Our local 3 gun range had their annual hotter than hail 100 match this weekend and I had a few observations at the end. The match consist of only three stages, but they consist of a 100 round pistol stage, 100 round rifle stage, and 50 round shotgun stage. Those are the minimum round counts actual round counts would have been 150 or more on the pistol stage and probably the same on the rifle stage, the shotgun stage didn't take much more than 50. So by the end of each stage guns were hot enough that you couldn't hardly hang on to them, I did not see every possible gun shoot as I was helping to reset so I only noticed some things that stood out.

So, here are my reliability observations:

Shotguns: I saw one box fed automatic that made it to the end of the stage without choking at least once. I heard the owner of the gun say something to the effect of he was excited that it made it to the end without a stoppage. As far as I saw all the tube fed automatics worked fine. There was one box fed pump, other than one Short stroke it worked fine as well. So in other words box fed automatics are still pretty iffy, I'm almost positive that the one that made it to the end was a dissident or something along those lines that cost a couple Grand at least

Pistols: I saw a couple of Glocks that had plenty of bolt action going on. A sig 320 that is far as I noticed ran, but it's aftermarket TTI base plate blew off the mag. I didn't see any 2011 that made it without a couple of stoppages. There was a canik steel frame that had a couple of it stoppages. There was an XDM that was 100% reliable.

Rifles: everyone was shooting some version of AR. Out of about 20 guys, probably half we're using suppressed ARS. Out of the suppressed ARS one guy did not have a jam that locked the gun completely up and was able to finish the stage. Out of the non suppressed guns only one guy had a jam that locked the gun up and wasn't able to finish the stage, I'm almost positive that one was a reloaded ammo issue.


Obviously these statements come with the caveats of that is just what I saw. I was not able to watch every shooter with every gun. Also I cannot confirm the ammo that people were using or the modifications that have been made to the guns.

That said, I do have a couple of main takeaways from the match: 1 even if the internet tells you a Glock won't jam, don't believe it, 2 box fed automatic shotguns still have a ways to go to be considered reliable without spending a tremendous amount of money, 3 if you're going to shoot high volume with an AR, you might want to rethink that suppressor.

This is a match that was putting more stress on guns than most people ever will, so most of these observations won't pertain to most people. But if you're curious now you know

Have a good one

Thanks. That's some interesting observations you made.

Were the Glocks modified? I've seen guys try to trick out some of the Glocks, and they don't work out the kinks and they can jam. After shooting IDPA for years and many tactical matches, stock Glocks work very reliably.

Based on outward appearance, no. I did not ask if anything had been done to the guns. One guy that shot a Glock was bitching about the ammo, but it was factory ammo that he was griping about, so IDK LOL.

Obviously if I post about things that matches, you have to take out of those things what you can get. I have seen stock glocks fail for sure, but generally they are very reliable guns. But it does go to show that even glocks that think people don't jam will, no matter how many times people on the internet try to claim that they won't

The biggest takeaway for me out of this match was the huge lack of reliability from the suppressed ARs over long strings of fire.

And this is also a match that really stressed the guns and shooters. When you're talking about putting 150+ rounds through a gun in short order basically Non-Stop, things that normally work, won't, including the shooter. The pistol stage was very telling, I believe everybody that shot it started to fade about halfway through and that second half was really telling on both the guns and the shooters. I think the best time on that stage was just over two and a half minutes, with many shooters needing quite a bit longer


I've shot three gun for a long time and I've never seen anything test shooters and equipment like this. I shot other matches that had big stages but for some reason even though it doesn't seem like it would be, this match is kind of a completely different animal.

Suppressed ARs are DIRTY for sure. I shot a suppressed 308 AR at Jason’s class and put about 350 rounds down range and towards the end I started having malfunctions. Of course it was right after I let Jason shoot it and him and ARs don’t mix pow pow jam… dammit Jason.

I was a BUZZSAW sell a rifle before I ever needed to clean it, but after having FTF with suppressed AR’s I’ve pretty much committed to clean after every trip.

I've been saying that on here for a decade with nothing but resistance in the responses.

As a long time competitive shooter, and someone who shoots almost exclusively suppressed, I'll just say that most people trying to "tune" their guns have no idea how to keep a gun running.

People try lightened strikers in Glocks, change recoil spring weights, run light recoiling ammo, reducing gas, etc. All of these can be reliable, but you have to tweak a whole bunch of other variables like primer, powder, etc.

My gums run great because I spend a lot of time thinking about how to keep them running because a 10% drop in stage score is worse than almost anything else. But most people don't because they don't understand (or know how to control) the variables.

Very possible that these guns were not tuned perfectly to run a suppressor. There was a couple of guys that I figured their guns would have been tuned, in other words I think they know what they're doing lol. But one other thing is all of those suppressed guns just about would have made it through a standard 30 to 50 round stage. It was around that 60 to 80 round area that the guns started to crap out. So they definitely could have been running suppressed guns and basically any other three gun match I've ever seen and been fine, and these deficiencies would not have been observed

I don't understand shooting suppressed in competition. Rimfire, yea no biggy they weigh almost nothing. But for centerfire guns especially in a 3 Gun setting where it is all run and gun the suppressor is a hindrance. Makes the rifle longer and more unwieldy, you already have earpro on because not everyone is shooting suppressed or it is required by the range to wear earpro. To me it makes no sense. I shot my first few competitions suppressed then realized no one else was and I had to wear earpro so the suppressor didn't have very many positives besides maybe a tad less recoil.

Agreed. That's another reason I'm skeptical of the seriousness of these guys - anyone competitive is running a brake.

This match is kind of its own thing, and some of the regular guys decided to shoot some suppressed stuff. Also the guns people run depend on the stages a lot of times. The stage in this match had very little hosing, most of it was just post up and shoot. Max range was a couple hundred yards. In other words, you could have shot this stage with a bird cage and not been that much disadvantage over the guy with the greatest comp in the world


So basically what I'm getting at is if the suppressed guns hadn't crapped out, they would not have been at any actual disadvantage and anybody who knew what the stage was going to be beforehand (it was posted) would have known that. So if you ever wanted to try out a suppressed gun and competition this would be a wonderful opportunity to do it. The results showed it might be a bad idea however

yep, too many so-called gunsmiths.

How does the Military make suppressors work on Thier Carbines??

The important thing is gassing your gun correctly. A lot guys try to turn their gas too low to reduce recoil, or don't have the ability to turn it down and it's too high, and both can cause issues. The first causes failures when the gun tries to cycle after being fouled, the second means your gun can cycle too quickly for your magazine or extractor to handle.

It's also important to use GOOD lube. Not froglube, remoil, etc. I use motor oil, but anything thicker should retain some lubricity after more than a few magazines.

When I used to shoot the team sniper matches, one of the funniest things I saw was Team DPMS have rifle issues during a stage. Now, this is Team DPMS, a fully sponsored team with rifles and gear having rifles issues during a stage. You would "think" that they were tuned up, but who knows. We had a good laugh about them.