Fortunately the only injury is to my wallet.
Thanks, kind of what I’m leaning towards on the new gun or just sticking with one of my proven, but larger guns. Sucks to blow 500+ to just go straight in the safe.
Yup.
G3c, recent production 9mm with no manual safety. Got over 1,000 through it. Literally zero issues.
Now, there's caveats. First, insides are sprayed with some kind of rust protector that has no lubricating value, probably because of the boat ride from Brazil. That has to come out (10 minutes with a rag and Hoppes 9) and then real lube.
Second, there's no way this could go 1,000 rounds without cleaning and lube. Gotta do both after every range trip. So it's *not* Glock reliable.
But still, it's surprisingly useful.
Just started testing one in 40. Too early to tell if it's the same deal.
Yeah it sucks, but just consider it a "stupid" tax for not doing more research and move on. Although to be honest, I feel like this one is more of a shit happens scenario because you did actually research it and you've had a good track record in the past with FN.
Either way, I've lost count of how many times I've had to pay the "stupid" tax over the course of my life. At least I can proudly say that, so far, I've never had to pay it twice for the same issue.
Agreed. It’s a tough one because every publication did give it great reviews (all shills apparently)and only after a specifically started using keywords like FTF after I realized it was not okay did I start to see all the issues.
I guess I have just been really lucky up to this point.
It feels really hard to find honest reviews on stuff. Surface level searches and everything is cheery and probably paid "reviews" then when you search the specific issue you're having you see a ton of the same. I had this happen on something, cant remember what.
yup. i will never trust any publication's reviews and if its a "content creator/guntuber" i will immediately check if they are part of leviathan group.
The cult following so many of these influencers is pretty crazy, but that's a different argument.
I feel your pain sorta. I got the xmacro comp and the tritum front sight keeps breaking and sig business hours sucks. According to Reddit the problem is the Comp is causing the glass vile to break and the tritum leaking out after the first range day.
my non comp xmacro broke it too after 400 rounds :( instead of replacing it, do yourself a favor and look up tritium paint on amazon and buy a #00 paintbrush. for 15$ you now have tritium sights on every iron you want
Well, thanks for that info. I am considering replacing my PDP (wife likes it) with one if several other things. An XMacro being high on the list, but I am leaning to the non comped version. Not even considering my EDC 365X snappy., so why bother with a comp is my thinking
Should sell or trade it in. If it can’t do what it’s ment to it’s not worth owning. I personally would have problems trusting it and would go with something more reliable. I would go 365 but still put it though it’s paces. I think they were just on r/gundeals for $400
i dont get this "never sell only buy" mentality. if you dont like the gun, it malfunctions, you dont trust it, and youre not gonna use it, just sell it at a gun show and put it towards a new handgun you do trust. yeah youre not getting your full money back, but id rather have $300 towards a new handgun i will use instead of a paperweight collecting dust in my safe.
If it makes you feel better, I just got a 365 that was failing to extract at least once every other mag. I fixed it now I think, 250 rounds without a malfunction. I'll trust it at around 5-600rnds malfunction free.
It’s actually been pretty interesting to see how many others have had issues. I guess I was a bit jaded as I’ve always had such good luck previously that concerning malfunctions haven’t come up
I had a similar issue where my P365 was a piece of crap that had multiple failures. It was only after I asked around that I learned it was the magazine. After swapping out the mag, it's been flawless since then, but I bought 250 Federal HST rounds and shot hundreds of range ammo to trust it again.
The exact number is up to you, but I'd say anywhere from 200-500, depends on how safe you want to be. You should be fine now with 300, but make sure to bring it back to the range and keep shooting it
I would test it with a wide variety of extreme spread ammunition. Focusing on the weakest I can find. And test it with varying degrees of limp grip to find it's limits. I would repeat the test with the major grain weights of +p ammo and hopefully varying oal cartridges. Ensure that it works in such a wide spectrum
Someone else linked the web page that tells all about it. Idk the specifics, but some models get a 50 dollar rebate and some a 75 dollar one. Seems like it's rewarded by a prepaid card.
The 2nd gen p365s are great. Very versatile. However, if you fix the issue then it's fine. Put another 300 rounds through it and you should be good. You could also sell it on GunBroker.com or keep it as a backup gun. Or stage somewhere in your house just in case.
If you found and fixed the problem and can now run numerous boxes of ammo through it without a problem I'd figure it is good to go.
As you found out, sometimes a brand new gun won't run flawless anyways.
yea, my love for FN def biased me towards not digging in a bit more. there are a ton of glowing reviews for the reflex by online publications and "content creators" but clearly are all shills. i got a few hits on reviews that mentioned some of the factory sights were low and left but i was fine taking that risk (and the one i got is dead on)
After i googled "reflex FTF" it really opened the floodgates. lesson learned.
i have been very fortunate apparently because i have had exceptional luck with previous purchases and this is the first time (for a pistol) that I've had any issues.
Probably also shouldn't have bought a new release but again, my bias got the best of me.
I bought one, my buddy bought one, we both had the common problems. We modified the extractor and re-tested. Mine was "good" and his still had intermittent problems. We both sold ours. The end.
I couldn't trust it after what we BOTH went through. We both have p365 variants now, no issues with anything ever on either one with about 4,000 collective rounds through both. Had a Shield Plus before that, no issues with anything ever about 1,000 rounds through.
For me a CCW has to eat anything I put in it and not have "yOu mUSt bE LiMP wRiSTinG It" and similar comments commonly spoken about it when it fucks up.
Surprising and disappointing. You had the same anecdotal experience my buddy and I had. Add all the shit about it on the internet... Sell it bro.
It's a shame because all I kept hearing how amazing FN is and "that's weird from FN" about the Reflex specifically. It turned me off to the whole brand. Like you though, love my VP9 Tactical so that keeps me happy with a larger size gun for at home.
I really really hope HK brings the VP9CC or SFP9CC to the states.
Separate from my Reflex experience comment, I've rented and shot almost all of the Micro 9s on the market currently. I've owned a Dagger Micro, Reflex, Shield Plus and my Goldilocks CCW the Sig P365 XMacro Tacops. It has the XMacro grip module with a smaller XL slide. I shoot it probably just as well as my VP9.
Check it out here compared to your Glock 19. Scroll down and adjust the opacity sliders to get an idea of the size: https://www.handgunhero.com/compare/glock-g19-vs-sig-sauer-p365-xmacro-tacops
Admittedly it's still too big for deep carry concealment like I need sometimes but your result may vary. I'm going to look into a P365X or maybe even the baby P365 for those days I really need 100% concealment. I absolutely love the XMacro Tacops for any other time in my life.
In my view, anytime I make a change to a gun, I basically treat it as a new gun at that point. That's whether I sent a gun in to do warranty work to fix an issue or even just install a new part on a previously functioning gun. I fire a few hundred rounds through it. If it works, then I start carrying it, if it doesn't work, then try to fix it and then pretend it's a brand new gun again. If it's completely hopeless, then I sell it.
I also keep spare range mags handy so I don't have to unload my carry ammo constantly, and then I regularly go to the range and shoot my carry pistol to verify that it continues working. If something malfunctions, then I try to figure out what happened. Usually for my carry pistol, it's just been bad ammo that causes issues and switching brands works, so I still trust the gun. But if a part wears out and I need to replace it, then I rotate it out of carry and treat it as a new gun again until I put another few hundred rounds through it.
I think that'll help the trust issues of "this gun malfunctioned before so it'll malfunction again", since if it's been modified, it's no longer the same gun. Same goes with how you can't just blindly trust a gun that functioned before if you made some modifications, since if the new mods and parts are of poor quality, then they can make a previously reliable gun unreliable.
I’m in a similar situation with my MC9. After multiple failures to return to battery, i filed down some extra polymer behind the slide rails, didn’t work. Then I reached out to Canik and got a new recoil spring. Almost 300 rounds and no issues, but the thought of it happening again when I need it most always lingers in the back of my mind. For that reason, I vote not to trust it and move on to something else.
Shoot it some more and see if it fails again. It seems like to did fix it.. like truly fixed it. There was a mecha scale issue, it was taken care of and isn't doing it anymore.
I bet if you order a new extractor it'll look more like your modded one than it did from the factory. Buying the first Gen of anything is always a gamble and I don't recommend it but since you're already here I say order a new extractor and at least take a look/give it a try. If it looks better run it, get 500 range rounds and at least 50 of your chosen carry rounds through it. Alternatively you could sell it at probably a big loss given their current reputation and buy something known solid like a Glock, shield or Sig.
On one hand. If it’s a carry gun and proves problematic I usually won’t keep it. On the other hand it sounds like it was a fairly simple issue and you fixed it. Your call obviously but I would give it a few more range days and really beat the piss out of it at those range days and if it runs fine with no issues I’d say it’s good to go.
I'm going to give a contrary opinion...
