broken Glock 17 mag catch!

B

bamaranger

New member
Bamaboy called today to advise that he broke a G17 slide catch in the midst of his agency (yes the "kid" is working ) FAQ's. Pistol would not retain a magazine, thus a poly single shot!

I speculated that the longer, factory Glock 21 rd mags he is partial to have strained the latch, leading to failure, and such a problem would not be as likely with standard length 17 rd mags.

Comments?
 
21 round factory magazines for a G17 are a new one on me. You can get 17 round factory mags and install +2 factory extensions and have a factory mag with 19 round capacity, but the next step up is the 33 round mags originally made for the G18. Then again, maybe Glock snuck something in on me while I wasn't paying attention.

I'll be interested to see what happened when he looks at the parts. I can think of some things that could cause this, but none of them seem very likely.
 
Slide catch doesn’t retain the mag so I assume you mean mag catch. They take a second to remove to inspect. Maybe the tab was sheered off or maybe the spring popped out and there’s no tension. Not a common problem. Edited to add I see mag catch in your title.
 
Magpul does make 21 rd Glock magazines.

Given that people use the 33 rd magazines without issue, it would seem odd to me that the 21 rd magazines or similar would put so much strain on the magazine catch as to be a problem. I use the aforementioned 22 rd magazines in my Glock 19 pretty regularly and I haven’t had an issue (at least yet).


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If he was going 'round with an extended magazine in place, knocking it against the scenery, I can see it beating up the catch. It is a cheap part.
 
veprdude said:
Or dropped on the magazine while inserted.
Click to expand...


Glocks have stops built into the magazines and in the interior of the frame that prevent over-insertion of magazines. My guess is that would alleviate some of the stress on the magazine catch if the pistol was dropped on the magazine.


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My thoughts/comments.

The OP states "mag catch" and also "slide catch" in the post.

The OP talks about the magazine(s) dropping out, but I suspect the OP wasn't present to see his son qualify at the range; 2nd-hand info is possibly presented based on speculation and his son's comments.

A broken slide stop (sometimes called a "slide catch") can also result in slide lock backs.

We've got no photos of what was broken and if a repair was performed.

As previously stated, we're unaware of any "factory" 21-round Glock 17 magazines. Perhaps these were from the Magpul "factory" or the round count is just mistaken. Perhaps the Glock model is mistaken. Perhaps the problem/broken part name is mistaken.

I've had a couple of worn-out G30Gen4 magazine catches which caused my mags to immediately drop upon firing; which resulted in worn-out magazine notches; all due to a bent magazine-catch spring. Glock replaced the parts. I wouldn't know if the mag-catch spring was inadvertently bent; or was the spring metallurgy somehow not to spec; or was the mag-catch's polymer out-of-spec; or were the several Glock 30 mags' polymer-bodies out-of-spec. I just know what parts were replaced to cure the problem. (At this time, there was another poster with the same problem which occurred with his G41, which has some identical parts.)

If it was my mag-catch spring, was the spring bent due to poor metallurgy; bent at the factory; or bent from me if I'd worked on my G30gen4?

My G30gen4 experience may or may not be related to the OP's son's G17 (gen unknown). I just wanted to share a bad mag-catch system could occur. All three parts in the system (catch, spring, mags) needed to be changed to fully cure the problem.

I've also had broken Glock slide-stops on various Glocks. Either the spring would break or the thumb pad would break off. Me, normally using an extended slide-stop to "drop" the slide, probably contributed to the pad breaking off; while either scratching the slide-stop's spring during several detail strips or perhaps the spring just getting brittle from many rounds being fired may have contributed to the spring fracturing (just my speculations).

Just my thoughts/comments. Perhaps the OP's son could come on here and comment with 1st-hand knowledge as to what occurred.
 
For Post 12, the OP's title has "mag catch"; the first sentence then has "slide catch".

Here's a cut & paste (italicized") of the original/first post. I had to read that first post a few times:

"broken Glock 17 mag catch!
Bamaboy called today to advise that he broke a G17 slide catch in the midst of his agency (yes the "kid" is working ) FAQ's. Pistol would not retain a magazine, thus a poly single shot!"
 
Aguila Blanca said:
But those would not be "longer, factory Glock 21 rd mags."
Click to expand...


I know. A number of people had commented that there isn’t a factory 21 rd option. I was simply pointing out that there is a Magpul 21 rd option in the event the OP was mistaken about the magazines being factory. He’s either mistaken about the capacity or the manufacturer of the magazines.


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T. O'Heir said:
"his agency armorer" being the key.
Lotta cop kit(assuming "his agency" means that) gets broken because the guys play with it.
Using non-issue kit usually causes the higher ups to go into hysterics too. Doesn't matter if it's 'factory' or not.
Click to expand...
Good point.

As my signature indicates, I'm a certified 1911 armorer. My certification is through Sig Sauer, and the certification class was conducted at their facility in New Hampshire. The instructor made it VERY clear to us that in a law enforcement setting (his personal background), the role of the armorer is to replace a broken factory part with a new, replacement factory part. ANY issue/problem that can't be fixed by replacing a stock part with a new stock part requires sending the firearm back to the manufacturer for repair.

At least, that's the way Sig Sauer teaches it. I've been told that Colt's armorer classes go deeper into the workings of the firearms and teach some armorer-level repairs beyond just parts swapping. However, the Colt armorer classes are only open to LEOs, and I'm not an LEO.
 
clarification

Okay, I misstated a few things. The part that broke was a magazine catch. I'm not sure why I stated "slide catch", chalk it up to 4:00AM mornings and spring gobbler season. The magazines are indeed 21 round mags, and as all have pointed out, by Magpul and NOT Glock. I thought they were Glocks and I was wrong. The pistol is indeed an agency issued G17.

There was a factory trained armorer present (who also works for the dept) with parts and the broken part was replaced. Kid finished his quals solo with the crew watching. No pressure there. Shot 100% with all firearms.

Atta boy!
 
I would have loved to see the broken catch. That's not a super-common failure--would be interesting to see exactly how it failed.
 
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