My Glock + sand = A VREY BAD DAY!

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Gino

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My Glock + Sand = A VERY BAD DAY!

Last week while shooting, I accidentally dropped my G26 in the sand. (Actually, it was in a belly band and fell out while I was walking down the berm.) I was interested in how the sand would effect functioning, after all, Glocks have a great reputation for dependability. Boy, was I surprised!

It jammed the pistol to the point that it was very difficult to rack the slide, and it did not go back into battery without being forced. After taking out all ammo, it took almost 30 pounds of pressure to get the trigger to work.

I'm pretty sure it would have only fired once in this condition.

I don't over-lube my carry gun. I think it was sweat that caused the sand to become so stuck in the pistol. Here in Florida, we have what we call "suger sand", cause it is pretty fine-grained. The combination of a sweaty gun and suger sand was not good!

If you look at a Glock from the side, you can see daylight through the gap under the slide. This is where the sand went into the gun.

I don't think a gun with closed slide rails would have had this problem. So much for Glock perfection!
 
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You might want to look at Larry Vickers' report on 1911forum.com regarding glocks and sand. He did a test of a Glock and a 1911 and one other gun as I recall. He, like you, was very surprised that sand shut the Glock down.

IIRC the trigger mechanism got bound up in his experiment.

PS if it wasn't 1911 forum it was pistolsmith.com
 
Uh-oh... here we go again!:D

If you look at a Glock from the side, you can see daylight through the gap under the slide. This is where the sand went into the gun.
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This trait, in all honesty, makes it more "cheapo"-looking than the other tupperware pistols. The slide in my USP embraces the rail, covering up the innards from contaminants very well.
 
For crying out loud Gino. What the heck are you doing trying to operate your gun, any gun, after you drop it. In sand, dirt, snow, etc., unless you are in a life threating situation.

For one thing, the Glock torture tests have all been done on the G17, which is a much different pistol than the G26. The G17 is much more tolerant than the little G26.

Life is not a Chuck Taylor magazine torture test. If I drop my gun in the sand, not one part will move except to take it down and clean it. Todays guns are too darn expensive to abuse.
 
True confessions: I dropped a Ruger P944 in the dirt (sandy loam) a while back. Did not attempt to fire it. I removed the magazine and racked the slide once to eject the round in the chamber. You could feel the grit. Also, you could feel the grit with the trigger (pulled once to drop hammer after extracting round). The sand/dirt got places you wouldn't believe from just dropping it. Had to perform a complete disassembly and thorough cleaning. Functions beautifully now. Sand will not enhance the operation of any weapon (understatement?).:D
 
For crying out loud Gino. What the heck are you doing trying to operate your gun, any gun, after you drop it. In sand, dirt, snow, etc., unless you are in a life threating situation.
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Is pretty much answered by:
It jammed the pistol to the point that it was very difficult to rack the slide, and it did not go back into battery without being forced. After taking out all ammo, it took almost 30 pounds of pressure to get the trigger to work.
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Besides, many here say a pistol shouldn't be trusted for defensive use unless several hundred rounds have been put through it flawlessly. It is just as valid to try to rack the slide and try the trigger.

For one thing, the Glock torture tests have all been done on the G17, which is a much different pistol than the G26. The G17 is much more tolerant than the little G26.
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This is not a good explaination and no excuse. You will arguably need the G26 more desperately, since it will be the only gun on hand. At home, I have many guns availible, several are around and loaded. When I am carrying I usually have no back-up.

Funny thing was, this guy at a gunshop tried to convince me the gaps on a Glock are a good thing. The logic was that the gaps allow the burned powder and other stuff from usage to escape. Of course, as you found out, this allows detrius in.

Glock Perfection.
 
I dont think dropping a gun in the sand and then trying to use it would qualify as a "torture test".

Very surprised, and disappointed, that sand shut down your Glock.
 
Also make sure you use the same kind of sand that they test 'em with. You have to use a special gunwriter's blend for them to work afterwards. :p
 
I know the Glock cult guys out there ain't digging this but thats the way it shakes - believe what you want. GIs carrying 1911s defeated Axis forces, including Austrians. The 1911 was winning battles and saving lives before Gaston Glock was even born - somewhere along the way we probably figured out a thing or two on combat handguns.

A priceless comment from Vickers. Between that and the "buttplug reference I'm sure the plastic pagans are fumin' !
 
