History Main / ReliablyUnreliableGuns

* Possibly the worst incident of this trope ever recorded on Website/YouTube has to be the incident involving [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1449kJKxlMQ Kentucky Ballistics]] (shown on the main image), originally recorded on April 9th, 2021. When Scott was testing the durability of a fire hydrant from multiple .50 BMG rounds (fired out of a Serbu Firearms RN-50 breech-loading single-shot rifle), the firearm could not handle the continuously-building pressure of an [[HairTriggerExplosive unstable and unusually-hot]] SLAP round[[labelnote:note]]Saboted Light Armor Penetrator[[/labelnote]] to the point where it literally '''exploded''' in front of his face and body. As a result, not only did he get a broken arm and nose, but the shrapnel from the gun lacerated his jugular vein to the point he almost died from blood loss. Thankfully, his dad, who was recording the video, was able to take him to the hospital. The picture of him bloodied and [[NightmareFuel hospitalized]] was not exactly pleasant to say the least.

*** He subsequently went back and fired the rest of the rounds from that batch, and most of them were bad, often requiring mechanical aid to unscrew the barrel cap and withdraw the bullet due to overcharging the bullets. However the gun didn't fail until he loaded a ''deliberately'' measured overcharged bullet to, as Mythbusters would put it, duplicate the result. And damage wise the recreation was almost a carbon copy of the accident.

** The AK, for instance, is famous for being reliable in the sense that it's not sensitive to an average conscript not taking care of his rifle, but the moment you throw something more substantial than dirt or sand into the receiver - which is easy to do because of the loose tolerances and the large opening for the bolt's charging handle to move - it stops being reliable, as the parts easily get gunked up and unable to move with all the mud. The AR-15 family of rifles, in contrast, are practically sealed from the elements, including a dust cover to keep anything from touching the bolt, and because the gas escapes from the side of the bolt out the ejection port, the rifle does "self-clean" that portion should there be mud there.[[labelnote:*]]A later test of the SIG MCX SPEAR, after it was accepted into the US military as the [=XM5=], saw that it performed similarly well when the dust cover was closed before dumping mud on the gun, but when it was left open all bets were off - its gas piston design meant the vent holes are at the front in the gas block rather than the side of the bolt, and its addition of a side-mounted charging handle also adds another path of ingress for mud to get into the working parts.[[/labelnote]]
** Short-stroke gas pistons are all the rage for their combination of reliable performance in normal conditions and low recoil, but they're generally incredibly sensitive to mud contamination. A test on the FAL, with its large ejection port and sand cuts in the bolt carrier to give loose debris like sand a place to be pushed out of the way, turned out to invite mud in where it can interfere with the weapon's operation: the rifle jammed after two shots, with the bolt refusing to go into battery with a live round in the chamber, and after the mud had time to dry it ''completely'' locked up. Two separate tests of the AUG saw it fail similarly, the first time jamming after a few shots and the second, where they set its gas system to the "adverse" setting by Steyr USA's behest, failing to extract on the first round, before the charging handle locked up completely both times. Roller-delayed blowback, conversely, is one of the most violently fast cycling actions ever devised, having almost no way for gas to escape until it's pushed the bolt back and paired with a suitably strong recoil spring at the back, meaning that unless the bolt is completely immobilized it is basically guaranteed that it will fire and cycle properly. A test on the G3 saw it failing to eject after every shot, requiring the stock to be smashed against the ground while pushing down on the charging handle from above, but the bolt still consistently went into battery when it was manually operated in this fashion, and after giving the mud time to dry the gun went back to working properly. A test of the CETME Model L performed even better, only even starting to give them minor problems once they dumped mud into the charging handle's travel path and then manually cycled it, which came out to a single time where the bolt failed to go into battery before another yank of the handle got it working again.
** Handguns generally perform the same, though the speed of the action tends to matter more. The sealed toggle-lock of the Luger P08 saw it perform flawlessly, in part because the toggle-lock action outright requires high-pressure ammo to reliably function, while the M1911 with its external hammer jammed after a few shots, though eventually got back to mostly-working order after brute-forcing the slide open again, and the FK BRNO failed to fire even ''one'' round because of mud blocking the hammer from either dropping with enough speed to fire or pulling back far enough to re-engage the sear. Both the Glock 19 and Hi-Point C9 jammed early despite their more closed-in mechanisms, but the straight-blowback Hi-Point got off more shots and was brought back to life by a quick rinse of water, while the short-recoil Glock only got off one shot before jamming to the point where even dousing it with water couldn't get it working again, which Karl concluded was likely because of mud getting into the locking lugs on the barrel and preventing it from fully seating into battery.

