Glock Flunks Reliability Test

[Wild Romanian]

Question: Are hammer firing pistols more reliable than the striker fired weapons such as found on the Glock.

I performed a reliability test to find out.

Last week I headed to the Range to Test fire a 1911 Colt after I
had installed some new Wolf Springs in. I was going to fire some reloads when I noticed that I had failed to ajust the primer seating depth on my automatic press that resulted in a few loaded rounds that had extremely high primers. As a matter of fact I did not think the rounds would even chamber. They did.

I then proceded out of curiousity to see if i would have any misfires. To make matters worse I had installed and extra heavy firing pin spring that I knew would retard the forward striking energy of the Colt's firing pin.

All of the bad ammo fired with no problems whatsoever.

I then decided to try this same experiment with the Glock. I deliberately loaded the same type of defective ammo for the Glock I then proceeded to fire them off. No luck. The Glock failed to fire every time.

Although failure of factory ammo is rare, failure of weapons is not. Oil often congeals in weapons, cold weather may cause moisture in the gun to freeze or the gun may simply get very dirty from firing and if not cleaned start to accumulate in all corners of the interior of the weapon which causes a slowing down of the various parts.

It is comforting to know that the classic designs of John Browning have that extra umph to detonate the primer under even extreme conditions.

This does not seem to be the case in some striker fired weapons such as the Glock. W.R.

[Blue Duck357]

Hmmm... Shouldn't the title of this thread be "Wild Romanian makes defective reloads" ?

[yorec]

"Reliability test" Huh? Purposely firing improperly seated primers sounds like more of a sanity test to me - you did have your shooting glasses on, right?

I know this probably wasn't as big a deal as I may be making out of it, but please realize you may be giving some neophyte reloader ideas that it's OK to "experiment." They were actually so bad you were afraid they wouldn't chamber?!? - maybe it is that big a deal...

But given that sort of disclaimer, I've alway wanted to see someone try experimenting with trying to increase the powder charge increment by increment to see which gun goes BOOM! first... (Just to see if the preassure measuring system in current use is accurate) Done properly, with good safety equipment, that could be a real blast!

Still - it was interesteing. Glad no one was maimed or died.

The rule is: Discard or disassemble defective reloads.

[Tamara]

Depending on how high the primers were, that sounds more like a "which gun will fire further out of battery" test to me.

You should probably check headspace on that 1911.

PS I thought you'd said earlier that you'd sold your Glock because it "wouldn't feed ball". Did the range know you were doing this zaniness with their rental?

[Wild Romanian]

PS I thought you'd said earlier that you'd sold your Glock because it "wouldn't feed ball". Did the range know you were doing this zaniness with their rental

Your memory has failed you I am afraid. I did sell the .45 but I still own two 9mm's. The Glock I used in the test was my friends .45 that he purchases on the same day I purchased mine.

Also my friends .45 does not work either. Same problem it jams with hardball. He is a procrastinator of the highest order and after all these years has still not gotten around to doing anything about it. But it is his weapon not mine.

We also later tested both 9mm's one was a model 17 and the other a model 19. Both also misfired every time and I mean every time. In the 9mm experiment we used umprimed cases but in the first instance we wanted to duplicate everything exactly because we knew that all of you W.R. haters whould try and come up with some excuse to explain why the Glock failed and the 1911 did not.

You are correct, I should have told everyone else not to try this with loaded ammo but try it with primed cases if you want to duplicate this experiment.

The results did not suprise me because John Browning himself found out the same thing almost 100 years ago. It is not well know except by well read people that the first .45 1911 was actually a striker fired weapon. It was found that it was not as reliable as the hammer model and the Military thought a visible hammer would be a safer weapon than a striker fired weapon that would be harder to immediatley detect as to wether it was cocked or not. W.R.

[Wild Romanian]

Depending on how high the primers were, that sounds more like a "which gun will fire further out of battery" test to me

Sorry to disappoint you but I have headspace guages for the calibers mentioned and I often check my weapons from time to time. The Colt by the way was checked and so was the Glock after the experiment. Both were and are right on the money. W.R.

[Tamara]

Let me say this again: Perhaps headspace needs to be checked on that 1911. Your chamber is sloppy. A weapon should not function with a backed out primer. A cartridge with a backed out primer is frequently used as a field expedient "no-go" gauge. This is to keep the pistol from firing out of battery and blowing up.

[Tecolote]

Good to see Wild Romanian continues his crusade against the Polymer Wonder. With luck you might convince one or two people not to buy a Glock. What a personal triumph that would be.

[Wild Romanian]

And one more point. The Glocks were not fired out of battery.

