Glock 43 failing to feed HP

D

divil

New member
I just tried using JHP ammo for the first time in this G43 and it jammed when releasing the slide on the first round, again and again. Each time, racking the slide fixed it. Once it even happened while firing, but all the other instances were just chambering the first round of a mag.

I bought this gun new and have only fired a few hundred rounds of FMJ through it before this.

The ammo was Federal Hydra Shok. I tried loading some Winchester JHP I had at home and although it was mostly reliable, I was able to reproduce the problem once (pic attached). I looks like the nose is just stuck on the feed ramp.

Then I noticed that the 2 factory magazines both have this weird little dip gouged into the follower. (more pics attached). Is this normal, and if not, could it be the problem? Thanks!
 

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Checked my follower and it has a small dimple in the same place, yours seems to have become deeper and larger. Seems like it would not be drastic enough to cause feeding issues though??
 
Had similar issue when I first shot my nib G43. Bought new
magazines & problem never happened again. Sounds weird
but that’s what it took to remady the problem.
 
I would try to reproduce it with the FMJ and get a new magazine and test that as well with both types of ammo. This will help you determine if its the ammo, mags, or pistol.
 
This feed jam occurs because the bottom of the hollow point hits the bottom of the feed ramp. You need a new follower in your magazine.
 
My G43 feeds hollow points just fine. My magazines also don’t have the divot that yours do.
Have you tried to send your photos to Glock? It would be interesting to find out what they think.
 
Thanks for the input everyone.

I have not called Glock about the magazine marks. However I have asked on other forums and the consensus from various people is that these marks on the follower are common, and not the problem.
 
Maybe the gun just doesn't like that particular ammo. Glocks aren't known for being particularly finicky when it comes to ammo choices, but maybe this one is. I've heard of people polishing the feed ramp to address feeding issues. Maybe that would work.
 
Interesting problem your having, how are you releasing the slide on the new mag? Buy pulling the slide back and letting go or the mag release? Your not trying to let the slide go forward slowly are you?
 
Interesting problem your having, how are you releasing the slide on the new mag? Buy pulling the slide back and letting go or the mag release? Your not trying to let the slide go forward slowly are you?
Click to expand...

Good question! I pull it all the way back and let it go every time.
 
My G43 won't feed the first round of ammo if the top round (of any type of ammo I've used) is not completely pushed back into the magazine. The loading of the G43 is the most sensitive of my semiautos.
 
Unless the lighting is playing tricks on me, that feed ramp looks pretty marked up, more than I would expect. There may be only a few hanging up, but there could be a considerably higher number that are not feeding smoothly and making the ramp rougher and rougher. I might be calling Glock by now if it was mine.
 
Sounds like it is problem only with the 1st round out of a full mag. The follower shouldn't be the cause.

It is a subcompact Glock. It is pretty hard to shove the last round (top round) into the mag as the mag has very limited space. Feeding a round into the chamber requires the round goes down a little further in the mag. It would be hard if the mag is already bottoms out. It can be improved by shaving a little plastic off the underside of the follower. I did a few of those for a customer.

Another option is of course to load the mag one round less.

-TL

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk
 
I would try to run the gun with one less round in the mags and see if it does it again hollow points and ball. I also would do a little polishing on the feed ramp to ensure there are no burs. If that does not work then I would look into sending it back home for repair.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I can't make it happen with FMJ, only JHP. The ramp is actually much smoother than it looks. I took the barrel out for a closer look and although it had some dirt and tiny flecks of copper, it has no damage of any kind.

I will say that I'm usually careful to seat the rounds all the way back, but I've tried loading them too far forward to see if that will reproduce the problem with the Winchester JHPs I have lying around...but it doesn't seem to matter. Also, these mags are quite easy to compress compared to the double stacks, and even with all 6 loaded, there's no problem pushing down about another 1/2 cartridge diameter.

I will have to get some more of the same ammo and do some more experimenting. I'll report back what I can find out. At this point it looks like calling Glock for help is inevitable though!
 
Well, I went shopping and bought various different JHP rounds, and spent literally hours testing the gun. Here's what I found out:

* it's the 147gr Hydrashok that's the biggest troublemaker, the 124 seems fine.
* when it happens, I discovered that tapping the mag home instead of racking the slide also fixes it. However, doing this in advance doesn't improve things (I think it might actually make it worse but I would need to spend a lot more time to be certain).
* it happens a lot less often if I only load 5 instead of 6, but it does still happen sometimes.
* it happens a bit more often with one magazine than the other, but definitely happens with both.

With the various brands I bought, I did the following experiment. I loaded the mag with 5 of the 147gr Hydrashok, then for the top round I loaded 1 of the brand being tested, racked the slide, dropped the mag, unchambered the round, put it back in the mag, and repeated all that 10 times. Here are the failure rates I got:

Hydrashok 147gr: 4-8/10
Hydrashok 124gr: 0/10
PMC Blazer: 0/10
Speer Gold Dot: 0/10
Fiocchi : 1/10
Hornady CD : 0/20

Still 0 failures out of several hundred for any brand of FMJ.

Throughout this experiment I periodically repeated 10 cycles of the Hydrashok as a control, hence the varying failure rate. It was pretty consistent.

I find it weird that the lighter Hydrashok appears flawless. I have to test that one more but my hands are sore now so it will have to wait. Interestingly, you can see a difference in these 2 weights. The lighter ones have a crimp mark around the circumference of the case, and the heavier ones don't. I measure the length of each brand and they're all very close to 1.1". There's a small variation between brands but I couldn't see any connection with overall length and reliability. Hondary Critical Defence were the longest and they were totally reliable.

Anyhoo...I think the magazines are suspect and I might give Glock a call and see what they say.
 
I would imagine that the 147 cartridge would jam on the bottom of the barrel feed ramp more. The round is slightly longer than the 124gr rounds. The 147gr cartridge starts closer to the bottom of the feed ramp.
 
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