Glock 43X "breaking in" question.

K

KAOS THE CAT

New member
Hi all,

I couldn't but help overhear a conversation (at my LGS) someone saying that the Glock 43X (perhaps Glocks in general) when brand new should be "broken in" by firing at least 350 rounds (Yikes!) of BALL ammo before being reliable enough for loading with "Personal Defense type Ammo". Is this true ? Considering the cost/availability of 9mm Ammo, this would cost a small fortune! Thanks.

KAOS THE CAT
 
I think generally speaking it's advisable to put some number of rounds through a pistol to confirm function before putting it in a carry rotation. I do that with the Glocks I have owned. I don't know that the manuals of the Glocks I own list that as a requirement, however.

You can look at the Glock manuals here:
https://us.glock.com/en/downloadable-materials

I don't see the term "break in" or "broken in" mentioned.
 
I would not spend this kind of money to see what will happen. I'd shoot with the rounds that I will be using for defensive purpose, if it jam more than once in the first 100 rounds, I would either work on it myself( I do some gun smithing) OR send it back and have them fix it. Get your phone camera ready, if there is a jam, make sure you take picture of the jam. You can tell a lot from the way it jams. It would be very helpful to send in the picture for the people in the shop to know what's going on.

I personally do NOT believe in breaking in. To me, failure at the beginning tells me it's lack of margin. It might get better upon the few hundred rounds, but still it just lack the margin. Fixing it is the best way.

In the ordinary days when you can get reloads and ammo are cheap, it's not that big a deal to shoot more. Now, it's like $1.00 per round!!! That's a lot of money to shoot 350 rounds of round nose. What it it start jamming when you start shooting JHP? You just wasted hundreds of dollars in FMJ for nothing.


Personally, I would NOT shoot over 1000 rounds on the gun that I am going to use for self defense. Even for standard size pistols, after 5,000 rounds, things will start to fail. Your 43 is on the small side, I have the Glock 26 that has bigger slide and should be beefier, still, I won't go crazy in shooting it.

Sure, failure likely be small things like springs, some small components fail that is very easy to fix and you can keep shooting. BUT, can you afford it to fail when your life depends on it? You don't know what is going to fail, it can be a 50cents part, but that can cause your life it it fail when you need it. I do proof the gun with a few hundred rounds of non stop performance, no jam what so ever for like 200 rounds with the correct ammo. That's it, I keep the gun and ammo and not shooting again. My S&W659 and Walther PPK all have less than 1000 rounds with over 200 rounds trouble free with the final ammo. So is my Beretta 950BS.
 
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Thank you both TR and Allan for your responses. I very much appreciate your most excellent insight responding to my question. The information you both provided will be very helpful/useful.

KAOS THE CAT
 
I have has several glocks. I would personally feel comfortable taking a new glock out of the box, loading it up, and carrying it. You can find vids of people opening a new glock out of the box and shooting matches with them. Perdonally I prefer to open the box, wipe them down, lube them, shoot 50rnds to confirm zero, clean, lube, load, and holster.

Breaking in is still a thing with some guns, especially tightly fitted match guns, but is generally uncommon now.
 
One reason I will not buy another gun in today's world. It is more about breaking yourself into a gun. Normally I would put 500 plus rds of mixed ammo through a new gun in a month to become familiar with it and at least 50 rds plus of my Defense ammo I plan to carry with it. And then train and practice with the gun each week. It is my opinion that you have to become one with the gun. Frequent, moderate practice.
Any compact or sub compact I own will easily do much more than 5,000 rds. Anythng less would be unacceptable. (other than changing out recoil springs)
I personally would not advise anyone to just shoot a new gun for a 100 rds and start to carry it. Just my opinion and I am sure I will take a hit for saying it. I have a number of EDC guns and in most cases have two of the one's I carry the most. One for range and one proven beyond any doubt for EDC.

