What is the most poorly designed weapon you have ever had to use?

I had bought one for my son. We got lucky the one we have does not have much ware and shoots accurate. You may be able to find another one.

I know there are good ones out there but I reckon the Russians weren't too worried about tight tolerances in their weapons (my AK is accurate enough but take one apart and you could hold spare change in the receiver and it'd still shoot). That and I think to the movie "Enemy At The Gates" where they give one rifle to a guy with a five round clip and a five round clip to the guy behind him, then when they retreat they machine gun down their own guys. Although I wonder who made the decision to have the actors in that movie speak with British accents...? Hmmmm.

The reason for the barrel being reamed was due to muzzle damage. It is very common. The M44 will shoot way off center with the bayonet folded in. Keep in mind that the sights were designed to be 6 inches high a hundred yards, this was designed for mass attacks, and they believed point of aim was the belt line. This helped put a round in the vitals. I can't explain the improvement with the bayonet extended, but I believe it has to do with barrel harmonics.

Learn a little bit of something every day. I knew of the different method to the madness in the Russian attack plan vs. the US or German militaries (the USSR sure didn't seem to care too much about their troop losses) and their equipment assembly but that piece of knowledge is new to me. Then again, I just heard this fun fact about the Sherman vs. the Tiger which was "50,000 Shermans to defeat 1,500 Tigers."

The original M-16 issued in 66-67 in Vietnam.  Guys died because of design flaws that should have been picked up during test and eval phase which was too short sided. The lubricant they issued us was too thick for a hot humid environment and attracted sand. The gas system was not thought through properly (today the good ones, HK-416 are piston driven and the choice of SpecOps).  You had to keep a toothbrush and your do-rag handy.  I saw guys having to clean it every 2 magazines.  Someone should have been sent to prison over this.  It was gross intentional negligence. 

Great answer.

SFC Mark Merino Yes, Line throwing guns and line trowing adapter kits for guns are used to pass a line to another boat or ship usually to take it into tow when it is too dangerous to get close enough to throw a monkey's fist or other method to get the line over to the other boat. The line throwing gun has a canister with shot line attached to a projectile on a rod that goes down the barrel of the gun. The project is fired over the target and the other boat grabs the shot line and then pulls the tow line over (the shot line is attached to the tow line). There are a number of things that can go wrong from the projectile sticking inside the barrel to the shot line in the canister getting fouled. The smooth bore rifle I fired exploded from gas build up in the breech likely caused by fatigue (the gun was a 100 years old). Usually the canister with the shot line fails and shrapnel goes everywhere. When you fire it, you are supposed to take aim and then turn your head away so that if (or when) the canister fails you don't catch shrapnel in the face.

Zounds! No thanks. I like my ugly mug.