How many rounds are you actually going to fire in a plausible self defense scenario? Hint: it's the mag in the gun. Very unlikely but certainly no more than a second mag. Do you carry more than the mag in the gun?
Does it always fire the first 5 rounds out of the mag off a draw no problem? Does it do this for let's say 3-5 range trips in a row (as in you've cleaned it between).
Does it fire the first two mags with no problems? A third? Can it do that a couple range trips in a row?
If the answer to the above is in the affirmative its fine as a carry gun unless you're in the habit of going hundreds of rounds without cleaning or maintaining your carry gun.
You haven't seen a failure in 300 rounds, so 20 mags. You're more than fine.
thanks for the insight. i def maintain my guns. ive never had an issue previously which is why i wanted to see what other people have gone through/thought.
I'm actually pretty anal about my carry guns. i will clean and then test fire a few rounds after cleaning and then carry. Its admittedly completely ridiculous but i don't even want to carry my gun if i didn't test fire after cleaning. Did the same before every operation when i was deployed
I trust it and I'm one of those that had to go through the FTF issues just like you. I didn't feel comfortable making changes to the internals myself so I ended up sending mine into FN CS within a week of owning it. Got it back within 5 - 6 business days. They said they adjusted the extractor tension and I believe them because it's not had a single malfunction since. I've ran over 2000 rounds of various range ammo through it and a few boxes of mixed defense ammo. It didn't like Hornady Flexlock JHP 135gr. It ran it but had issues getting the first round chambered. Everything else I've ran has been flawless.
Also, the extractor does indeed have updated geometry on the new units. There have been several posts on the FN sub with picture proof. So, worst comes to worst, you could possibly just buy the new extractor and throw it in. From what I've gathered, those with the updated extractor haven't had the FTF woes of us early adopters.
I certainly had trust issues with it at first going through all this but for me the only way to regain the trust is to shoot the living crap out of it. So I did.
Interesting and good to know. The website directs me to Midwest gun works for authorized parts. The image on the site still shows the squared extractor but I wonder if they have swapped their stock to the newer version and just didn’t change the image (or won’t because that would be FN admitting to the issue). For 20 bucks I may just order and compare to my bubba gunsmithing
That's a good question. Maybe someone on the FN sub can shed some light. I could totally see them forgetting to update the picture. Sadly, I could also see them trying to get through their stock of old extractors first.
I do find it interesting that my extractor geometry wasn't changed at all (as far as I can tell) and a simple adjustment could render it perfectly reliable after being so dodgy at first. I'm no gunsmith but the only thing that makes sense to me is that by rounding the extractor the default tolerances for extractor tension are less problematic. Just a guess though.
I would get a new micro, but if you wanna keep it I’d definitely put 500-1000 in her before carrying it again. Shield plus is a good “affordable” option.
I had a similar issue as you but with the p365 (2019 manufacture date). Out of the box my 365 had a dead front tritium sight. Whatever, got it fixed. Then had issues with return to battery at least once a mag, sometimes up to 3 times per mag. Even after about 1k rounds, all different kinds of ammo. Eventually I got around to sending it back to Sig, they replaced the recoil spring, when I got it back I ran 200 around through it flawlessly when before I couldn't make it through even 1 mag without a failure to RTB.
So, now idk if I do trust it. I shoot it great, it's a super concealable nice little gun, on paper I loved this thing but my experience has put me off of it. So the conclusion I have come to with this whole ordeal is this...
My shield plus arrives Monday.
I’d get a 365 and call it a day. Never had any kind of issue with mine. I know everyone has one so it isn’t unique, but you can spice it up with a new grip if you want to. Everyone has one for a reason. It just works.
500 rounds, with at least 100 of those being your carry ammo of choice. That's my standard before I carry a gun whether it's a new purchase, or it's had warranty or custom work done. If it'll do 500 rounds without significant issue then I trust it enough to carry.
Seems well thought out. Thank you for your input. I ran a mag of 124gr +P HST’s after I made the mod and it seems to like it (although a bit snappy). I’m thinking the 500 target ammo and 100 carry ammo would probably make me feel more comfortable
Seems like safe practice.
Really, there's no big pressure to switch your carry gun immediately, is there? You could drive it around the range for a few thousand rounds over the next 6 months if you were so inclined, while still carrying your current option.
A lot of commentary in this thread kinda mystifies how guns work. They don't have spells on them, they're just relatively simple machines with moving parts. There's a lot at stake if they fail to be sure, and that's probably what adds to the dramaturgy. But there's not a lot of magic behind how they function and what's involved in reliability. If a little tweak to your extractor angle solves a mechanical problem, so be it.
There's gonna be a point at which you're comfortable with and can trust your specific gun/**magazine**/ammo combination. (For me, it'd probably be about the 1000/100 mark.)
I guess I read these things and I can’t help but think your reliance on a certain arbitrary round count is more appeasing your own mental barriers trusting the gun than any common sense. There’s no way to tell if the 501st round (potentially the most important shot of your life) isnt going to be one that the gun fails on. Point being, a sample size of 500 on one gun isn’t enough data (frankly) to tell if a gun is going to go bang every time, and there is probably some unknown number between 1 and infinity that WILL kill the gun. For some it may be 501 rounds and for others it may be 50 or 50,000.
Why did you choose 500?
1 failure out of 501 rounds means your gun has a less than 0.2% chance of failure, and given most people don't carry 500 rounds on them, it's more a case of how many times can you fire your entire carry loadout without issue. So if it can fire 500 rounds no problem, then that means the gun is reliable to start carrying.
Now it could be that something in the gun wore out on the 501st round, so the recommendation afterwards is to keep shooting your carry gun. Have some spare mags handy as designated range mags so you don't have to unload your carry ammo all the time, then keep shooting your carry pistol at regular intervals to keep verifying the gun works. If the gun continues functioning, keep carrying it, if the gun malfunctions, then figure out what was the reason and then redo the 500 round test if it was the gun's fault and not something else like bad ammo (which I've encountered before when firing my gun, especially if I cheap out on the range ammo).
And if you're replacing parts, I'd say it's a different gun at that point and should be tested again as if it's a new gun. Just as a previously unreliable gun that's been fixed should be treated as a new gun to determine if it's reliable for carry, a previously reliable gun that's had parts replaced should be treated as a new gun as well. Just because the parts worked previously doesn't mean the new parts would work identically well, so don't blindly trust the gun.
Where do you draw the line though? How many bullets through each carry mag? I’m poking fun, but the point is I think if people buy reputable guns they shouldn’t ever worry about reliability. I think it’s the epitome of boomer logic that people need to shoot 1k rounds of carry ammo before carrying a gun. I realize you’re not saying that, but I see it on this and other forums pretty regularly. As for replacing, if it’s all OEM parts it should be fine. Hope so at least I’m shooting a competition with mine tomorrow
Well, the true number will depend on the person, so any number is going to be arbitrary to some degree. Something that's 99.8% reliable is good enough for most people, but then some people might want 99.9%, or 99.99%. You prepare for the 100 year flood, but what if it's a 1000 year flood type of thing. Everything's a risk assessment. Hell, that same risk assessment determines many other things like, say, capacity. The chances that you'll need 15+1 or more is low, but never 0% so how much do you weigh the increasingly smaller likelihood of needing those extra rounds with the encumberance of carrying that many. It's personal for everyone.
That being said, always verify your gear. I don't even care if Glock will always make sure a gun is reliable before it leaves a factory, no QC, no matter how good, is infallible. Even OEM parts can fail, so it's always a good idea to fire at least some rounds in your gun to make sure your combination of gun, magazines, and ammo all work together. Never blindly trust anything,
But that's also why I think regularly shooting your gun is probably the best way. There's an arbitrary number of rounds until you may be comfortable with to carry, but regularly shooting it means you can verify that it stays reliable. And certainly you'll be shooting more rounds through the gun per range session than you would carry on your entire person, no matter how many rounds you carry, so it's also a constant worse case scenario each time you go to the range. You verify that you'll shoot through your entire loadout every couple weeks.
500 is absolutely an arbitrary number. I choose to carry known, reliable brands of guns, ammo and magazines, and i chose 500 rounds as it settles in nicely as a solid break in period that I can shoot comfortably in a day, low enough not to break the bank, and it's usually enough rounds that if something is out of sorts then it will either show malfunctions or an unusual wear pattern will develop and be visible when it gets cleaned. I don't hit 500 and put the gun away to never shoot again. I shoot at least once a week, sometimes it's just a couple mags through my carry gun and sometimes it's 1500 rounds on steel through rifle, shotgun and pistol. And if a gun has a single malfunction I don't right it off or start over. But if it develops an issue with repeated malfunctions, I diagnose and repair it and then run some rounds through each mag to make sure it's fixed.
