me, I'd shoot them as much as I needed to keep my 'edge'. Clean and inspect often. Repair/replace as necessary. Of course, always have a suitable spare for the unexpected, or planned, down time. I don't count rounds, and perhaps should, so I cannot speak specifically about what my arms have fired. It's doubtful that I have any, other than a couple of Ruger Mk II's, that have fired 'in the thousands'. Perhaps my first handgun, a Springfield 1911-A1, has made it to the couple thousand round arena. I shot it for pistol leagues for a couple years...