I feel for the new gun owner in today's world. A first time gun owner is faced with many challenges and barriers. In a normal world when asked about EDC of a firearm, I would say be sure you can make the commitment. It is costly and requires a lot of Time. To be proficient is a "slow train coming".
Sorry to get off track, but to answer the question, I would at least put 100 rds through a Glock or any gun and a box of Defense ammo and then go from there. (Heck, I worry about my own skills acquired from the many years and thousands of rounds, deteriorating during this Mad, Insane world we now live in. Caught between a Rock and a Hard Place.
 
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KAOS THE CAT said:
Is this true ?
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No. Urban legend.

You'll probably want to put some rounds thru it to verify it has no issues, but the pistol does not need "breaking in." If you're not competent/confident handling a new weapon, however, then you need to get to that point with practice.
 
Two ideas. One...if a pistol needs breaking in, you bought the wrong pistol.
Two....a pistol is a machine. All machines will fail sooner or later. There is no telling when. You can fire 500, 600, 1000 trouble free rounds....there is no guarantee that the gun will fire the next shot. The best that you can say is that it probably will.
In fact, the more trouble free rounds that you do fire, the closer you get to when the gun will fail. Pulling the trigger is always an act of faith.
 
Hi all (and HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY)

Again, I very much appreciate all the diverse thoughts/opinions/suggestions. That being said, please let me be clear, I realize my original question sounds like a "newbies" question however, this is not my first Rodeo. In fact, far from it as I'm (lol too quickly) approaching "Dinosaur" territory. My use of the archaic term "break in period" is due to the fact that back in the day (late 1970's) I "cut my Teeth" with "JMB" most excellent 1911 .45ACP. I admit not being all that familiar with the intricacy of today's modern Compact/Sub Compact "Plastic" Pistols hence my question. Thank you.

KAOS THE CAT
 
Some people say the g43 is susceptible to “limp wristing”, a term revolver guys are unfamiliar with.

Some might say it’s a term manufacturers like as a euphemism for “it’s not our fault our design is finicky.”

In my experience, most failures in firearms happen within the first few boxes of ammunition. Either made wrong at the factory, a part shaking loose, or operator error- these all happen fairly quickly. I believe in the motto “never race on new gear.”

While one could show up at a competition with a gun out of the box, that’s the move of a noobie or someone that doesn’t have much care if they sit the match out.

Put a couple boxes down range, learn the mechanics.

When a failure does happen, they tend to keep happening. Until the source of failure is remedied. So, I disagree that the chance of a failure is completely random. Odds are much better after the first few boxes and problems have been identified.

One reason I like used guns from fellas I trust. Once running smooth, they keep running smooth.

I still can’t find any love for plastic pistols, but I have owned em. It takes some getting used to.
 
Agree, I break in all my guns. Too include magazines and recoil springs. I do not believe in blind risk and internet assumptions. Yes, they may run perfect right out of the box, but for gosh sake, it is absolutely nothing to run a few boxes of mixed ammo out of a firearm. This idea that any gun is perfect is something I never bought into. Some firearms do have close tolerances and require a break in, and nothing wrong with that and does not make it a "Wrong" gun, on the contrary. Some of the finest guns I own required a break in and now elated I bought them. And they have gone on to be proven winners.
 
stinkeypete said:
Some people say the g43 is susceptible to “limp wristing”, a term revolver guys are unfamiliar with.

...............

While one could show up at a competition with a gun out of the box, that’s the move of a noobie or someone that doesn’t have much care if they sit the match out.

Put a couple boxes down range, learn the mechanics.

When a failure does happen, they tend to keep happening. Until the source of failure is remedied. So, I disagree that the chance of a failure is completely random. Odds are much better after the first few boxes and problems have been identified.



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I absolutely agree. One failure is one too many. I worked on all my own guns, at least in the older days ( 80s) ALL the semi I bought other than my Ruger Mark II and Beretta 950BS were perfect right out of the box, every single one jams in the first 50 rounds and I stop wasting bullets and started to look at what fail and fixed it. I was still new when I first bought my S&W659, the moment it jammed, I sent it back, they did fix it and I look at what they did. I notice they reshaped the extractor a little. I learned, I bought a new extractor and reshape myself, I also polished the edge of the ejector port. Together with polishing the feed ramp and chamber, I never had a failure in the next 300 rounds and I stopped shooting it.