** Parodied. To ease Marge's worries about his new gun, [[https://youtu.be/3oXFjhj76-I?t=36 Homer turns on the safety]], causing it to discharge into a photo of Marge. Then he notices that he actually turned the safety ''off'', turns it on, and causes ''another'' misfire. After a stunned second, he decides to gently set the gun on the table...and a couple of seconds later it goes off anyhow, ricocheting off several surfaces before striking a nearby knife which embeds itself in the picture, right between Marge's eyes. As Lisa says, "No offense Mom, but that '''was''' pretty cool." Note that Homer's gun was a revolver, [[GunsDoNotWorkThatWay which require long trigger pulls to fire]] [[RuleOfFunny and (without aftermarket modifications) don't even HAVE safeties]].

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 2nd edition allowed the arquebus, a primitive rifle, but gave it a chance of backfiring and damaging the user every time it's fired. Partly as a measure of FantasyGunControl, but also TruthInTelevision. Also necessary for play balance. The arquebus only did 1d4 damage... unless you rolled a 4, in which case you got another 1d4 damage. With no upper limit. It was entirely within the rules (not very ''likely'', but within the rules) for a 1st level character to one-shot a maximum age Red Dragon with one of these things.

Since this one's so common, it'd be easier to just list especially JustForFun/{{egregious}} examples and subversions. Also see RareGuns (a lot of which are rare because the designers couldn't overcome reliability issues with the time and money they had) and ConvenientMisfire. See RecklessGunUsage, JugglingLoadedGuns and IJustShotMarvinInTheFace for when danger is caused by user carelessness or stupidity.

** Little Bill, when telling W.W. Beauchamp the real story about how English Bob killed Two-Gun Corcoran, explains that Corcoran's [[RareGuns Walker Colt]] exploded on him, allowing Bob to get the drop on him. [[ShownTheirWork This was a problem that Walker Colts really had.]]

* Played with in the ''Film/MarvelOneShot'' short film ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer.'' Agent Coulson, in a convenience store during a robbery, lets the crooks know that he has a gun. When they want him to toss it over, he remarks he'd rather not and risk it going off, so he asks if it would be okay to slide it to them. As the guys agree, [[spoiler:he takes them out using a bag of flour. All this in the time it takes to fill-up his car at the pumps.]]

It's well-known that even the best guns still jam every now and then after repeated firing. Usual causes include a round failing to seat properly into the breech, a spent casing getting caught upon ejection (a condition known as "stovepiping"), poor-quality ammunition (insufficient pressure to cycle the weapon) or poor handling while shooting (not enough energy from the firing is absorbed by the hands/arms to let the slide or bolt move far back enough to cycle) Despite these errors taking only a second or two to correct in real life, when a firearm jams in a film or television show, such an event will render it completely useless. Even worse, the wielder, be they fresh-faced civilians who've never even ''seen'' a real gun before, to life-long hunters and trained soldiers (who [[ArtisticLicenseGunSafety by all accounts should know better]]) will invariably [[ThrowAwayGuns discard the jammed weapon]]. Of course, in fiction, where guns [[BottomlessMagazines never run out of ammo]] unless ''something'' takes it out of commission? A weapon-disabling jam may be the only way to make someone actually stop shooting ''without'' being killed.\\\

For that matter, Hollywood treats a misfire as being the same as a jam as well. While very rare for modern ammunition made by reliable manufacturers, to the tune of about one-in-a-million or less, ammunition primers occasionally do not work as intended. If a round of ammo fails to fire, nobody in fiction simply pulls the trigger a second time if it's a revolver, or in the case of semiautomatics, manually works the action to clear the dud so they can keep shooting.[[note]]Note that the recommended practice in the case of a misfire is to keep the weapon pointed in a safe direction for some time: the primer may, in fact, be accidentally slow-burning, and may go off without warning. Of course, if you're fighting for your life, this particular rule goes out the window.[[/note]] Then again, this fits in with the [[TimeForPlanB typical Hollywood approach to plans in general]].

** Season 5 has a lightsaber-based example in "A Test Of Strength", where Pietro assembled his lightsaber [[HadTheSillyThingInReverse with the emitter array backwards]], and is scolded by Huang who points out that when activated the lightsaber would literally blow up in his face. This becomes a ChekhovsGun later when Pietro goads a SpacePirate to activate it. Somehow, the explosion [[BloodlessCarnage does not kill anyone]] or even particularly damage the lightsaber.

* ''VideoGame/IntoTheRadius'' requires players to keep their guns *and* magazines well maintained. Poorly maintained magazines won't be able to hold max amount of cartridges, while poorly maintained gun is likely to give false positive or jam while firing, requiring manual operation of the slide.