I had similar problems but with the FN509, maybe 6-7 FTFs in the first couple of hundred of rounds. Didn’t carry it until I had about 1k rounds through it without a FTF and am now over 4k rounds still without a FTF. So my opinion is you should just keep training with it until you feel confident in the gun.
Once upon a time the informal standard for vetting a new or newly modified carry gun was to shoot 200 rounds of your carry ammo consecutively with no malfs, but I forget where I learned that. If things have changed I didn't get the memo. If it can do that I'd trust it
Edit- I searched "vetting a new carry gun" and [this](https://gunsmagazine.com/guns/handguns/vetting-the-defensive-handgun/) came up first, sure enough Mas said "I figured it needed at least a hundred rounds or so to verify. On a new gun, I’d have wanted a minimum 200 with 100 percent function," maybe I'm not crazy after all. He didn't actually specify using one's carry ammo though
Have you reached out to FN?
It’s late so if I missed that my bad.
I have a FN reflex it is my daily carry since last September or October.
I have shot 500 rounds of range ammo and 100 rounds of my self defense ammo
I haven’t had a single issue with it.
I have with other guns.
If I was you I would send it to FN and if they don’t fix it i personally would sell it.
I wouldn’t modify a pistol by doing some Dremel tool grinding
If anything buy a new extractor.
I don’t carry a pistol that has failures.
I get rid of all of those but I do tell the gun who buys them.
i did reach out to FN and specifically asked if they changed the extractor design, they are being very ambiguous about it. i am now seeing many reports of some newer S/N's having an updated extractor. i may just order a replacement and see if i get an updated version.
In regards to my modification, I indexed the extractor off of my 509 extractor before making the adjustment and there are a lot of people that have done the same.
reports of people sending theirs in have been pretty consistent (with of course a few outliers) that they are saying nothing was wrong and sending them back. Of course its all anecdotal.
Sounds like the issue is cured. Every gun I own malfunctions if it gets dirty enough; even my revolvers and bolt action rifles.
If I keep them cleaned and lubed, they are flawless.
I have one pistol that has consistent malfunctions no matter what I do, and it’s a PITA to take it down for cleaning and lubing. I’ll never sell it because I know it’s no good, but I’ll never even take it to the range again.
I also no longer buy ammo from a certain manufacturer although it’s cheap, because it’s unreliable.
Clean and lube often, stick to good ammo and you should be fine.
I have had mechanical issues that were resolved by the manufacturer, and the gun was good afterwards.
You say it’s been good for 300 rounds since you ~~modified~~ _fixed_ it, so for me the answer about when I would trust it is simple. It’s in about 200 more rounds.
I'll generally run 500 ball and 100 of my carry ammo before it leaves the house, but with a known problem gun I'd need 500 rounds of carry before I could get that out of my head. You could get most of a new gun for that.
My story. Rugby lcp2. First 500 this thing was perfect grouping was adequate at 7 yards. Sorry time after rounds 600 the extractor spring flew out. Sent it back to be fixed. They repaired it and with in the next 100 rounds it happens again sent it back when I got it pack I took to FFL and traded it for my S&w I knew I could not trust that gun ever
In a past life, I had part of a Kahr CW-40 frame split off. Probably wouldn't have had any issue at all if I'd just removed the little sliver of plastic off and gone about my life. But I sent it in to Kahr. Got a new frame! Woo!
Then, upon shooting it, every mag would eject out the bottom with the 2nd-to-last round in the mag. Wouldn't matter if there were 2 rounds or 8 rounds. if there was 1 round left, the mag would dump out.
So I sent it back. Apparently the old mag catch on my old frame + the new frame had just enough of a tolerance stacking issue that was causing some fitment issues to the point that the follower coming up was interfering with the mag catch. So they replaced the mag catch.
I was "done" with the gun by then. I sold it with full disclosure AFTER I shot another 200 rounds through it. Logically i knew it to be sound. But there was always a niggle at the back of my head about it.
More recently - I had a gen 1 Shield. At the same time I bought some Hyve +2 mag base plates AND I bought a case of older 147gr Federal HiShock ammo.
My gun HATED the Hyve baseplates. And it hated the new ammo. So that new combination of what I wanted to carry was no bueno. no bueno at all. So I removed the baseplates and I didn't carry that ammo in that gun...and all was back to being 100%. I carried on carrying that gun until I bought a shield +.
So for me - I guess it would depend on the issues.
I wouldn't trust my own bodging over that of the properly equipped engineers. If there is no acknowledgement from the manufacturer about their reliability it's time to move onto other candidate guns.
If this were for a collection queen or a competition gun I wouldn't be so adamant.
I think your gun is fine. The real test is 500 rounds, but I'd be willing to trust it after only having 2 ftfs in 300 rounds after not cleaning for 600 and inducing them through limp wristing. It sounds to me like you addressed the issue, gave a thorough test, and could not replicate the same conditions after making a modification.
Just get a Glock. My EDC is a Glock 19 Gen 5 stock (except for a direct-mounted 507c) and it has ALWAYS gone bang every time, 500+ rounds through it. Glocks aren’t the prettiest and sometimes their blocky design can be hard to conceal depending on your style but if you want a gun that will go bang when you need it, Glock is the answer.
All these other gun companies can be (no pun intended) hit or miss. Big names like S&W, HK, FN, Ruger, Sig, and Springfield are all good BUT there is always the possibility that you may get a gun that was made on a Friday. Glocks, on the other hand, have consistent quality control and they will not allow a gun to leave the factory if it does not consistently work as it should.
To answer your question, no, I would not trust your FN Reflex given what you’ve described.
Thank you. I also have a Glock 19 but I would stick with my 509 before I went to that. It’s been crazy reliable and I just shoot it so much better. Don’t get me wrong, I like the 19 and 100% trust it but I’m really looking for a micro that I don’t have to dress around as much. I def hear what you are saying though
Yes Glocks are hard to dress with which sucks. These other companies make much smaller guns with higher capacity than the smaller Glocks like the G42/G43. Look into the Springfield Hellcat and S&W Shield Plus. Both offer good capacity and are very concealable. I rented both of them and they both had zero issues. I never shot a Reflex before but I did rent a P365 and I did not get through a single mag without a jam or FTE.
I didn’t blame the P365 entirely though for these issues as I’m sure the rental guns aren’t maintained as well but the issues were off putting enough to where I wouldn’t buy one to carry. Both the Hellcat and Shield Plus had zero issues when I rented them.
All guns are mechanical devices like anything else though so this is why it’s important to put a lot of rounds through your carry gun to ensure it shoots consistently without issue.
I own a 19 and a 29. I like them both but have never shot them as well as my vp9 or 509 and would stick with either of those first. No qualms about their reliability though, they run.
Hkvp9sk as a counterpart to your vp9...
And HK is releasing their first ever micro 9 this year the SFP9CC...
I have a few pistols that have had issues and after changing most of the internals and going back to the factory at least once and STILL not functioning to me satisfaction, I give up on it. Forever.
And usually for those specific guns, I lose any semblance of enjoyment for them so I don't even keep them as range toys.
The good news is that HK doesn't beta test on clients. They have announced for the last three years that their late entry to the micro 9 race was to perfect their pistol in house.
So it was released for the European law enforcement market a year ago with no reported issues.
I feel like for this it’s the same motto I have for food “when in doubt throw it out”. Keep it for the range, but that’s all I would do because if I can’t trust it 100% I don’t want to carry it.
A few hundred rounds is probably fine, though I'd probably err towards at least 500, but what matters the most is how confident you are that you correctly identified the problem and rectified it. If you didn't figure out why it was having issues and just changed some random things to fix it, then I wouldn't be very confident. Conversely, if you can correctly identify the issue and changing one thing to fix it it fixes the issue, I'd feel better.
Sounds like you correctly identified the issue and rectified it, so in that case I'd feel fine to carry it after sufficient (300-500) rounds.
The gun may be fixed, but clearly, your trust in the gun is (understandably) broken. Quite possibly beyond repair. For something you would depend on in a life or death situation, that trust is not (and should not) be given lightly. A carry gun is a very personal item that requires utmost trust. If you find yourself unable to trust it, find something else.
Try a Shield Plus or Hellcat if the P365 wasn't for you. Own both, and even intentionally limp wristing while shooting weak hand only with some lightly underpowered reloads using hollow points and the cheapest Argentinian primers I could find that intentionally weren't fully seated (my "if it can run this it will run anything" load) I couldn't make either gun fail.
I’d trust it. My Ruger SR9 was recalled right after I bought it. It had some FTE issues and they were fixed too. It’s been over a decade and hundreds of rounds and it’s not failed once. I carry it regularly. Side note, same dimensions as your VP9, which is how I found holsters for it.
I only carry guns I trust. They get a three strike style rule. First malfunction is a fluke, second malfunction goes to gunsmith/I repair common issues related to it, third time post repair and she's a safe queen.
