The WORST firearms...?

Question

There are some firearms, even when compared to comparable firearms of their era, was pure crap...a certain French-made, WWI era light machine gun comes immediately to mind.

There are SO many questions posted as to opinions concerning the best pistol, revolver, rifle, LMGs...I want to see your nominations for the WORST.

What say you?

Answer 1

From stories I've read and Vets I've talked to, the M16A1 service rifle (replaced the M14 in Vietnam) is the worst. Jammed, misfired, etc. I fired the M16A2 when I was in and had no problems with it.

Answer 2

Reising M50/55 Submachinegun (WWII) - the enclosed portion of the bolt easily got stuck up with dirt and debris, causing jams.

Lewis Gun (WWI) - light MG designed for one man to fire, but in reality took a team to keep operating due to bulky ammunition pans.

Chauchat (WWI) - light MG...you know what...we all know this one...

M1899 Revolver (Phillipine-American War) - Standard service revolver that had replaced the Colt Single Action Army, but fired the weak .38 LC cartridge. Next to zero stopping power against determined opponents.

M16A1 (Vietnam War) - You know, I hesitate to put this on here, because there are very few firearms that you could give an infantryman that he wouldn't complain about. The most common responses are usually, "Can you make this thing lighter?" and "Can you give me a bigger magazine?" The revered M1 Garand actually had plenty of complaints, including the two I just mentioned, along with "M1 Thumb", or catching your thumb while trying to reload the Garand's odd loading mechanism. The main problem with the M16A1 was not so much that it wasn't durable as most people say, it's that you couldn't trudge it through anything like you could with the M14, and thsu required more maintainence than the M14. Of course, for the infantry, you want to be able to go through hell and back, so I'll include it.

AK-47 (Korean War/Vietnam War, etc.) - Yes, I'm definitely putting this on here. First, while extremely durable in comparison to the M16A1, and while firing a larger caliber round, the AK-47 actually has issues with stopping power, because the round didn't fragment or yaw in soft tissue, thus weakening it's stopping power. The standard issue version had crappy sights as well, decreasing the effective ranger of a firearm that already had a shorter effective range than it's contemporary. There's a reason it was replaced by the smaller caliber AK-74 folks.

Nambu Pistol (WWII) - this Japanese pistol was very accurate, but a hunk-a-junk otherwise. Very little stopping power compared to Western rounds, and it's weak magazine spring resulted in frequent jams.

The truth is that there isn't a single firearm out there that doesn't have some drawback, or many. Some folks will probably dump a brick when they see I included the AK-47. Some people would probably list firearms simply because it was replaced by something better, but really, just because something gets replaced doesn't mean it's horrible, it just means something better came along.

Interstingly enough, the M1899 and the Chauchat both gave rise to two of the best firearms ever, the M1911 and the BAR respectively.

Answer 3

Just throwing this out there, I'm gonna say the Beretta M9/92. I don't know why it's the service pistol in the USA Military. Why did they replace the 1911 with that piece of crap, it jams, it's a 9mm, and just sucks.

P.S. My Marlin 30-30 model 336c has functioned beautifully. And Lever actions are some of the most dependable guns. The only reason it would malfunction is human error/stupidity.

Answer 4

wow Jimmy L puts AK 47 on the list for bad guns go figure. the worst by far is the Remington 522 viper. horrible gun never cycled for **** plastic clips were worthless and open sights were garbage. second place accutek at-380 lovely California made gun. if you had big hands the gun would take a chunk out of your hand when fired. how about the crossfire Mk1 this was another lovely gun. you had a better chance at figuring out quadratic equations then figuring out how this gun operates. and finally the sterling 22 model 300 and 302 these gems used to go off when dropped. honorable mention Winchester 1897 Winchester 1400 leinad sidebysides

Answer 5

Fuchs double barelled bolt action 700 nitro elephant gun. Fires two shots like a SXS 12 ga then bolt cycles action with two more cartrdiges into the chambre. It is a real gun. Main drawbacks are its extremely heavy for something you should have to carry all day in African heat and costs over $100,000. Now that is a useless wast of money.

Answer 6

Jimi L,

Kudos for the AK inclusion, I agree completely. Short sight radius and poor u-notch sights are a bad combination on a military rifle of this genre. The caliber is satisfactory but nothing special.

Generally inaccurate past 100m, Mostly due to the lousy sights but also to the loose tolerances.

I would also include lauded but crappy guns such as the Mac-10, and Tec-9

Mostly for the same complaints as the AK; crudely made and rudimentary sights.

Answer 7

Anything made by Lorcin, Jennings or Cobra...

Junk revolvers made in Japan and Germany in the 1950s.

Probably the worst gun the Japanese Nambu pistol.

It was not accurate at all (sorry previous poster....this was not true) and it would regul;arly go off without pulling the trigger if dropped or fallen upon.

Answer 8

I've heard that the French made Lebel rifle (first military rifle made for smokeless powder) was really bad. The early Rossi revolvers had terrible trigger pulls and the RG-22 revolver was considered junk.

H

Answer 9

I would have to say that the RG revolver is one horrible piece of crap, I saw one pulled out of a holster and the cylinder fell out on the floor. To Dylan, we actually had the Browning BAR in WWI but it was not issued to our troops because the BAR was such an advanced weapon for the time we did not want it to fall into the hands of the enemy, I know the logic of that is silly but it is true.

Answer 10

Yeah, like Jimi L. and Ukant, I also heard the M16A1 was a piece of crap when it came out and was used during vietnam because all it would do would jam in intense fights in vietnam and would need to be maintained a lot more.