Pistol's Lifetime

Both bumper, and 12131 are correct, maintenance is the key to longevity. Realize most of the CS Reps are literally too young, to know first hand, so you are likely getting watercolor gossip. Even the range folks, are likely taking the "word" of the owners, as to the number of rounds through their pistols.

Remember "round counts", are relative to the situation... when offering the pistol for sale, it's "less than a box", but when touting it's reliability, it can be a couple thousand rounds without failure.

There really shouldn't be much difference between a P320 or P365 frame than a P226, P229, or P239, when made of similar alloys.

Plus, when you "remove" those manufactured on Mondays and Fridays, your lifespans will probably improve, as well. Growing up around the auto industry in the '50s and '60s, that was an oft repeated quote, when looking to purchase a new auto. Of course with more robotics involved, that quote, may be less realistic!

A rental range in Vegas has extensive experience with shooting pistols until failure. Because of that, Glock, one of their suppliers, has so far warranted every one for their own purposes. Up to the Gen 4 frame cracks were nonexistent, but the slide would on the left side near the ejection port at about 90k rounds. The Gen 4s were coming in at 40k and it quickly caught the attention of staff and Glock. Gen 5's have returned to the 90k mark.

Keep in mind very few gun owners run even a 1,000 rounds thru their firearm annually. It's the exception, not the rule, and competitors firing 10k a year thru their range guns are an even smaller group.This is why there are used guns on the market in good shape 35 years old - PD turn ins are a great source for underused firearms with more door jam wear than range time.

Other pistols do have frame cracks, in general, alloy frames may crack near holes after 30 to 65k - and it varies greatly on the alloy and model. There is no rule. Ferrous frames are equally variable with some never cracking but most lasting quite a bit longer.

A crack isn't necessarily a game stopper. That gun may well shoot tens of thousands more, it's what causes it to stop shooting that deadlines it. We administratively pull a cracked weapon out of the line, yet worn or broken parts outnumber cracks easily - a hundred to one? Those stoppages are taken more seriously at a rental range as it's a dissatisfied customer involved who paid good money to shoot. In our case, it's a click not a bang when it was needed.

The Henderson long term range reports are available online at a large gun forum, they rent what is popular in movies etc, not what some group of forum posters tend to single out. They also rent full auto. The P320 is IIRC rented and they have had a parts failure. Of all the polymer grip guns I have read about over the years, the Ruger LCP was noted for actual frame cracking at the rear near a pin hole - in the polymer. It's been noted for its significant recoil in .380 due to it's small mass. Like alloys, the composition of the fiberglass reinforced nylon varies from maker to maker - largely the glass to nylon ratio which is carefully selected for the job and also for molding efficiencies. It's that ratio which can have an affect on the shock absorption of polymer guns - we observe it as the sharpness of recoil - and it can affect the longevity. Glock vs Ruger are the two we know about - never cracks in the polymer vs will - which gives us an idea that it won't be consistent any more than alloys.

In the P365 the front of the FCU fits into a lug near the trigger, with the slide stop pin taking up the recoil along with the spring seated into the FCU. The rear pin takes up some more. Until we see 90k rounds going thru one, we won't have a comparison to note, and it takes at least a couple of dozen pistols to have any accurate feedback. Most makers do that - hire a company and put 100,000 rounds thru them to sort out what issues might crop up as a development feedback loop, and at a certain point, some failures cost more to fix in the design than Customer Service handing out new parts for free. EVERY gun maker has a Customer Service department, which is a clue they all draw the line when it comes to handling a few hundred issues a year - the P365 has over 1 million units out now, unlike other company slogans you really can't get perfection. It would cut production by 25% and raise prices that much, too. Nobody will pay $999 for a commodity 9mm in polymer or $1599 for an alloy one - so makers trade off the pros and cons resulting in most of us being happy.

Look up the number of Technical Service Bulletins on your vehicle - it's been going on for decades in that industry. My 05 F150 has dozens. It's very rare for a gun maker to issue them - they are much simpler devices.

Gun1 said:

One gun range said 30k for the P226 and 50k for Glocks. But another, more realistic in my opinion, said 150k frame crack P226 and 130k frame crack Glock. Yet another said 90k P226 frame crack and 220k for a Glock. So it really varied for the round count, a lot, but all of them agreed that eventually the frame would crack just from normal use; all of them said because it's aluminum. With a steel frame it might not crack but it'll disfigure, so basically the same thing as it won't cycle anymore.

Click to expand...

I can give several real world examples from discussions on various forums;

I know of two different range rental P365’s that didn’t have a (minor) parts failure till near 100k rounds.

My former agency has Glock 21’s in the training unit with over 300k rounds and counting.

Federal sent an HK USP 45 back to HK for servicing at (IIRC) near 300k rounds. There wasn’t an issue but it was their test pistol for that caliber and it had never been service, including spring replacements and they figured they should probably have it looked at.

So the long and short of the meter is that any pistol could have had a manufacturing defect that abuses an issue. They are machines and machines are imperfect. However, for the most part, the majority of people will never shoot a pistol to failure or even get remotely close to it. The service life of a Glock, HK, P365 and I’d suspect the P320 has been demonstrated to be actor over 100k rounds. And with Glock and HK well over with no issues or failures.

Additionally, while springs are generally inexpensive to replace they generally aren’t needed to replace nearly as often as the net would have you believe. It’s more to generate $ for the industry to have you believe you need to change springs every X amount of rounds. In over 30 years of shooting and I don’t know how many guns, I’ve change a RSA once and that was purely on a whim. It was a Gen 2 Glock 17 with I don’t know how many rounds through it and the plastic guide rod was looking a tad chewed up. So I replaced the whole thing with a SS rod and new spring. But it still shoot fine with the old one.

Anyway, if someone shoots enough to actually crack the frame/slide I’d say it’s the exception rather than the rule.