Here's some more...

Working in a place that has a sign that says "Gunsmithing" over the door will disabuse one of any notions of invincible guns. Freaky occurances happen to anyone, and then there's just some folks that could break an anvil.

True Story #1: Our protagonist is cleaning the gutters on his two-story home with his SIG P-220 in an IWB holster. Stretching to reach something, the SIG comes loose and falls the 20-some-odd feet to the ground. It lands flat on its' right side on dirt. The owner scrambles down the ladder and is relieved to find the gun is apparently unharmed. He thinks nothing of it until he takes it to the range a couple days later, where he discovers that his pistol, which had given years of flawless reliability, was now a jammomatic, failing to feed at least once per magazine. Perplexed, he brings it into the shop, where a cursory examination shows that this pistol, which has passed the most hellish police and military durability tests, has landed in just such a manner to tweak the frame ever so slightly. You can see the odd wear marks on the new high spots. 200 rounds later, the steel slide wore down the high spots enough that reliability returned, but the owner swore accuracy had gone to hell in a handbasket. Solution? New frame, happy owner.

True story #2: Acquaintance comes into shop to discuss mods to his CCW piece, a Colt 1991A1. After a brief visit, he tucks the pistol in his belt, Mexican style, and leaves. In the parking lot, as he's climbing into his 4WD pickup, the 1991A1 takes a header out of his waistband and tumbles maybe 4 feet to the asphalt. He comes back in and shows it to me, saying "Look at this!"
I respond, wittily, "Looks like a Colt, what about it?"
"Look where I dropped it."
"Yeah, there's a scuff on the tang. So? You were going to have it Black-T'ed anyway."
"No. Here, hold it."
I'll be darned; in a one in a zillion shot, his pistol had landed on the tang in just such a way that you couldn't depress the grip safety with a pair of channel locks.

True story #3: A brand spanking new HK USP shows up on the UPS truck. Not having seen one before, one of our regulars (a huge gent, we'll call him "Bubba") and one of my coworkers go off to piddle with the new pistol. Meanwhile, I'm pawing through the box, looking at the spare mag, the manual, and the... what the heck is this flat piece of metal? At that moment, from the other end of the store I hear the distinct sound of something snapping. Hmmm. It seems that this was one of the new integral-lock USP's, and they ship locked, and if you're as big as Bubba, you really can break an anvil.



I've shot Glocks after shaking them around in boxes of dirt and sand. That, of course, means doodley squat. They should work just fine when full of sand, but as you found out the hard way, that don't necessarily make it so.

These are just some of the reasons why I always carry two guns. :)
 
Perhaps the FBI used a coarser grade of sand. :D

When the FBI tested the Glock models 22 and 23, they did abuse testing, a parts interchangeability test, exposure tests, an obstructed bore test, a Field Suitability Evaluation plus accuracy and endurance tests. In addition, all pistols had to have a service life of 10,000 rounds.

Glock’s 22 and 23 met or exceeded all requirements.
The Field Suitability Evaluation used agents of different size, height, weight, and sex who put 250 rounds thru three of each model pistol. This included a 30 round bullseye course, then 2 10 round strings from the holster at the FBI Q target from 10 yards, then fired two more 10 round strings from the ready position. They also fired five 10 round strings from ten yards as fast as they could fire and reload. Another two 10 round strings were fired from prone at Q targets 50 yards away, Finally, they shot two 50 round FBI qualification courses. FBI gunsmiths also fired the pistols from bench and Ransom rests for accuracy.

Abuse tests included: They field stripped three guns, and swapped parts among them, then fired 20 rounds from each without failure. Two of the pistols were put into a freezer to –20F for one hour, then immediately withdrawn and fired, next they went in an oven at 120F for one hour and immediately withdrawn and fired. With the pistol containing primed cartridge in their chamber, and dummy rounds in the mags, they were next dropped, twice at each orientation, onto concrete from a height of four feet: muzzle down, muzzle up, on their right side, on their left side, sights down, and squarely on the butt. Immediately following this, the cases were examined for primer indents then the pistols were fired with 20 rounds to ensure proper functioning.