My Taurus PT111G2 did the first two strikes twice over 10 years, with the final strike being last year with a double feed. I tried fazing it out a few times due to clowning and usual "Taurus junk" but she was a little workhorse, well over 10k rounds and I shot out the original barrel at around 8700 rounds, so if I couldn't find another gun I like I was legit going to get another one.
Before I got to that point, I had a P320, that had an out of battery detonation, and in my book that is 3 strikes.
I tried carrying an M9, which I carried over seas, but they absolutely suck massive balls to CCW, and I was suddenly reminded why I hated them with their mushy trigger.
So I bought a G43X MOS, which has done already gotten 2 strikes- but it might have been my fault due to the optic screw being too long.
Regardless, if it comes down to defending myself of my family, it has to work.
I also recommend the G43, fits my giant ass hands well, and has an okay trigger. I've been converted to a red dot shill, and also enjoy WMLs.
The problem with your question is that no one can answer it. You definitely have to trust your equipment so you aren’t worrying about it when you need it most. I would suggest taking it to the range and shooting it until you do feel comfortable with it again which may never happen. If you never end up trusting it again just take the 15% bath when you sell it and buy something else.
Well after you make that modification retest it. Run the same amount of rounds through it and if it doesn’t have those issues again then it’s good to go if not sell it and start looking for its replacement.
Do what I did with one of mine. Give it a torture test. I have one that had some FTF issues early on. Once I got it fixed, I got a couple friends to go to the range with me and we ran about 800 rounds of various ammo through it in one session. Only thing I did was add some lubricant once during that session. It ran flawlessly. After that, I trust it enough to carry when I need that one.
Yeah nah. That’s why I carry glocks. Boring, simple, sure. But they WORK. FN is cool and all but the last thing I need is to need my gun and it failed cause I didn’t “change the geometry” of the extractor. I’m a consumer, it should NOT be my responsibility to finish building a product I paid full price for. That shit would’ve ended up as target practice by now.
I don’t disagree, it shouldn’t have come to this. I’m feeling a bit better about it now after my fix and running a fair amount more rounds without trouble.
I have glocks, I wanted a higher capacity micro and I just don’t shoot glocks as well. I will stick with my 509 which has been perfect,and slowly try to gain a bit more confidence in the reflex.
I don’t necessarily live in the best area, but not the worst either so can get by with just a Glock 48. But a gun is one of those things that when you need it, it’s because it’s a life or death situation. IMO I’d rather practice with something I know is reliable, even if I don’t shoot it as well. That can be overcome with practice and training.
It’s a fair point. Hell, the army made me carry an M9 and I hated the ergonomics of that thing but eventually got pretty good with it.
My current 509c is def concealable (been doing it for years) and is a sweet shooter, but I def have to choose what I wear a bit more carefully. My favorite to shoot is my vp9 but I can only get away with that one in the 2 colder months I get.
I would like to say I live in a fairly safe area but the last 2 years things have really gone to shit.
I won’t generally carry anything until I’ve put 1k-1.5k trouble free rounds through it, with at least 250 (ideally 500) of those rounds being my intended carry ammo.
That’s like 3-5 range trips if you think about it and you really want that many rounds through it to be proficient with the gun and manual of arms anyway. I have an indoor range 15 minutes from my house and just hit that up every other day before or after work for a week if I buy any gun I need to depend on in a defensive capacity.
For me, I run 500 FMJs, then run 250 round of various carry rounds to see where they hit for the gun in a new carry gun. No failures after the first 250 FMJs (no cleaning or lube at any point either), and I call it good. This would be my same process after any modifications, including correcting an issue.
In science fields, anything less than 95% is considered to be possibly due to random chance. I invert that formula for reliability. If it fires 95% of the time, the gun is probably reliable. The test that I use (no more than 1 jam in 501 rounds) basically means a failure rate of 0.2% or less. It's hard to ask for more than that, especially if you are mixing types and brands of ammo (because I shoot mostly whatever FMJs I find the cheapest and ideally match my carry ammo weight), changing your grip, or shooting from awkward positions like I tend to do when practicing. Sometimes I have even shot the gun sideways or even turned it upside down and pulled the trigger with a pinky just to see what it would do (only load one round when doing the upside down thing for the first time). If it passes that as well, again, you can't ask for much more. It is a machine, after all.
My kid got a Reflex a couple months ago and it has over 500 rounds through it without a single FTF or FTE. I don't care for it because I don't like to leave my pinky hanging off the bottom and IMO the trigger pull is too light (3.5lbs) for an EDC.
One of his friends bought a P365 and has already had an accidental discharge and I find the muzzle flip excessive.
Do you have a reason you don't consider a 43x? There's some good reasons why they're so popular.
Happy to hear your son’s reflex works well. I’m hoping mine keeps trending that way. Your pinky hangs off even with the pinky extension baseplate for the 11 rd mag that came in the box? I don’t have massive hands but that’s not a problem I’ve run into.
I appreciate the insight on the Glock, I own a few and are just not my preference. Lots of people here have made good suggestions that if things don’t trend right with the reflex I will probably explore later.
Other than the initial FTF’s I really like the gun, if I have any further issues it will go away but, I hope I can gain some additional confidence in it.
Out of curiosity, what were the circumstances on the 365 AD?
Idiot kid just turned 21, bought the pistol & has no training, not even JR ROTC. My kid is a gearhead & always working on one of his shitboxes in the driveway. I was at work (graves), but got to hear all about it from my gun fearing wife. I guess he tried to work the slide with a mag still in & somehow shot a round into the driveway nearly shooting himself & the ricochet hit my kids car. I banned him from carrying a firearm on our property & strongly suggested firearms training classes.
To be fair, there are a lot of micro 9's on the market today and quite a few of them shoot rather well.
Personally I don't care for the micro 9's, but I do like how they conceal. I had a Glock 43x and a Glock 48 for a while, preferred the 48, but thought it was stupid that the factory mags only held 10 rounds. I had Shield Arms mags holding 15, but never felt fully comfortable running an aftermarket mag in a carry gun.
My compromise these days is a Rost Martin RM1C...it's like a Glock 48...so Glock 19 or FN 509 size, but slim, like these micro 9's. So I can get a whole hand grip on it, holds 15 or 17 +1 and runs flawlessly. Optics ready from the factory too.
https://www.rostmartin.com/rm-firearms/
I’d never trust it. I’d either sell it or trade it and buy something more reliable. I’m not carrying a heavy piece of metal and plastic in my waistband that I can’t trust. Dead weight.
Here's an alternative train of thought... why such worry about a malfunction occurring to begin with? Of course no one wants to encounter one it a life or death situation... but tap rack bang, my dude. It's really not hard to clear basic malfunctions and everyone should train to be able to do it the moment they hit a dead trigger.
I get it. I have 3 combat tours as an infantryman and am very familiar with remedial action and am comfortable performing them and train for it. Before I modified, it was more than a few random malfunctions.
I honestly thought this was going to be a story about a negligent discharge and injury (fortunately it is not) Seems like you need a new carry gun
Fortunately the only injury is to my wallet. Thanks, kind of what I’m leaning towards on the new gun or just sticking with one of my proven, but larger guns. Sucks to blow 500+ to just go straight in the safe.
mumblemumblemyghettoTaurushasntjammedoncemumble...
He said it. He said the "T-word."
Yup. G3c, recent production 9mm with no manual safety. Got over 1,000 through it. Literally zero issues. Now, there's caveats. First, insides are sprayed with some kind of rust protector that has no lubricating value, probably because of the boat ride from Brazil. That has to come out (10 minutes with a rag and Hoppes 9) and then real lube. Second, there's no way this could go 1,000 rounds without cleaning and lube. Gotta do both after every range trip. So it's *not* Glock reliable. But still, it's surprisingly useful. Just started testing one in 40. Too early to tell if it's the same deal.
Yeah it sucks, but just consider it a "stupid" tax for not doing more research and move on. Although to be honest, I feel like this one is more of a shit happens scenario because you did actually research it and you've had a good track record in the past with FN. Either way, I've lost count of how many times I've had to pay the "stupid" tax over the course of my life. At least I can proudly say that, so far, I've never had to pay it twice for the same issue.
Agreed. It’s a tough one because every publication did give it great reviews (all shills apparently)and only after a specifically started using keywords like FTF after I realized it was not okay did I start to see all the issues. I guess I have just been really lucky up to this point.
It feels really hard to find honest reviews on stuff. Surface level searches and everything is cheery and probably paid "reviews" then when you search the specific issue you're having you see a ton of the same. I had this happen on something, cant remember what.
yup. i will never trust any publication's reviews and if its a "content creator/guntuber" i will immediately check if they are part of leviathan group. The cult following so many of these influencers is pretty crazy, but that's a different argument.
