Wearing out firearm is normal
People in this community are always looking for something that doesn’t break or wear out or is tougher than all of the others. When we move away from the weekend warriors with their $2000 AR15 that they keep clean and probable wash and wax in their driveway in a bathing suit. Guys that put serious time in on the range will be the best ones to tell you how well things hold up and which parts or guns are better than others. There has been much discussion about this issue between direct impingement and gas piston AR15s and how much wear the bolt carrier groups have and there are differences.
I remember seeing Eric Clapton with his worn out guitars and wondering why he would use something so beat up, Eric Clapton knew that if you played guitar long enough things would wear out but the instrument did the job. When you buy your Glock pistol and the Glock Factory barrels wear out, you should view that as an achievement and not something to be critical about for your firearm. Some guns absolutely do not last as long as others, but the life span of gun does vary. Some AR15 designs only lasted about 7000 rds while others now are 4x’s these days.
When I shot my first Sig 229 in .357 Sig the thing that impressed me the most was the flat shooting trajectory. One of the biggest issues I’ve had shooting 45acp was the adjustments I had to make in bullet trajectory when shooting with my fixed 1911 sights. Bullet impact may not be something to worry about in close home situations for some people, but for my shooting styles, I want to know exactly where my bullets are going to go from 10-50yds. I know that bullet weights can make a difference, but I’ve always thought that 230gr FMJ was the proper thing to send downrange from a 1911. Although I love my 45acp guns, I don’t use them as defensive weapons. The .357 Sig always seemed to be a step up from the 45acp in certain aspects, like penetration and trajectory. For Law Enforcement, running into bad guns with body armor is become more and more common and the only thing around that these days is a more powerful firearm.
There are firearms that are going to need a lot of attention when it comes to changing parts or doing upgrades on them. I think it’s a good idea to drop off the gun and the parts with a gun smith unless you know for sure that the part you have is a “drop in”. From my experience, most gun parts and accessories will need some fitting. This is where people tend to break rifle stocks or rails because they start forcing things when they really should be filing something. I know several gun shops that get tired of people calling them up and claiming that a firegrip or rifle stock was broken, when the gunsmith knows how it really happened. I did several AK stock changes and every one of them was different. I even found areas that need to be filed down where on similiar guns, it just snapped right in.
I think more than half the guns I have picked up for my collection were police trade ins. CDNN investments is always one of the best places to find used handguns. If you are a Glock, Sig or Beretta gun lover. Check out their yearly catalog for used but hardly shot guns. I picked up a Glock 17 a few month ago and like many of the guns that are trade ins, this gun had mostly holster wear on the outside. One of my friends got one that was much more worn especially around the barrel. While something like barrel wear has to be analyzed closely, it rarely is much of a concern to me. Many of the used firearms you find in gun shops probable have less than 500rds through them and the reason they look beat up is because of the holsters that they were used with and the fact the owner didn’t clean them very well.