Most Reliable Guns

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Transcript …

– [Voiceover] Hey guys, it’s Alex C. With TFBTV, and today I’m going with a topic that I get asked all the time in YouTube comments, and that is, “What are the most reliable guns?” This is a tricky one, because if we’re talking about absolute Hell and back reliability, then less and less moving parts are better, basically, the list would be dominated by single shot rifles like the Rolling Block or Ruger #1s, so I’m going to try and pick one firearm from each category, that is to say, one handgun, one bolt action, one shotgun, one submachine gun, and one self-loading rifle.

So on with the list.

For the handgun I’m going with the Glock.

No surprise here, really, while I’m not a Glock guy, this isn’t because I dislike them, rather I just find them boring, shooting a Glock is like driving a Toyota Camry.

Both serve their purpose extremely well and won’t let you down, but I wouldn’t get behind the wheel of a Camry for recreational purposes.

It’s an appliance or tool to me, like a Glock pistol.

Glocks are simple and easy to use, they’re affordable, no frills pistols that require very little instruction to operate, and while shooting any handgun is easy to learn, yet impossible to master, I do recommend that many people who ask what to get for a first firearm send their money to Glock Inc.

Reliability’s very good, and while early 40s and 10mm guns did have a tendency to, well, there’s no sugar coating it, explode, they have fixed that issue.

The 9mm pistols have a great record, and don’t just take my word for it, check out any of the numerous Glock torture tests all around the web.

While Glocks aren’t superguns, and I have seen them malfunction, most of the malfs I’ve seen were the result of the owner modding them, or bad ammunition that would not function in any pistol.

So these things aren’t necessarily the most accurate pistols, the most comfortable, or the best for your specific need, but they sure do run.

Next we have the subgun, the Uzi.

The Uzi is incredibly simple, and has one moving part, the bolt.

Uziel Gal’s creation is one of history’s most enduring subguns, and at least some version has been in production since 1950.

While the Uzi is not my favorite SMG, the most accurate, or the bestselling today, all titles belonging to the MP5, it is the most reliable one I’ve encountered in all my years of handling, shooting, and owning countless SMGs and pistol caliber carbines.

Uzi receivers with millions of rounds through them are not uncommon, and the only part that has ever given me trouble has been the top cover.

The covers themselves can bend up over time, and that may cause the gun to have runaways.

I have countless thousands of rounds through Uzis, and I’ve seen two main types of malfunctions.

Light ammunition that short strokes them, as they really like hot ammo like the Israelis use, and an interesting one where a reload that may well have destroyed a lesser gun bowed up the top cover and out the extractor.

The fix, and I’m dead serious, was bending the top cover back with a hammer, and bending the extractor back to shape on a table.

The gun ran perfectly for the rest of the day.

While the MP5’s a beast, and I would say definitely a better gun, it is complex, and there are a lot of moving parts.

You have the bolt head, carrier, rollers, hammer, locking piece, firing pin, et cetera, all reciprocating, while the Uzi jovially laughs at the complexity of its Teutonic competitor as its singular moving component goes back and forth.

The other main issue with the Uzi is that it’s an open bolt firearm; while this isn’t a big deal for a civilian shooter taking one to an MG shoot, in the harsh environment of Sinai, sand, dirt, and debris getting in the action is a problem.

However, most Uzi operators carry the weapon on safe with the bolt closed.

Or sometimes in a purpose-built Samsonite briefcase.

For the bolt action, the obvious answer is the Mauser 98, the most produced and copied gun in all of history.

While many mistakenly believe this accolade belongs to the Kalashnikov family, of which about 100 million guns have been made, 100 million 98s alone have been made.

If we include the Mauser family, it dwarfs the AK, and if we include variants and copies, Mauser production numbers tower over a Kalashnikov production.

The Mauser 98 was so influential and credible that it not only influenced warfare, but the company that made the rifle was so influential that it was used internationally to implement German ideology around the world.

The entirety of South America, China, and much of Europe was influenced by the Germans, because whoever arms a nation’s military back in those days had an incredible amount of political influence.