This happened to my Colt Gold Cup and Walther PPK. The older semi, the ejector ports are very small, the extractor, ejector and the port needed to be worked on to make them reliable. Notice the new generation ones have much bigger ejector port spend from lower right side over the the whole top of the slide? This really helps.

Reliability has a lot to do with the weight of the slide. The heavier and bigger the slide, the less critical is the recoil spring. The mass of the slide really helps the cycling of the round. When guns get smaller and lighter, the slide get lighter. Then the recoil spring becomes very critical. Too strong, the round cannot push the slide back all the way and cause either FTE or FTF or both. It the spring is too strong, not only the recoil is hard, it slam the slide hard and cause trouble. So it becomes a game of balancing one way or the other. That's the reason I tend to stay away from tiny semi with large caliber. You might get lucky with one that just got it right but much higher chance to get one that jams. I did a lot of research on line and youtube to say this. Try look up all the mini 9mm and name one that you don't see a lot of complain. I would like to find one.

Even if you are lucky to buy a reliable mini 9mm, that the recoil spring is just right, it might change with age. That's the reason I thought hard and decided on Glock 26 instead of 43 as the slide is wider( bigger).

Those are JMHO, I did work on guns and that's my experience.

Bottom line, one fail is one too many. In these days of expensive and hard to buy ammo, I would take a few pictures of the first failure and send it back and let them fix it. I would not shoot another round after the first jam. Let them handle it. You can easily shoot the cost of another gun if you keep shooting and hoping it will go away.
 
I've owned a lot of Glocks over the years.
I've never needed a certain amount of "break in" rounds down range.

Yeah, you want to shoot a couple of magazine's worth of ammo down range just to make sure the pistol works and that there are no problems with the magazines, but I've never had any Glock that wasn't reliable new right out of the box.
 
In relation to glocks being susceptible to limp wristing. I have found this to be true with many handguns. In my experience with glocks this did not become an issue until around gen 4s with the double spring assembly which were designed for hot 124g loads. I think they had a recall. Since they run well, but are a touch more sensitive to limp writing than they used to in my experience, having had 2 gen 3s, 1 gen 4 and 1 gen 5....
 
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I possess (not just have bought) over a hundred handguns. Revolvers you pretty much know before firing if it's wrong. Autos? not so much.

Only Kahrs has given me a true "break in" periods with a PM40 breaking totally during the break in.

No other has. I'm betting most on here haven't sent a gun back. There just isn't that much that can go wrong from round 1 to round 300 on an auto that isn't an immediate problem.
 
wild cat mccane said:
I possess (not just have bought) over a hundred handguns. Revolvers you pretty much know before firing if it's wrong. Autos? not so much.

Only Kahrs has given me a true "break in" periods with a PM40 breaking totally during the break in.

No other has. I'm betting most on here haven't sent a gun back. There just isn't that much that can go wrong from round 1 to round 300 on an auto that isn't an immediate problem.
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I have, on 3 ocassions
Walther PPK 380. bought it from a co worker, it was double action only. had a recall on the safety as well. sear replaced, safety fixed.
NAA 22mag/22lr combo. 22mag was key holing at 3yds. indistinct rifling. rebarreld.
TC Compass 30-06, had cratered primers on all factory rounds and starting hand loads. firing pin hold was chamfered, was not supposed to be. TC replaced the bolt.

Had 2 guns that had a true break in and did not function 100% until after the break in. A Bersa thunder 380, and a Taurus 1911. both took about 200rnds to start running 100%.
 
I’ve sent or have needed repairs to firearms from S&W, Walther, HK, CZ, SIG, Ruger, Colt, and Springfield Armory. Most of those issues were apparent early on, within say the first few magazines. Not all of them were, however. I had a S&W M&P that had a barrel that was peening on the slide and that wasn’t seen until some hundreds of rounds. The CZ P10c that I had that started having light strikes didn’t start exhibiting the issue until passed 100 rounds at least. The Springfield Armory Range Officer didn’t start having failures to eject until after many hundreds of rounds.