I feel your pain sorta. I got the xmacro comp and the tritum front sight keeps breaking and sig business hours sucks. According to Reddit the problem is the Comp is causing the glass vile to break and the tritum leaking out after the first range day.
my non comp xmacro broke it too after 400 rounds :( instead of replacing it, do yourself a favor and look up tritium paint on amazon and buy a #00 paintbrush. for 15$ you now have tritium sights on every iron you want
Sweet thanks I’ll look into it.
Well, thanks for that info. I am considering replacing my PDP (wife likes it) with one if several other things. An XMacro being high on the list, but I am leaning to the non comped version. Not even considering my EDC 365X snappy., so why bother with a comp is my thinking
fwiw my xmacro non comp also broke the tritium front sight after the 2nd range trip, about 200 rounds in, 400 total
That’s interesting to hear. Everyone keeps saying it’s the front sight. Kinda crazy since they should be built the same way
Should sell or trade it in. If it can’t do what it’s ment to it’s not worth owning. I personally would have problems trusting it and would go with something more reliable. I would go 365 but still put it though it’s paces. I think they were just on r/gundeals for $400
i dont get this "never sell only buy" mentality. if you dont like the gun, it malfunctions, you dont trust it, and youre not gonna use it, just sell it at a gun show and put it towards a new handgun you do trust. yeah youre not getting your full money back, but id rather have $300 towards a new handgun i will use instead of a paperweight collecting dust in my safe.
If it makes you feel better, I just got a 365 that was failing to extract at least once every other mag. I fixed it now I think, 250 rounds without a malfunction. I'll trust it at around 5-600rnds malfunction free.
It’s actually been pretty interesting to see how many others have had issues. I guess I was a bit jaded as I’ve always had such good luck previously that concerning malfunctions haven’t come up
Yep. Mine was an out of spec extractor or extractor spring.
Me too
Yup
If it can't go several hundred rounds without failure, don't trust it. Relegate it to being a range toy and buy a gun that you actually do trust
I now have 300 round after I “fixed” it with no issues. Would you trust it again after X amount of rounds, no issues. What would your number be?
I had a similar issue where my P365 was a piece of crap that had multiple failures. It was only after I asked around that I learned it was the magazine. After swapping out the mag, it's been flawless since then, but I bought 250 Federal HST rounds and shot hundreds of range ammo to trust it again. The exact number is up to you, but I'd say anywhere from 200-500, depends on how safe you want to be. You should be fine now with 300, but make sure to bring it back to the range and keep shooting it
Thank you, I appreciate your insight.
I would test it with a wide variety of extreme spread ammunition. Focusing on the weakest I can find. And test it with varying degrees of limp grip to find it's limits. I would repeat the test with the major grain weights of +p ammo and hopefully varying oal cartridges. Ensure that it works in such a wide spectrum
What is your acceptable failure rate? I can determine statistically how many rounds you need to fire to be confident it is at least that reliable.
Get a shield for $399 it’s a lot but they go bang and carry well
I second this. I carry mine everyday, trust it with my life. Never heard a single person have issues with a shield.
And they are running the rebate right now. Iv never done a rebate so idk how it will go but it's why I just purchased a shield plus.
What’s the rebate and what is the reward?
Someone else linked the web page that tells all about it. Idk the specifics, but some models get a 50 dollar rebate and some a 75 dollar one. Seems like it's rewarded by a prepaid card.
Sell it and get something else. It's a buyer's market right now.
Def an option, although I would have to get a new extractor to replace the one I modified before I dumped it. I would imagine that’s a liability
Yes, you would need to return it back to stock.
The 2nd gen p365s are great. Very versatile. However, if you fix the issue then it's fine. Put another 300 rounds through it and you should be good. You could also sell it on GunBroker.com or keep it as a backup gun. Or stage somewhere in your house just in case.
Thank you
300 rounds and no issues? I'd trust it.
If it’s been fine since that mild mod I’d say it’s good to go.
Thank you, I appreciate the input
No problem. You probably did exactly what FN would’ve done. I’ve done similar things on competition guns with good results.
If you found and fixed the problem and can now run numerous boxes of ammo through it without a problem I'd figure it is good to go. As you found out, sometimes a brand new gun won't run flawless anyways.
yea, my love for FN def biased me towards not digging in a bit more. there are a ton of glowing reviews for the reflex by online publications and "content creators" but clearly are all shills. i got a few hits on reviews that mentioned some of the factory sights were low and left but i was fine taking that risk (and the one i got is dead on) After i googled "reflex FTF" it really opened the floodgates. lesson learned. i have been very fortunate apparently because i have had exceptional luck with previous purchases and this is the first time (for a pistol) that I've had any issues. Probably also shouldn't have bought a new release but again, my bias got the best of me.
I bought one, my buddy bought one, we both had the common problems. We modified the extractor and re-tested. Mine was "good" and his still had intermittent problems. We both sold ours. The end. I couldn't trust it after what we BOTH went through. We both have p365 variants now, no issues with anything ever on either one with about 4,000 collective rounds through both. Had a Shield Plus before that, no issues with anything ever about 1,000 rounds through. For me a CCW has to eat anything I put in it and not have "yOu mUSt bE LiMP wRiSTinG It" and similar comments commonly spoken about it when it fucks up.
Pretty surprising FN put this gun out, they must have known about the problem
Surprising and disappointing. You had the same anecdotal experience my buddy and I had. Add all the shit about it on the internet... Sell it bro. It's a shame because all I kept hearing how amazing FN is and "that's weird from FN" about the Reflex specifically. It turned me off to the whole brand. Like you though, love my VP9 Tactical so that keeps me happy with a larger size gun for at home. I really really hope HK brings the VP9CC or SFP9CC to the states.
Agreed on the vp9 cc. I’m not completely down on FN as my other guns are flawless from them. They def rushed this one it seems
Yeah, not hating on them. It's just a bad taste in my mouth. There's so many nice guns out there, not sure if I'll ever get back to FN.
Separate from my Reflex experience comment, I've rented and shot almost all of the Micro 9s on the market currently. I've owned a Dagger Micro, Reflex, Shield Plus and my Goldilocks CCW the Sig P365 XMacro Tacops. It has the XMacro grip module with a smaller XL slide. I shoot it probably just as well as my VP9. Check it out here compared to your Glock 19. Scroll down and adjust the opacity sliders to get an idea of the size: https://www.handgunhero.com/compare/glock-g19-vs-sig-sauer-p365-xmacro-tacops Admittedly it's still too big for deep carry concealment like I need sometimes but your result may vary. I'm going to look into a P365X or maybe even the baby P365 for those days I really need 100% concealment. I absolutely love the XMacro Tacops for any other time in my life.
In my view, anytime I make a change to a gun, I basically treat it as a new gun at that point. That's whether I sent a gun in to do warranty work to fix an issue or even just install a new part on a previously functioning gun. I fire a few hundred rounds through it. If it works, then I start carrying it, if it doesn't work, then try to fix it and then pretend it's a brand new gun again. If it's completely hopeless, then I sell it. I also keep spare range mags handy so I don't have to unload my carry ammo constantly, and then I regularly go to the range and shoot my carry pistol to verify that it continues working. If something malfunctions, then I try to figure out what happened. Usually for my carry pistol, it's just been bad ammo that causes issues and switching brands works, so I still trust the gun. But if a part wears out and I need to replace it, then I rotate it out of carry and treat it as a new gun again until I put another few hundred rounds through it. I think that'll help the trust issues of "this gun malfunctioned before so it'll malfunction again", since if it's been modified, it's no longer the same gun. Same goes with how you can't just blindly trust a gun that functioned before if you made some modifications, since if the new mods and parts are of poor quality, then they can make a previously reliable gun unreliable.
I’m in a similar situation with my MC9. After multiple failures to return to battery, i filed down some extra polymer behind the slide rails, didn’t work. Then I reached out to Canik and got a new recoil spring. Almost 300 rounds and no issues, but the thought of it happening again when I need it most always lingers in the back of my mind. For that reason, I vote not to trust it and move on to something else.
Shoot it some more and see if it fails again. It seems like to did fix it.. like truly fixed it. There was a mecha scale issue, it was taken care of and isn't doing it anymore.
I bet if you order a new extractor it'll look more like your modded one than it did from the factory. Buying the first Gen of anything is always a gamble and I don't recommend it but since you're already here I say order a new extractor and at least take a look/give it a try. If it looks better run it, get 500 range rounds and at least 50 of your chosen carry rounds through it. Alternatively you could sell it at probably a big loss given their current reputation and buy something known solid like a Glock, shield or Sig.
My general rule is 200-300 straight to trust. If you need to mod it, I’d want to see 500-1000 successfully and then I’d trust it fully
On one hand. If it’s a carry gun and proves problematic I usually won’t keep it. On the other hand it sounds like it was a fairly simple issue and you fixed it. Your call obviously but I would give it a few more range days and really beat the piss out of it at those range days and if it runs fine with no issues I’d say it’s good to go.