* Similarly, this trope is used to justify UnusableEnemyEquipment in ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' with both the [[{{BFG}} Fuel Rod Gun]] and even the [[CoolSword Energy Sword]] [[UpToEleven exploding shortly after being dropped]]. It is however subverted in the [[AllThereInTheManual Expanded Universe]], which claims this is an intentional anti-theft device used by the Covenant rather than the weapons being ridiculously fragile, so the ability to use them in later games is either a [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness weird recursive example]] or it was not a widely-used feature.

* Percy in ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'' uses a homebrewed D&D 5th edition [[TheGunslinger Gunslinger]] Fighter archetype (since he and the rest of Vox Machina were ported over from ''TabletopGame/Pathfinder'', which had an official Gunslinger class). All his guns have a misfire value, and rolling equal to or less than it causes the gun to jam, requiring an action and successful tinkering check to fix. Fail ''that'' and the gun is broken until it can be repaired out of combat. This is justified for several reasons. First, it prevents firearms from being a GameBreaker in an otherwise medieval fantasy setting. Secondly, in this setting, Percy ''invented'' guns and the only ones that exist are his prototypes or made by a LoonyFan who stole his designs, so they're terribly designed by modern firearm standards. Animus, the revolver he took from [[spoiler: Anna Ripley, said LoonyFan]] is even worse, dealing psychic damage to the user on a misfire.

* Possibly the worst incident of this trope ever recorded on Website/YouTube has to be the incident involving [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1449kJKxlMQ Kentucky Ballistics]] (shown on the main image), originally recorded on April 9th, 2021. When Scott was testing the durability of a fire hydrant from multiple .50 BMG rounds (fired out of a Serbu Firearms RN-50 breech-loading single-shot rifle,) the firearm could not handle the continuously-building pressure of an [[HairTriggerExplosive unstable and unusually-hot]] SLAP round[[labelnote:note]]Saboted Light Armor Penetrator[[/labelnote]] to the point where it literally '''exploded''' in front of his face and body. As a result, not only did he get a broken arm and nose, but the shrapnel from the gun lacerated his jugular vein to the point he almost died from blood loss. Thankfully, his dad, who was recording the video, was able to take him to the hospital. The picture of him bloodied and [[NightmareFuel hospitalized]] was not exactly pleasant to say the least.
** This is more of a case of "Reliably Unreliable ''Ammunition''", as the firearm itself was up to regulations and built to withstand high pressures to chamber the powerful .50 BMG round and its variants (Serbu Firearms were no strangers to the said round, as the RN-50 was the third .50 BMG-capable rifle in their stable.) Some analysts have pointed to the particular SLAP round Scott used as the culprit, somehow producing [[MadeOfExplodium more than twice the pressure of what the factory proof-loaded .50 BMG rounds can provide]], due to poor aging or being tinkered with at some point. On top of that, there's no outward indication to use for gauging how safe it is to use one, so the best approach to prevent an accident like this is to check a round's history and simply never take, keep, and use ammo from old armories.

*** He subsequently went back and fired the rest of the rounds from that batch, and most of them were bad, often requiring mechanical aid to unscrew the barrel cap and withdraw the bullet due to overcharging the bullets. However the gun didn't fail until he loaded a ''deliberately'' measured overcharged bullet to, as Mythbusters would put bit, duplicate the result. And damage wise the recreation was almost a carbon copy of the accident.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood'' there's a RunningGag where Trigger's crossbow Old Betsy goes off should Trigger so much as bump it. This happens regardless of whether the "safety" on the crossbow is set, and maybe even happens more often if the safety is on.

* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', Ocelot stovepipes his own semiautomatic pistol when he tries a fancy move he'd heard of for the first time[[note]]Basically, copying a move he'd head about from Middle East fighters, which involves working the action of your gun after reloading, every time. This is to ensure that the gun always has a round loaded, no matter if the chamber was empty or not. However, because he hadn't practiced the maneuver, he works the action too fast, resulting in the aforementioned stovepipe[[/note]]. Ocelot then attempts to [[PistolWhipping pistol whip]] Naked Snake with his gun instead of clearing it, despite the fact that Snake has just taken down half a dozen of his men with little more than his bare hands. Clearly it was his turn to hold the IdiotBall. Snake easily counters, and when Ocelot drops his gun the cartridge pops out, clearing the jam. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItvclICnwgI Snake then explains this to Ocelot]] (and the audience), attributing it to the latter's faults and inexperience. Since the game is a {{prequel}} it establishes why he's ''Revolver'' Ocelot in the present/near-future storyline.

