Jennings Nine? Thoughts and opinions...

[don't shoot it's me]

I sent my Jennings to Novak for their reliability upgrade....at 700 bucks it was well worth it...it now fires every other time, just like it's supposed to.

[FS2K]

As you can see by the responses you got so far, the problem with Jennings, (as well as Lorcin, Davis, Raven, etc.) is durability/longevity. They are "Saturday Night Specials" in the truest sense because of the materials they are made with.
Like you, reliability has never been a problem for me with my Jennings J-22. Using standard velocity rounds and keeping it clean my Jennings is still with me after all these years. Before anyone starts to think that I am promoting Jennings or any of the other el cheapo brands of the late 80's early 90's I want to assure you that I am not. I have no illusions about what this gun is;

It is a disposable firearm. A tool that's meant to do a certain job once, but never expected to do so over a long period of time.

These days, Hi-Point falls under the Saturday Night Spl. catagory, and the price of their pieces aren't the main reason for this either. They are using slightly better materials in their products which has improved their longevity, but the idea behind them remains the same...produce a firearm for the cheapest cost possible, as quickly as possible. How much money does it take to produce one of the Hi-points? Well, seeing as they sit in the $150.00 pricerange I'll venture as far as to say it doesn't even cost them $40.00 to produce one. In the case of the Hi-Points it's a matter of quality control, craftmanship, and refinement as well as the cheap materials being used it them that have earned them their place in the Saturday Night Special catagory.

With that said, I don't think it is a matter of "Lucking Out" with your Jennings 9mm. Like my J-22 your gun is doing what it was made to do, which is throwing lead downrange. Just keep in mind that the more you use your Jennings the more worn it will get, and not in only the normal sense either (like barrel condition & internal parts). In the case of the J-22 I own the underside of the Slide itself is wearing away.

It still shoots though, and I have yet to find a thinner, lighter more compact gun to throw in my shorts pocket when I go fishing alone. In my thinking it's a whole lot better than nothing, and it is a thowaway gun in my mind. If it were to fall into the water for some reason I probaby wouldn't even think about retrieving it. (as opposed to any of my other guns).

So yeah, I just wanted to chime in to tell you I understood your post, and share some of my thoughts on SNS.

[kozak6]

I vote that the original poster got lucky.

My experience is with the Bryco 9mm (Jennings turned into Bryco after they were bankrupted by a lawsuit).

It was a real piece of junk.

It would only reliably fire the first round in the magazine. At the pistol's very best, which was unusual, it could fire three rounds in a row without malfunctioning.

The pistol malfunctioned creatively. It would fail to eject, fail to extract, double feed, the striker would follow the slide forwards, it would have light strikes, and then there was my favorite way it malfunctioned. Oh, and it would generally perform all of these malfunctions on the same magazine.

My favorite way it malfunctioned was rather interesting. The force of the slide recoiling was enough to activate the takedown button. The slide would recoil, start to unhook itself from the frame, and then just get stuck on the barrel on the way forwards. It was just short of launching itself off the frame. If the cheap zinc slide cracked while doing this, you could find yourself with a pistol slide sticking out of your eye socket.

Also, it was rather unergonomic and somewhat uncomfortable to fire. The trigger was also extraordinarily heavy and creepy.

Now, there were some good points. The sights were actually relatively decent, and if you concentrated on squeezing the trigger, and if the pistol actually fired, it was relatively accurate. Also, the magazine capacity was rather large for a pistol of that size.

It was still garbage, though.

:barf:

[Davis]

The first semi-auto I ever bought was a Bryco 9. It was a piece of junk and very unreliable. I would never recommend it to anyone and learned a big lesson with it. I still have one of the 13 round mags that I keep as a reminder. I sold it for $50 and was more than happy to get that for it.

1st hand experience and it was not good. Plus, it was not comfortable to shoot.

Davis

[Rimrod]

I have three Jennings/Bryco firearms and have never had any problems a different magazine couldn't fix. The .22 shoots to the left but the .380 and 9mm are surprisingly accurate.

[MarineForceRecon]

I went into the Marine Corps 1990 till 1994. I came home and I cought a virus and it put me in a wheel chair for two years. When I was able to walk again I went back to work for a Home Health Care Business. Every two weeks it was my job to transport all of the payroll checks to each office. I found out the I was carring thousands of dollars at one time and I didn't like the idea. So my boss at the time told me about a CCW class that was being held in our area. So I had a choice at the time to go throught the class using some one elses gun or I could buy my own. So I went to where the class was being held and I saw the the dealer was selling the Jennings Nine 9mm I have never heard of it and then he told me the price (1998) it was 105.00 out the door so I bought it and took it home. So I went to the local walmart and bought so cheap ammo it was (Federal and Wolf) Federal jammed about once every three clips and the Wolf Fire came out of the barrel about two feet. So I went back to Walmart purchased some winchester ammo and there was no problems. I could speed fire clip after clip and have no problems at all. I went back to work the next week and I was told on that Friday I would be transporting payroll again. So I was happy that I had my new Jennings to back me up with this much money. I made my first stop fine then my second then on my way to the thrid stop. I noticed out of the corner of my eye there was a car next to mine speeding to catch up to me then all of a sudden it impacted with my car and pushed me off of the road. My car came to rest in a ditch and several people jumped out of the car and came over to mine, one of the people broke my window out with a baseball bat and tried to get the bank bags from my car. Well as you rich people would say I pulled out my (cheap gun) and I stopped them. They had five well placed shots in there car. They were caught and I got a ride to finish my job that day. Yes the Jennings Nine has some flaws to it. But for the price that you pay IT IS A Life SAVER. I still transport money and I still carry my Jennings. I am 86 percent cured now but I am still Disabled for the rest of my life, I am 34 years old and I Can't work 40 hours aweek and I can't make alot of money. But any person hates Jennings and wants to sell one cheap let me know!! Because I can't afford to go out and purchase a Browing,Glock or anything like that. But for all of you HATERS out there I can SAY the JENNINGS NINE saved my life..

[skeeter]

I'd rather have a throwing knife.At least you can count on it.

[threegun]

MarineForceRecon, I don't hate Jennings or any other cheap gun out there. They however are prone to jamming and other failures at a much higher level than a quality self defense pistol. Many carry factory warnings not to keep the chamber loaded because (cheap) striker fired pistols are dangerous carried like that. Many will not feed ball reliably so hollow points are a no no. Better than nothing......absolutely. Can save your life.......absolutely. More prone to jamming that might get you killed........absolutely.

[MythBuster]

If one can afford a real gun but they still rely on a POS like a Jennings for self defense I have to question their sanity.

[Mal H]

The topic has been sufficiently hashed and rehashed. For those of you giving advice to the OP, he hasn't returned to TFL for roughly a year and a half.

Closed.