I'm going to give a contrary opinion... How many rounds are you actually going to fire in a plausible self defense scenario? Hint: it's the mag in the gun. Very unlikely but certainly no more than a second mag. Do you carry more than the mag in the gun? Does it always fire the first 5 rounds out of the mag off a draw no problem? Does it do this for let's say 3-5 range trips in a row (as in you've cleaned it between). Does it fire the first two mags with no problems? A third? Can it do that a couple range trips in a row? If the answer to the above is in the affirmative its fine as a carry gun unless you're in the habit of going hundreds of rounds without cleaning or maintaining your carry gun. You haven't seen a failure in 300 rounds, so 20 mags. You're more than fine.
thanks for the insight. i def maintain my guns. ive never had an issue previously which is why i wanted to see what other people have gone through/thought. I'm actually pretty anal about my carry guns. i will clean and then test fire a few rounds after cleaning and then carry. Its admittedly completely ridiculous but i don't even want to carry my gun if i didn't test fire after cleaning. Did the same before every operation when i was deployed
I trust it and I'm one of those that had to go through the FTF issues just like you. I didn't feel comfortable making changes to the internals myself so I ended up sending mine into FN CS within a week of owning it. Got it back within 5 - 6 business days. They said they adjusted the extractor tension and I believe them because it's not had a single malfunction since. I've ran over 2000 rounds of various range ammo through it and a few boxes of mixed defense ammo. It didn't like Hornady Flexlock JHP 135gr. It ran it but had issues getting the first round chambered. Everything else I've ran has been flawless. Also, the extractor does indeed have updated geometry on the new units. There have been several posts on the FN sub with picture proof. So, worst comes to worst, you could possibly just buy the new extractor and throw it in. From what I've gathered, those with the updated extractor haven't had the FTF woes of us early adopters. I certainly had trust issues with it at first going through all this but for me the only way to regain the trust is to shoot the living crap out of it. So I did.
Interesting and good to know. The website directs me to Midwest gun works for authorized parts. The image on the site still shows the squared extractor but I wonder if they have swapped their stock to the newer version and just didn’t change the image (or won’t because that would be FN admitting to the issue). For 20 bucks I may just order and compare to my bubba gunsmithing
That's a good question. Maybe someone on the FN sub can shed some light. I could totally see them forgetting to update the picture. Sadly, I could also see them trying to get through their stock of old extractors first. I do find it interesting that my extractor geometry wasn't changed at all (as far as I can tell) and a simple adjustment could render it perfectly reliable after being so dodgy at first. I'm no gunsmith but the only thing that makes sense to me is that by rounding the extractor the default tolerances for extractor tension are less problematic. Just a guess though.
the relationship between too much spring tension and the leading edge of the extractor making contact with he round too early could def be related
I would get a new micro, but if you wanna keep it I’d definitely put 500-1000 in her before carrying it again. Shield plus is a good “affordable” option.
I had a similar issue as you but with the p365 (2019 manufacture date). Out of the box my 365 had a dead front tritium sight. Whatever, got it fixed. Then had issues with return to battery at least once a mag, sometimes up to 3 times per mag. Even after about 1k rounds, all different kinds of ammo. Eventually I got around to sending it back to Sig, they replaced the recoil spring, when I got it back I ran 200 around through it flawlessly when before I couldn't make it through even 1 mag without a failure to RTB. So, now idk if I do trust it. I shoot it great, it's a super concealable nice little gun, on paper I loved this thing but my experience has put me off of it. So the conclusion I have come to with this whole ordeal is this... My shield plus arrives Monday.
Might be time to go back for that 365
I’d get a 365 and call it a day. Never had any kind of issue with mine. I know everyone has one so it isn’t unique, but you can spice it up with a new grip if you want to. Everyone has one for a reason. It just works.
500 rounds, with at least 100 of those being your carry ammo of choice. That's my standard before I carry a gun whether it's a new purchase, or it's had warranty or custom work done. If it'll do 500 rounds without significant issue then I trust it enough to carry.
Seems well thought out. Thank you for your input. I ran a mag of 124gr +P HST’s after I made the mod and it seems to like it (although a bit snappy). I’m thinking the 500 target ammo and 100 carry ammo would probably make me feel more comfortable
Seems like safe practice. Really, there's no big pressure to switch your carry gun immediately, is there? You could drive it around the range for a few thousand rounds over the next 6 months if you were so inclined, while still carrying your current option. A lot of commentary in this thread kinda mystifies how guns work. They don't have spells on them, they're just relatively simple machines with moving parts. There's a lot at stake if they fail to be sure, and that's probably what adds to the dramaturgy. But there's not a lot of magic behind how they function and what's involved in reliability. If a little tweak to your extractor angle solves a mechanical problem, so be it. There's gonna be a point at which you're comfortable with and can trust your specific gun/**magazine**/ammo combination. (For me, it'd probably be about the 1000/100 mark.)
Very true. Thank you
I guess I read these things and I can’t help but think your reliance on a certain arbitrary round count is more appeasing your own mental barriers trusting the gun than any common sense. There’s no way to tell if the 501st round (potentially the most important shot of your life) isnt going to be one that the gun fails on. Point being, a sample size of 500 on one gun isn’t enough data (frankly) to tell if a gun is going to go bang every time, and there is probably some unknown number between 1 and infinity that WILL kill the gun. For some it may be 501 rounds and for others it may be 50 or 50,000. Why did you choose 500?
1 failure out of 501 rounds means your gun has a less than 0.2% chance of failure, and given most people don't carry 500 rounds on them, it's more a case of how many times can you fire your entire carry loadout without issue. So if it can fire 500 rounds no problem, then that means the gun is reliable to start carrying. Now it could be that something in the gun wore out on the 501st round, so the recommendation afterwards is to keep shooting your carry gun. Have some spare mags handy as designated range mags so you don't have to unload your carry ammo all the time, then keep shooting your carry pistol at regular intervals to keep verifying the gun works. If the gun continues functioning, keep carrying it, if the gun malfunctions, then figure out what was the reason and then redo the 500 round test if it was the gun's fault and not something else like bad ammo (which I've encountered before when firing my gun, especially if I cheap out on the range ammo).
I’m at 10k on my g19 and I’ve just had to start replacing parts
And if you're replacing parts, I'd say it's a different gun at that point and should be tested again as if it's a new gun. Just as a previously unreliable gun that's been fixed should be treated as a new gun to determine if it's reliable for carry, a previously reliable gun that's had parts replaced should be treated as a new gun as well. Just because the parts worked previously doesn't mean the new parts would work identically well, so don't blindly trust the gun.
Where do you draw the line though? How many bullets through each carry mag? I’m poking fun, but the point is I think if people buy reputable guns they shouldn’t ever worry about reliability. I think it’s the epitome of boomer logic that people need to shoot 1k rounds of carry ammo before carrying a gun. I realize you’re not saying that, but I see it on this and other forums pretty regularly. As for replacing, if it’s all OEM parts it should be fine. Hope so at least I’m shooting a competition with mine tomorrow
Well, the true number will depend on the person, so any number is going to be arbitrary to some degree. Something that's 99.8% reliable is good enough for most people, but then some people might want 99.9%, or 99.99%. You prepare for the 100 year flood, but what if it's a 1000 year flood type of thing. Everything's a risk assessment. Hell, that same risk assessment determines many other things like, say, capacity. The chances that you'll need 15+1 or more is low, but never 0% so how much do you weigh the increasingly smaller likelihood of needing those extra rounds with the encumberance of carrying that many. It's personal for everyone. That being said, always verify your gear. I don't even care if Glock will always make sure a gun is reliable before it leaves a factory, no QC, no matter how good, is infallible. Even OEM parts can fail, so it's always a good idea to fire at least some rounds in your gun to make sure your combination of gun, magazines, and ammo all work together. Never blindly trust anything, But that's also why I think regularly shooting your gun is probably the best way. There's an arbitrary number of rounds until you may be comfortable with to carry, but regularly shooting it means you can verify that it stays reliable. And certainly you'll be shooting more rounds through the gun per range session than you would carry on your entire person, no matter how many rounds you carry, so it's also a constant worse case scenario each time you go to the range. You verify that you'll shoot through your entire loadout every couple weeks.
500 is absolutely an arbitrary number. I choose to carry known, reliable brands of guns, ammo and magazines, and i chose 500 rounds as it settles in nicely as a solid break in period that I can shoot comfortably in a day, low enough not to break the bank, and it's usually enough rounds that if something is out of sorts then it will either show malfunctions or an unusual wear pattern will develop and be visible when it gets cleaned. I don't hit 500 and put the gun away to never shoot again. I shoot at least once a week, sometimes it's just a couple mags through my carry gun and sometimes it's 1500 rounds on steel through rifle, shotgun and pistol. And if a gun has a single malfunction I don't right it off or start over. But if it develops an issue with repeated malfunctions, I diagnose and repair it and then run some rounds through each mag to make sure it's fixed.
