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Open gun longevity


glocklover

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It's really impossible to know. Open guns are like race cars. Every part is a consumable. So things are going to break. How often is a mystery. Depending on if the metal had any flaws to begin with. How well it was fitted. How the slide cuts and tri topping were done. What load you shoot. And on and on.

You could have a slide crack at 5,000 rounds. Or it could go 50,000 rounds. But eventually things will break and need to be replaced. This is just a cost of open, should be budgeted for and shouldn't be looked at as a bad thing. 

Things can break and 100% not be the builders fault. Even if it breaks with low round count.

This is a reason that most large gun builders get out of building open guns eventually when they can. They are just a huge percentage of their warranty claims. Even when it's past warranty and your paying to fix it. Its time consuming.

 

So the only answer I can give you is IDK.

 

My current plan is to buy a new gun every year and sell my old one. So I never have a gun with a ton of rounds on it. This makes it less likely to have a huge failure at a major. Plus a gun with low wear and round count will fetch the best price. Yes. I am probably paying the cost of a slide replacement every year. But at least I can plan for it. It's not a surprise.

 

Your guess of 100,000-200,000 rounds is likley pretty high. Some people say .38sc guns last a bit longer. Not sure how much I buy that. But If I were budgeting. I would budget for a slide replacement every 30k rounds just to be on the safe side.

 

 

 

Edited by Explosiveo
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17 hours ago, Explosiveo said:

It's really impossible to know. Open guns are like race cars. Every part is a consumable. So things are going to break. How often is a mystery. Depending on if the metal had any flaws to begin with. How well it was fitted. How the slide cuts and tri topping were done. What load you shoot. And on and on.

You could have a slide crack at 5,000 rounds. Or it could go 50,000 rounds. But eventually things will break and need to be replaced. This is just a cost of open, should be budgeted for and shouldn't be looked at as a bad thing. 

Things can break and 100% not be the builders fault. Even if it breaks with low round count.

This is a reason that most large gun builders get out of building open guns eventually when they can. They are just a huge percentage of their warranty claims. Even when it's past warranty and your paying to fix it. Its time consuming.

 

So the only answer I can give you is IDK.

 

My current plan is to buy a new gun every year and sell my old one. So I never have a gun with a ton of rounds on it. This makes it less likely to have a huge failure at a major. Plus a gun with low wear and round count will fetch the best price. Yes. I am probably paying the cost of a slide replacement every year. But at least I can plan for it. It's not a surprise.

 

Your guess of 100,000-200,000 rounds is likley pretty high. Some people say .38sc guns last a bit longer. Not sure how much I buy that. But If I were budgeting. I would budget for a slide replacement every 30k rounds just to be on the safe side.

 

 

 

Thanks.

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17 hours ago, Explosiveo said:

It's really impossible to know. Open guns are like race cars. Every part is a consumable. So things are going to break. How often is a mystery. Depending on if the metal had any flaws to begin with. How well it was fitted. How the slide cuts and tri topping were done. What load you shoot. And on and on.

You could have a slide crack at 5,000 rounds. Or it could go 50,000 rounds. But eventually things will break and need to be replaced. This is just a cost of open, should be budgeted for and shouldn't be looked at as a bad thing. 

Things can break and 100% not be the builders fault. Even if it breaks with low round count.

This is a reason that most large gun builders get out of building open guns eventually when they can. They are just a huge percentage of their warranty claims. Even when it's past warranty and your paying to fix it. Its time consuming.

 

So the only answer I can give you is IDK.

 

My current plan is to buy a new gun every year and sell my old one. So I never have a gun with a ton of rounds on it. This makes it less likely to have a huge failure at a major. Plus a gun with low wear and round count will fetch the best price. Yes. I am probably paying the cost of a slide replacement every year. But at least I can plan for it. It's not a surprise.

 

Your guess of 100,000-200,000 rounds is likley pretty high. Some people say .38sc guns last a bit longer. Not sure how much I buy that. But If I were budgeting. I would budget for a slide replacement every 30k rounds just to be on the safe side.

 

 

 

 

👆

 

Yep, if you shoot Open, you will need to maintain your gun, how often?, depends. Good to know a few Gunsmiths and have a box of extra parts. Things can last for many Matches and things can go bad quickly. I wish they lasted 100k Rounds, but things happen (especially during a Match, Classifiers are when my failures show up 🥵), then it's research time. 

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3 hours ago, glocklover said:

STI DVC 9MM. I currently have about 30,000 rounds through it. It runs great.

 

You are already lucky.  Count your blessings.  Now buy a backup.  There is a rule somewhere that states the part that breaks on your gun during a match is precisely the part you did not bring a spare for.  Or even worse.  You give your spare, fitted extractor to a squad mate because theirs broke.  Then yours breaks on the next stage.  I've learned the hard way it is better to have a reliable backup gun, even if you carry spare parts.

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11 hours ago, glocklover said:

STI DVC 9MM. I currently have about 30,000 rounds through it. It runs great.

both sti dvc limited 9mm and shorty 9mm in ours club after 60k with minor factory  pf144  ammo . still works perfect and almost no wear .

they use recoil buffers from the first mag.

Edited by yigal
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11 hours ago, yigal said:

both sti dvc limited 9mm and shorty 9mm in ours club after 60k with minor factory  pf144  ammo . still works perfect and almost no wear .

they use recoil buffers from the first mag.

If I can get 60,000 rounds out of mine I would be very happy. Time will tell.

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On 7/17/2021 at 3:10 PM, glocklover said:

STI DVC 9MM. I currently have about 30,000 rounds through it. It runs great.

I’ve really wanted to get one of those but don’t like the grips that much, feel like I need to get a milled metal grip, but at that price I should just get something different right ? 

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On 7/18/2021 at 5:41 PM, Jules1985 said:

Life is to Short to shoot Carry Optics…

 

joking

 

My Gun has like 35000 rounds with PF 178 and no signs of wear 

What open gun do you have? Is it custom ? Or something semi production like an STI DVC O

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23 hours ago, barry said:

Barrel 80000-10000 rds. Slide usually 50000-100000. Frame and guts I'll let you know  .have 2 old sti framed guns both 250000 +++.

Wow. I would be very happy if I could get 100,000 rounds out of my gun. 

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