Weird Glock Malfunction

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wolf 1415

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A Buddy of mine has a Glock 19 that he bought used with an unknown round count. It was bought at a store that gets a fair amount of LE department trade-ins, so it could have been a cop gun at some point.

Anyhow, about every 4th or 5th round, the gun won't fire the chambered round. Inspection of the unfired round shows the primer hit on the edge of the primer on all unfired rounds.

A Glockster friend of mine took it apart and noticed that the recoil spring assembly was no longer "captured" and the end pin has either broken or the whole thing was of the original non-captured variety.

The final theory developed at the shop was that the weak or broken recoil spring assembly is not holding the gun in battery all the way and the firing pin is hitting the edge of the primer with the slide not ALL the way forward.

We bought him a new spring assembly, and the gun does lock up much tighter, but he has not had a chance to fire the pistol yet.

I know there are some Glock experts out there...are we on the right track?
 
That should have solved the problem. It probably would not be a bad idea to also change the striker spring.

Just curious, what type of spring did he sell you? Captured or Non Captured?


Good SHooting
RED
 
A Glock malfunction??? Surely you jest!!! I thought Glocks were absolute perfect specimens of human engineering inspired by the gods...I thought only antiquated obsolete guns like the 1911 malfunctioned...It must be operator error...it couldn't possibly be the gun.
 
Exactly what I was thinking, Sundance. He surely must have really meant a 1911 of some sort. ;)






Sorry, but when 1911 nuts smell a wounded Glock we move in for the kill. :p
 
C'mon guys... you know how touchy these Glocksters can be!

I even left out my original tag line about how none of my Berettas have ever had this problem, or any other problem...Just so we could avoid the whole Glock vs. 1911 vs. DA autos vs. the world.

The spring we bought was captured by the way.

Has this problem been documented before?

Could firing slightly out of battery cause an off center primer hit?

The striker spring is very strong, BTW.

I feel partly resposible for his dillemma because he bought the Glock on my advice. You know, 1,000,000 rds and all...Plus I feel the Glock is a good choice for new shooters, with no de-cockers and a very simple manual of arms. Finger off trigger, nothing bad can happen.

He wants to call Glock and say, "Can I please have the one that goes a million rounds, please?"

Thanks for the help.
 
Ya know it gets boring. A guy comes on and ask a serious question about a situation that could cause an out of battery KB (in any gun) and a post later we get a bunch of anal retentive Glock bashing.....
 
I asked a similar question for a different reason a couple weeks ago. You can see my monkeying around and the arguements here:

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums...d=97607&highlight=glock+firing+out+of+battery

Yes, a Glock will fire out of battery, and that's exactly what his problem sounds like. It is probably a lucky thing the primers chose not to go off. The recoil spring is the likely culprit, but I'd look for any burrs or tight points in the barrel/slide/frame relationship that could impede cycling. When he does fire it, I would suggest observing that the weapon is fully in battery BEFORE every pull of the trigger for at least the first 20 rounds. I would shoot those twenty with low power stuff, like UMC. The lower power ammo should make it more likely to trip up, if it's going to.

Good luck and be careful.
 
I agree, too. It's funny sometimes, but I don't think that this
thread was meant for that.

Just an idea, and I'm not a Glockster (I've only owned one,
and I didn't dig it....), if the recoil spring was broken, did you
take a look at the firing pin spring, too? If that's broken as well,
might the firing pin be stuck a little bit out of the hole?

ANM
 
Glocks do not have firing pin springs. They have striker springs which do the opposite. The striker stays put because of the drawbar holding it and the firing pin block.
 
Yeah, the guys at the shop and a few shooting buddies all pronounced the other workings as "sound" and cleaned out the striker channel. One of the guys did feel some "drag" in the trigger action, but nothing serious.

As it is his only gun, and was bought for home defense, he'll probably send it back to be on the safe side.
 
THANK YOU ! ! ! ! !

Quote rkmstr

"Ya know it gets boring. A guy comes on and ask a serious question about a situation that could cause an out of battery KB (in any gun) and a post later we get a bunch of anal retentive Glock bashing....."

Thank you! I could not agree more....... between the Glock geeks and the 1911 geeks, it sometimes ALMOST makes me ashamed to admit that I own either one.

I sometimes wonder if this (and other places besides TFL as well) is a open forum for information trading, or a Junior High School study hall.

Come on ladies....... Not ALL "shooters" are H.I.A. positive!
 
Yes, this is not a joking matter. A glock firing out of battery is dangerous and the striker hitting off center is a good indication that that is what was happening. With the new recoil spring, fire a whole bunch of ammo, carefully inspecting the pistol before each shot to make sure it is in battery. That will make for a long, boring afternoon but you need to make sure the problem has been fixed.

In other words, what Handy said, but I would do it with more than 20 rounds.
 
Like they say at Glock Talk:

Troll, Troll, Troll. Ban the Troll.

Take it to a Glock Armorer and get him to replace wear items he feels are appropriate.

Pretend it has already fired 20,000,000,000 rounds and needs a little maintenance to be restored to perfection.

IMO, it is a good idea to let a smith check any used gun you buy from an unknown previous owner.
 
One warning: chill.

People need to stop acting like a bunch of third graders when they perceive a slight to their favorite popgun.
 
POPGUN!!! PUPGUN DID YOU SAY??!!!
WTF???
GLOCKS ARE NOT POPGUNS!!!
I'M CALLING MY LAWYER! YOU'RE DONE! YOU'RE FINISHED! YOU'RE THROUGH! SOMEONE GET ME GASTON GLOCK ON THE LINE!!!


:p
 
Well, I was simply being a smart@$$ and having a little fun, but apparently nerves are too raw on this forum so I'll cease and desist from now on. :(

Getting back to the subject on hand, you said you already bought a new spring which theoretically will solve the problem. In the event it doesn't, rather than continue to speculate I strongly recommend shipping it off to Glock. They won't give it back to you until it works properly.
 
What I find funny is where you may have gotten some legitimate answers it seems you all ruined it by assuming you were going to get bashed by Glock owners. Then Wolf gets a few people to encourage him so he comes out of the closet with a stupid comment.
C'mon guys... you know how touchy these Glocksters can be!
Click to expand...

First thing to address here is it seems this was a poorly maintained gun.

You origionally didn't know if the recoil spring assembly was suppose to be captured or non captured. Then, after figuring that the recoil spring was weak or broken, you buy a new one. After that they clean out your stryker channel for you.

The light strikes may have been caused by either problem. Since the stryker pin doesn't fire until the block is locked in the slide I would assume it was the dirty stryker channel. I have run Handy's test on 8 Glocks now and they all release the stryker at the moment the block locks in. He seems to have one that fires with an 1/8" to spare but I can't duplicate it anywhere.

One thing to keep in mind is it didn't fire out of battery. It only had light strikes.

Can you describe what the indentations looked like on the primers. Where they the same as a regular strike? Is it elongated toward the center or toward the edge? This will help determine if the stryker was engaging early or dragging as the round was ejected.

I am tending to believe the guys who worked on your Glock didn't think the recoil spring was the problem. Thats why the went for the Stryker channel next.

The marks on the primer will tell the story.
 
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