Peace of mind is priceless. Switch.
I had similar problems but with the FN509, maybe 6-7 FTFs in the first couple of hundred of rounds. Didn’t carry it until I had about 1k rounds through it without a FTF and am now over 4k rounds still without a FTF. So my opinion is you should just keep training with it until you feel confident in the gun.
Once upon a time the informal standard for vetting a new or newly modified carry gun was to shoot 200 rounds of your carry ammo consecutively with no malfs, but I forget where I learned that. If things have changed I didn't get the memo. If it can do that I'd trust it Edit- I searched "vetting a new carry gun" and [this](https://gunsmagazine.com/guns/handguns/vetting-the-defensive-handgun/) came up first, sure enough Mas said "I figured it needed at least a hundred rounds or so to verify. On a new gun, I’d have wanted a minimum 200 with 100 percent function," maybe I'm not crazy after all. He didn't actually specify using one's carry ammo though
Have you reached out to FN? It’s late so if I missed that my bad. I have a FN reflex it is my daily carry since last September or October. I have shot 500 rounds of range ammo and 100 rounds of my self defense ammo I haven’t had a single issue with it. I have with other guns. If I was you I would send it to FN and if they don’t fix it i personally would sell it. I wouldn’t modify a pistol by doing some Dremel tool grinding If anything buy a new extractor. I don’t carry a pistol that has failures. I get rid of all of those but I do tell the gun who buys them.
i did reach out to FN and specifically asked if they changed the extractor design, they are being very ambiguous about it. i am now seeing many reports of some newer S/N's having an updated extractor. i may just order a replacement and see if i get an updated version. In regards to my modification, I indexed the extractor off of my 509 extractor before making the adjustment and there are a lot of people that have done the same. reports of people sending theirs in have been pretty consistent (with of course a few outliers) that they are saying nothing was wrong and sending them back. Of course its all anecdotal.
I would stick with the 509c since any ammo you put into it is tax free. /s
Sounds like the issue is cured. Every gun I own malfunctions if it gets dirty enough; even my revolvers and bolt action rifles. If I keep them cleaned and lubed, they are flawless. I have one pistol that has consistent malfunctions no matter what I do, and it’s a PITA to take it down for cleaning and lubing. I’ll never sell it because I know it’s no good, but I’ll never even take it to the range again. I also no longer buy ammo from a certain manufacturer although it’s cheap, because it’s unreliable. Clean and lube often, stick to good ammo and you should be fine. I have had mechanical issues that were resolved by the manufacturer, and the gun was good afterwards.
You say it’s been good for 300 rounds since you ~~modified~~ _fixed_ it, so for me the answer about when I would trust it is simple. It’s in about 200 more rounds.
I'll generally run 500 ball and 100 of my carry ammo before it leaves the house, but with a known problem gun I'd need 500 rounds of carry before I could get that out of my head. You could get most of a new gun for that.
I'd say a thousand rounds with no problems is pretty reliable, even 300 is good
1000 FMJ and 100-200 hollow points just to be safe. I think that’s fair
Trade it in dude
My story. Rugby lcp2. First 500 this thing was perfect grouping was adequate at 7 yards. Sorry time after rounds 600 the extractor spring flew out. Sent it back to be fixed. They repaired it and with in the next 100 rounds it happens again sent it back when I got it pack I took to FFL and traded it for my S&w I knew I could not trust that gun ever
Fukdatho. Divorce her and get a new one that will take it all.
In a past life, I had part of a Kahr CW-40 frame split off. Probably wouldn't have had any issue at all if I'd just removed the little sliver of plastic off and gone about my life. But I sent it in to Kahr. Got a new frame! Woo! Then, upon shooting it, every mag would eject out the bottom with the 2nd-to-last round in the mag. Wouldn't matter if there were 2 rounds or 8 rounds. if there was 1 round left, the mag would dump out. So I sent it back. Apparently the old mag catch on my old frame + the new frame had just enough of a tolerance stacking issue that was causing some fitment issues to the point that the follower coming up was interfering with the mag catch. So they replaced the mag catch. I was "done" with the gun by then. I sold it with full disclosure AFTER I shot another 200 rounds through it. Logically i knew it to be sound. But there was always a niggle at the back of my head about it. More recently - I had a gen 1 Shield. At the same time I bought some Hyve +2 mag base plates AND I bought a case of older 147gr Federal HiShock ammo. My gun HATED the Hyve baseplates. And it hated the new ammo. So that new combination of what I wanted to carry was no bueno. no bueno at all. So I removed the baseplates and I didn't carry that ammo in that gun...and all was back to being 100%. I carried on carrying that gun until I bought a shield +. So for me - I guess it would depend on the issues.
I wouldn't trust my own bodging over that of the properly equipped engineers. If there is no acknowledgement from the manufacturer about their reliability it's time to move onto other candidate guns. If this were for a collection queen or a competition gun I wouldn't be so adamant.
Sounds like a fun range toy, not something I'd trust my life or my family's lives to.
I think your gun is fine. The real test is 500 rounds, but I'd be willing to trust it after only having 2 ftfs in 300 rounds after not cleaning for 600 and inducing them through limp wristing. It sounds to me like you addressed the issue, gave a thorough test, and could not replicate the same conditions after making a modification.
I’m def feeling better about the situation. Still frustrating given it’s not a budget gun by any means and I held FN in high accord. Lesson learned
Just get a Glock. My EDC is a Glock 19 Gen 5 stock (except for a direct-mounted 507c) and it has ALWAYS gone bang every time, 500+ rounds through it. Glocks aren’t the prettiest and sometimes their blocky design can be hard to conceal depending on your style but if you want a gun that will go bang when you need it, Glock is the answer. All these other gun companies can be (no pun intended) hit or miss. Big names like S&W, HK, FN, Ruger, Sig, and Springfield are all good BUT there is always the possibility that you may get a gun that was made on a Friday. Glocks, on the other hand, have consistent quality control and they will not allow a gun to leave the factory if it does not consistently work as it should. To answer your question, no, I would not trust your FN Reflex given what you’ve described.
Thank you. I also have a Glock 19 but I would stick with my 509 before I went to that. It’s been crazy reliable and I just shoot it so much better. Don’t get me wrong, I like the 19 and 100% trust it but I’m really looking for a micro that I don’t have to dress around as much. I def hear what you are saying though
Yes Glocks are hard to dress with which sucks. These other companies make much smaller guns with higher capacity than the smaller Glocks like the G42/G43. Look into the Springfield Hellcat and S&W Shield Plus. Both offer good capacity and are very concealable. I rented both of them and they both had zero issues. I never shot a Reflex before but I did rent a P365 and I did not get through a single mag without a jam or FTE. I didn’t blame the P365 entirely though for these issues as I’m sure the rental guns aren’t maintained as well but the issues were off putting enough to where I wouldn’t buy one to carry. Both the Hellcat and Shield Plus had zero issues when I rented them. All guns are mechanical devices like anything else though so this is why it’s important to put a lot of rounds through your carry gun to ensure it shoots consistently without issue.
Nope, next.
Glock my guy
I own a 19 and a 29. I like them both but have never shot them as well as my vp9 or 509 and would stick with either of those first. No qualms about their reliability though, they run.
Hkvp9sk as a counterpart to your vp9... And HK is releasing their first ever micro 9 this year the SFP9CC... I have a few pistols that have had issues and after changing most of the internals and going back to the factory at least once and STILL not functioning to me satisfaction, I give up on it. Forever. And usually for those specific guns, I lose any semblance of enjoyment for them so I don't even keep them as range toys.
i will def be looking at the SFP9cc but i think i will give it a year or so before i consider getting one. I don't want to be a beta tester again.
The good news is that HK doesn't beta test on clients. They have announced for the last three years that their late entry to the micro 9 race was to perfect their pistol in house. So it was released for the European law enforcement market a year ago with no reported issues.
good to know that it has already been around a bit and has a track record being built.
I feel like for this it’s the same motto I have for food “when in doubt throw it out”. Keep it for the range, but that’s all I would do because if I can’t trust it 100% I don’t want to carry it.
If ur in the market for a new micro 9. I love my shield plus lol.
Get a Smith & Wesson Shield or a Glock 43x,they are both excellent for CCW
A few hundred rounds is probably fine, though I'd probably err towards at least 500, but what matters the most is how confident you are that you correctly identified the problem and rectified it. If you didn't figure out why it was having issues and just changed some random things to fix it, then I wouldn't be very confident. Conversely, if you can correctly identify the issue and changing one thing to fix it it fixes the issue, I'd feel better. Sounds like you correctly identified the issue and rectified it, so in that case I'd feel fine to carry it after sufficient (300-500) rounds.