It's well-known that even the best guns still jam every now and then after repeated firing. Usual causes include a round failing to seat properly into the breech, a spent casing getting caught upon ejection (a condition known as "stovepiping"), poor-quality ammunition (insufficient pressure to cycle the weapon) or poor handling while shooting (not enough energy from the firing is absorbed by the hands/arms to let the slide or bolt move far back enough to cycle, known as "limp wristing").\\\

# Despite these errors taking only a second or two to correct in real life, when a firearm jams in a film or television show, such an event will render it completely useless. Even worse, the wielder, be they fresh-faced civilians who've never even ''seen'' a real gun before, to life-long hunters and trained soldiers (who [[ArtisticLicenseGunSafety by all accounts should know better]]) will invariably [[ThrowAwayGuns discard the jammed weapon]]. Of course, in fiction, where guns [[BottomlessMagazines never run out of ammo]] unless ''something'' takes it out of commission? A weapon-disabling jam may be the only way to make someone actually stop shooting ''without'' being killed.\\\

It's well-known that even the best guns still jam every now and then after repeated firing. Usual causes include a round failing to seat properly into the breech, a spent casing getting caught upon ejection (a condition known as "stovepiping"), poor-quality ammunition (insufficient pressure to cycle the weapon) or poor handling while shooting (not enough energy from the firing is absorbed by the hands/arms to let the slide or bolt move far back enough to cycle, known as "limp wristing").

Despite these errors taking only a second or two to correct in real life, when a firearm jams in a film or television show, such an event will render it completely useless. Even worse, the wielder, be they fresh-faced civilians who've never even ''seen'' a real gun before, to life-long hunters and trained soldiers (who [[ArtisticLicenseGunSafety by all accounts should know better]]) will invariably [[ThrowAwayGuns discard the jammed weapon]]. Of course, in fiction, where guns [[BottomlessMagazines never run out of ammo]] unless ''something'' takes it out of commission? A weapon-disabling jam may be the only way to make someone actually stop shooting ''without'' being killed.\\\

Despite these errors taking only a second or two to correct in real life, when a firearm jams in a film or television show, such an event will render it completely useless. Even worse, the wielder, be they fresh-faced civilians who've never even ''seen'' a real gun before, to life-long hunters and trained soldiers (who [[ArtisticLicenseGunSafety by all accounts should know better]]) will invariably [[ThrowAwayGuns discard the jammed weapon]]. Of course, in fiction, where guns [[BottomlessMagazines never run out of ammo]] unless ''something'' takes it out of commission? A weapon-disabling jam may be the only way to make someone actually stop shooting ''without'' being killed. \\\

Despite these errors taking only a second or two to correct in real life, when a firearm jams in a film or television show, such an event will render it completely useless. Even worse, the wielder, be they fresh-faced civilians who've never even ''seen'' a real gun before, to life-long hunters and trained soldiers (who [[ArtisticLicenseGunSafety by all accounts should know better]]) will invariably [[ThrowAwayGuns discard the jammed weapon]]. Of course, in fiction, where guns [[BottomlessMagazines never run out of ammo]] unless ''something'' takes it out of commission? A weapon-disabling jam may be the only way to make someone actually stop shooting ''without'' being killed.

It's well-known that even the best guns still jam every now and then after repeated firing. Usual causes include a round failing to seat properly into the breech, a spent casing getting caught upon ejection (a condition known as "stovepiping"), poor-quality ammunition (insufficient pressure to cycle the weapon) or poor handling while shooting (not enough energy from the firing is absorbed by the hands/arms to let the slide or bolt move far back enough to cycle, known as "limp wristing"). These errors take only a second or two to correct in real life, so why is it that when a firearm jams in a film or television show, it's suddenly rendered completely useless? Aside from its use as a convenient way to disarm a character (since everyone from fresh-faced civilians who've never even ''seen'' a real gun before and two-bit thugs [[RuleOfCool obsessed with looking dangerous]] at the expense of [[AwesomeButImpractical actually being dangerous]], to life-long hunters and trained soldiers who [[ArtisticLicenseGunSafety by all accounts should know better]], will invariably [[ThrowAwayGuns discard the jammed weapon]]), no one knows. All we do know that a gun will [[BottomlessMagazines never run out of ammo]] unless ''something'' takes it out of commission.

** Played straight in one episode where a sawn-off shotgun is thrown out of a window by the villains and bump-fires into a passerby, killing her and leading the protagonists to another crime committed with the weapon.

** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout Tactics|BrotherhoodOfSteel}}'' includes the Chauchat (mentioned in the RealLife folder) as a JokeWeapon, which cannot actually be used and serves no purpose whatsoever.