The guns, loaded again with primed cartridges in their chambers, and dummy rounds in the mags, were tossed from a height of four feet, to a distance of 15 feet onto concrete, landing twice each on their right and left sides. The guns could not fire and the magazines had to stay in place. Immediately following this, the cases were examined for primer indents then the pistols were fired with 20 rounds to ensure proper functioning. Two magazines, loaded with dummy ammo were also dropped, twice at each orientation, onto concrete from a height of four feet onto their base plates and onto their feed lips. They could not lose a round and were then tested by firing 10 rounds each without a malfunction.

They also dunked them in salt water for 5 minutes, pulled them out, shook them for 15 seconds, rinsed them with clear water and let them sit for 24 hours then fired 20 rounds without malfunction (shrug). One of the three guns was cleaned, lubed and loaded then put in a box containing half play sand and half road sand, and covered up. It was removed shaken out and fired until empty. The last abuse test had a bullet lodged in the barrel, one inch in front of the chamber. Then one round of service ammunition was fired with the obstruction in place. The pistol could not rupture or fragment the frame slide or barrel. As an added test five more rounds were fired after the first round cleared the barrel obstruction.

The endurance test meant firing 10,000 rounds thru each of the six pistols. No major parts replacements were allowed, including magazines, and the malfunction rate could not be greater than 1 in 2000 rounds. The pistols never missed a beat, with zero malfunctions in 60,000 rounds. They were then fired with another 10,000 rounds, for a total of 20,000 rounds each, and a grand total of 120,000 rounds (that’s 145 five gallon buckets of empty brass). One model 22 needed a new trigger bar after 17,131 rounds and another 22 needed a trigger bar after 19,494 rounds. The other model 22 and all three model 23s made it thru all 20,000 rounds without a failure. Following the endurance tests, the pistols were once again tested for accuracy and passed (4” at 25 yards with a variety of ammo from 155 to 180 grain bullet weights).
 
9x19,

From the XM9 trials through the Bundeswehr's P8 tests to the FBI and the Ohio State Patrol's latest handgun selection procedures, acceptance tests tend to be getting more and more severe. I'm beginning to think it's some kind of competition. "Hey, Bob, didja see what those guys at the FBI did for their tests? Dropped it off a ladder, shot 20,000 rounds through it, and shot it with a bullet lodged in the bore! We're gonna drop ours off a cliff, shoot 40,000 rounds through it, and fire it with the barrel welded shut. That'll top 'em!"

If you pick a common duty-style handgun, such as a P-22x, a USP or a Glock, odds are good that some police department or military outfit somewhere has done things to it that were so heinous, they'd make you cringe to watch. We used to call these "Stupid Pistol Tricks". (When the Glock rep came by the shop I used to work at, I volunteered my personal G23 for my favorite Stupid Pistol Trick; he'd park one of the front tires of his SUV on it in the parking lot. Why would I volunteer my own gun for this? Three reasons: a) it wowed the audience and it usually sold a gun or two, b) I'd already seen him do it with his Glock, so I was reasonably sure it wouldn't hurt it, and c) even if it did break my gun, it's not like he couldn't scare me up a fresh one. ;) )

What do they prove? I'm not exactly sure, but they're fun to talk about. Guns never break when you're doing stuff like this or just shooting beer cans. Guns always break when you're at an expensive shooting school and the class is behind schedule, when you're shooting a match and in close contention for the lead, or (worst of all) when you're trying to use it to keep your hide in its' present hole-free condition. That's why (and I know I sound like a broken record, here) I always carry a second gun. Should I ever, Vishnu forbid, be using my gun for real and hear any sound other than a *bang!* when I pull the trigger, I'm not going to waste time trying to figure out if it's broken, jammed, or empty; I'm going to drop it like a live grenade, pull a fresh one, and keep shooting. :D
 
I have done the same tests with my glocks and they do fine until it gets in the mag. But all the auto's I have tested have had simmular results. Get sand in the mag and they will not work.
PAT
 
Glock has had a very good marketing strategy to the point where many people think that it is the best thing since slice bread. For me, Glock is just a good value for money pistol, but so is the Ruger P9 series and the S&W value series. Sand will jam any gun..the question is how quickly will it get into the gun mechanism. So ignore those staged torture tests and demonstrations, its all about marketing.
 
Tamara,

Indeed it is fun to talk about...

I think we can blame Remington (and their li'l Nylon 66) for starting the one-up testing trend. :p

Second gun? Now there's an idea with some merit! ;)
 
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