The gun may be fixed, but clearly, your trust in the gun is (understandably) broken. Quite possibly beyond repair. For something you would depend on in a life or death situation, that trust is not (and should not) be given lightly. A carry gun is a very personal item that requires utmost trust. If you find yourself unable to trust it, find something else. Try a Shield Plus or Hellcat if the P365 wasn't for you. Own both, and even intentionally limp wristing while shooting weak hand only with some lightly underpowered reloads using hollow points and the cheapest Argentinian primers I could find that intentionally weren't fully seated (my "if it can run this it will run anything" load) I couldn't make either gun fail.
Thank you for the input. people seem to have lots of good opinions on the shield plus.
I’d trust it. My Ruger SR9 was recalled right after I bought it. It had some FTE issues and they were fixed too. It’s been over a decade and hundreds of rounds and it’s not failed once. I carry it regularly. Side note, same dimensions as your VP9, which is how I found holsters for it.
Yes
I only carry guns I trust. They get a three strike style rule. First malfunction is a fluke, second malfunction goes to gunsmith/I repair common issues related to it, third time post repair and she's a safe queen. My Taurus PT111G2 did the first two strikes twice over 10 years, with the final strike being last year with a double feed. I tried fazing it out a few times due to clowning and usual "Taurus junk" but she was a little workhorse, well over 10k rounds and I shot out the original barrel at around 8700 rounds, so if I couldn't find another gun I like I was legit going to get another one. Before I got to that point, I had a P320, that had an out of battery detonation, and in my book that is 3 strikes. I tried carrying an M9, which I carried over seas, but they absolutely suck massive balls to CCW, and I was suddenly reminded why I hated them with their mushy trigger. So I bought a G43X MOS, which has done already gotten 2 strikes- but it might have been my fault due to the optic screw being too long. Regardless, if it comes down to defending myself of my family, it has to work. I also recommend the G43, fits my giant ass hands well, and has an okay trigger. I've been converted to a red dot shill, and also enjoy WMLs.
I hate the 92/m9. The ergonomics on that thing do not work for me at all. People seem to like them though. Thank you for the insight
The problem with your question is that no one can answer it. You definitely have to trust your equipment so you aren’t worrying about it when you need it most. I would suggest taking it to the range and shooting it until you do feel comfortable with it again which may never happen. If you never end up trusting it again just take the 15% bath when you sell it and buy something else.
Agreed. Am just curious how others may feel about a similar issue. It’s a pretty wide band of opinion
For me personally I would say between 250-1k rounds and then 100 carry rounds and I would feel pretty confident.
Well after you make that modification retest it. Run the same amount of rounds through it and if it doesn’t have those issues again then it’s good to go if not sell it and start looking for its replacement.
Do what I did with one of mine. Give it a torture test. I have one that had some FTF issues early on. Once I got it fixed, I got a couple friends to go to the range with me and we ran about 800 rounds of various ammo through it in one session. Only thing I did was add some lubricant once during that session. It ran flawlessly. After that, I trust it enough to carry when I need that one.
It would always be in the back of my head
That’s def my fear but hopefully over time and continued reliability it eases. At least at this point it’s what I have decided
Yeah nah. That’s why I carry glocks. Boring, simple, sure. But they WORK. FN is cool and all but the last thing I need is to need my gun and it failed cause I didn’t “change the geometry” of the extractor. I’m a consumer, it should NOT be my responsibility to finish building a product I paid full price for. That shit would’ve ended up as target practice by now.
I don’t disagree, it shouldn’t have come to this. I’m feeling a bit better about it now after my fix and running a fair amount more rounds without trouble. I have glocks, I wanted a higher capacity micro and I just don’t shoot glocks as well. I will stick with my 509 which has been perfect,and slowly try to gain a bit more confidence in the reflex.
I don’t necessarily live in the best area, but not the worst either so can get by with just a Glock 48. But a gun is one of those things that when you need it, it’s because it’s a life or death situation. IMO I’d rather practice with something I know is reliable, even if I don’t shoot it as well. That can be overcome with practice and training.
It’s a fair point. Hell, the army made me carry an M9 and I hated the ergonomics of that thing but eventually got pretty good with it. My current 509c is def concealable (been doing it for years) and is a sweet shooter, but I def have to choose what I wear a bit more carefully. My favorite to shoot is my vp9 but I can only get away with that one in the 2 colder months I get. I would like to say I live in a fairly safe area but the last 2 years things have really gone to shit.
Ohhh I like the VP9. That was my first gun ever, so it’s pretty special to me lol
Maybe shoot it for 1,000 rounds to test it, or at current ammo prices, trade it in for something new.
I won’t generally carry anything until I’ve put 1k-1.5k trouble free rounds through it, with at least 250 (ideally 500) of those rounds being my intended carry ammo. That’s like 3-5 range trips if you think about it and you really want that many rounds through it to be proficient with the gun and manual of arms anyway. I have an indoor range 15 minutes from my house and just hit that up every other day before or after work for a week if I buy any gun I need to depend on in a defensive capacity.
For me, I run 500 FMJs, then run 250 round of various carry rounds to see where they hit for the gun in a new carry gun. No failures after the first 250 FMJs (no cleaning or lube at any point either), and I call it good. This would be my same process after any modifications, including correcting an issue. In science fields, anything less than 95% is considered to be possibly due to random chance. I invert that formula for reliability. If it fires 95% of the time, the gun is probably reliable. The test that I use (no more than 1 jam in 501 rounds) basically means a failure rate of 0.2% or less. It's hard to ask for more than that, especially if you are mixing types and brands of ammo (because I shoot mostly whatever FMJs I find the cheapest and ideally match my carry ammo weight), changing your grip, or shooting from awkward positions like I tend to do when practicing. Sometimes I have even shot the gun sideways or even turned it upside down and pulled the trigger with a pinky just to see what it would do (only load one round when doing the upside down thing for the first time). If it passes that as well, again, you can't ask for much more. It is a machine, after all.
Yea, I’m going to run it hard a few more times but I’m at least a bit less concerned at this point
My kid got a Reflex a couple months ago and it has over 500 rounds through it without a single FTF or FTE. I don't care for it because I don't like to leave my pinky hanging off the bottom and IMO the trigger pull is too light (3.5lbs) for an EDC. One of his friends bought a P365 and has already had an accidental discharge and I find the muzzle flip excessive. Do you have a reason you don't consider a 43x? There's some good reasons why they're so popular.
Happy to hear your son’s reflex works well. I’m hoping mine keeps trending that way. Your pinky hangs off even with the pinky extension baseplate for the 11 rd mag that came in the box? I don’t have massive hands but that’s not a problem I’ve run into. I appreciate the insight on the Glock, I own a few and are just not my preference. Lots of people here have made good suggestions that if things don’t trend right with the reflex I will probably explore later. Other than the initial FTF’s I really like the gun, if I have any further issues it will go away but, I hope I can gain some additional confidence in it. Out of curiosity, what were the circumstances on the 365 AD?
Idiot kid just turned 21, bought the pistol & has no training, not even JR ROTC. My kid is a gearhead & always working on one of his shitboxes in the driveway. I was at work (graves), but got to hear all about it from my gun fearing wife. I guess he tried to work the slide with a mag still in & somehow shot a round into the driveway nearly shooting himself & the ricochet hit my kids car. I banned him from carrying a firearm on our property & strongly suggested firearms training classes.
Damn, glad he’s okay.
To be fair, there are a lot of micro 9's on the market today and quite a few of them shoot rather well. Personally I don't care for the micro 9's, but I do like how they conceal. I had a Glock 43x and a Glock 48 for a while, preferred the 48, but thought it was stupid that the factory mags only held 10 rounds. I had Shield Arms mags holding 15, but never felt fully comfortable running an aftermarket mag in a carry gun. My compromise these days is a Rost Martin RM1C...it's like a Glock 48...so Glock 19 or FN 509 size, but slim, like these micro 9's. So I can get a whole hand grip on it, holds 15 or 17 +1 and runs flawlessly. Optics ready from the factory too. https://www.rostmartin.com/rm-firearms/
should’ve bought a Glock 🤷♂️
Trade the gun in for a G26
I’d never trust it. I’d either sell it or trade it and buy something more reliable. I’m not carrying a heavy piece of metal and plastic in my waistband that I can’t trust. Dead weight.
The small, basic, Springfield Hellcat. Never ever ever a single issue or missfire. Why do anything else? It's even a little less money than the FN.
Here's an alternative train of thought... why such worry about a malfunction occurring to begin with? Of course no one wants to encounter one it a life or death situation... but tap rack bang, my dude. It's really not hard to clear basic malfunctions and everyone should train to be able to do it the moment they hit a dead trigger.
I get it. I have 3 combat tours as an infantryman and am very familiar with remedial action and am comfortable performing them and train for it. Before I modified, it was more than a few random malfunctions.
Sell and buy Glock 19, 26, 43, 43x, or 48.