I think it’s a fair statement that firearms today are for the most part very reliable. However it’s been my experience that with the high production numbers of today even very good QC processes can result in a not insignificant number of firearms with issues. Certainly user skill and ability can come into play, but I’ve also seen shooters just accept a pistol having issues and not contact the manufacturer because they just assumed that the malfunctions were inevitable.

All of the Glocks I have owned have functioned out of the box. Regardless, because of the issues I’ve seen I still like to shoot them for a period of time before carrying them. Is that expensive? Sure, shooting by nature is not a cheap hobby and today’s ammo prices make that even harder. For me and my confidence level I still do it. I don’t consider this a break in period (I can’t think of a pistol I owned that started off having malfunctions that just went away), but rather a trial period.


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I agree TunnelRat.

I think it's a waste of money to shoot 350 rounds of FMJ first before shooting the ammo for carry to break in the gun. Shoot the ammo to be carried, if it jams, make sure take pictures and send it gun back with pictures. It is important for the gun smith to know ( to see) what happened. They have experience, they will know exactly what happened and fix that.

Even if the problem goes away after "break in", it still tells me it's lack of margin. Better to fix it than hoping it will go away.

Yes, it is important to shoot like 200 rounds or so to get familiar with the gun and proof reliability before carry.

I hope your experience of Glock extends to Glock 26. I still have not shot it yet. Range near by is closed, can't buy ammo yet.
 
I think most people send back their guns to the manufacturers too prematurely. If they fiddled a little they might have solved the problem and learned more about the particulars of that gun.
I bought a used Kahr k40. It would prematurely lock back the slide during shooting. I checked that I was not the cause with my grip. I discovered that the slide lock is a two piece affair and the pin had come loosed from the lever allowing the lever to lock open the slide. I contacted Kahr to see if I could get a new lever (for free) and the rep said it was not the problem, send it in. I ordered a new takedown/slide stop lever and it fixed the problem. Most people would have sent the gun back in.

I have NEVER sent a gun back in to the manufacturer, but have owned hundreds of weapons. I have never sold a weapon because I or the manufacturer could not fix the problem. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket!:D
 
There's no reason a Glock should need 350 rounds of break in, nor should it matter that it's FMJ first before hollow points. In fact generally the FMJ may be lower powered due to being loaded for target use instead of self defense, so using the lighter round to break it in wouldn't really make sense. I consider Glock to be the brand I would choose if I were forced to grab a gun right out of the factory box, load it up and use it from the first round, and I would have a high degree of confidence in any of their guns to do so.

Some mentioned limp wristing. I can definitely see the 43X being sensitive to that due to the low weight and small frame. Not a lot of mass holding it in place and less surface area to grip. I can certainly see how loosening it up over 350 rounds would make it cycle more smoothly for somebody who had trouble with limp wrist-induced failures. That would just mean that's how loose it has to be to overcome that shooter's deficit though, not what it should require for normal function.

Generally the only guns I can think of which might legitimately need break-in periods to cycle are semi-automatic shotguns, where the gas pressure can be enormously different between low brass light loads and high brass heavy loads.

I don't consider guns so tight that they need break-ins to be a good thing. In days past when everything was manually machined and manufacturing technology wasn't so advanced, it was reasonable. With the precision we're capable of today, a gun that you have to break in before being reliable is a compromise that the manufacturer got it "close enough" that you can wear in yourself. Otherwise they would have just manufactured it straight to the ideal "wear in" dimension.

Shooting a good number of mixed rounds through a gun to verify it is still a very good idea, and different from a break in period. There you are testing it with ammo of different powder, different bullet weight/profile, the whole range of case dimensions, etc. Any manufacturer can make a bad gun, or a gun that's good but has a couple of wrong/tight dimensions that could interfere with the function.
 
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