One thing I should mention. The Glock has the weaker lock up because it only headspaces on the barrel hood. It has no barrel locking lugs. This makes it even more likely that if it did fire out of battery that it would more than likely blow up or at the least impart tremendous recoil assuming that the case did not seperate.

Most handguns are designed so that if you would pull the trigger the firing pin will not release or if it does will not come forward fast enough or in some cases far enough depending on the model to detonate the primer.

All of the primers fired out of the Glocks showed a definate impact on the primer not a light touch. Their just was not enough forward momentum to fire the weapon. In other words the 1911 even with its heavily modifed firing pin spring that actually slowed it down , was still able to literally drive the primer forward until it bottomed out in the case and fired the weapon. The Glock had no such power to do this.

Looking at the Glock or 1911 before firing we could easily determine wether the slide was fully forward. Remember on the Glock all you have to do is look downward at the top of the barrel to see if it has full risen to lock up against the breach face. All this may sound complicated but a quick glance will easily tell you if the slide is fully forward by looking at the back of the slide and also at the breach of the barrel.

The Glocks failed and no amount of excuses will change that fact. W.R.

[Wild Romanian]

Good to see Wild Romanian continues his crusade against the Polymer Wonder. With luck you might convince one or two people not to buy a Glock. What a personal triumph that would be

I respectfully submit that for once we are in agreement but I do disagree as to the numbers. They are far higher than you imagine because remember they can verify this test with a primed and empty case. W.R.

[Wild Romanian]

Come on Tamara you either not slowing down enough to read my post in its entirety or you are trying to deceive even yourself.

My headspace guages are not primed cases. Believe it or not they do make headspace gauges for pistols. I can prove it to you. Would you like me to send you mine so you can check out our own pistol. Yes they really do exist and even non gunsmiths can buy them. W.R.

[Arizona Eric]

I have made 9mm reloads that won't chamber in my Glock 19 but do chamber in my BHP and SW 469.

I still think from what I have heard elsewhere that the Glock is more reliable than either the BHP or the 459 in the long run (although I have had no failures with any of them) as long as I put the right ammo in.

Moral of the story: Use the right ammo.

[9x19]

Well WR,

If you don't have headspace problems, as Tamara has suggested (or was she talking about your pistols? ), then the 1911s must have extractor tension concerns, if a high primer round chambers without problems...

Perhpas one should consider your post in the spirit it was offered... you don't like Glocks but dote on reproduction antiques... so taken.

[Don Gwinn]

I'm not sure I understand--if the primer is "high," I visualize that as meaning it protrudes past the back of the pocket, so that it is "higher" than flush with the back of the cartridge.

That being the case, I don't understand why it would take more power to detonate it. The primer is still basically in the same place, isn't it? If it's really, really high, maybe it forces the rest of the cartridge forward, but it should be resting against the breech face in that case, so no extra distance is needed to strike the primer, right?

Perhaps the striker/pin has to hit harder because otherwise it just pushes the primer into the pocket?

Either way, as much as I like my hammer-fired SIG, I think I'd rather use ammunition that was made correctly than buy a different gun so I can shoot defective ammo. Not sure I see the point of proving that a 1911 is more reliable with dangerously defective rounds.

[Art Eatman]

Driftin' a bit away from WR's main point, it seems to me that if the 1911 is fully locked into battery, it has seated that high primer on down toward where it belongs. Just depends on how high was the primer, to keep it out of battery, and maybeso whether you let the slide go forward at full speed. (I doubt the flat face of the slide will set off the primer.)

I've only had one Glock. My only objection was aesthetic. It was whatever model the full-size .45ACP is. It went "Bang!" with factory GI Ball, and with my IPSC SWCs. Accurate and easy to shoot, just like my 1911s.

Seems to me that the folks who run into trouble are the sloppy reloaders, or those who never inspect whatever ammo they plan to use. Add into this group the victims of incompetent gunsmithing--some of which victims did it to themselves .

For that average fella, most any of the Taurus-and-up-handguns with factory ammo will work just fine. The very-experienced shooter will have already solved whatever problems he runs into, and usually won't be posting here. It's that middle-ground of guy who is still experimenting that runs into more weird problems than I can count.

$0.02 and ,

Art

[dawg23]

Gentlemen:

It's patently obvious that the Wild Pomeranian has a head space problem - in his own head. He apparently pontificates just to satisfy a gigantic ego.

You would think that anybody who possesses such extensive "knowledge" about Glocks would share it over on Glock Talk. Of course over there, they ignore trolls. :barf:

Dawg23

[Handy]

W.R.

Sometimes you make thoughtful points about durability, longevity, etc. These points get completely lost when your nearly fanatical opinions rear their ugly heads in posts like this one. You constantly destroy your own credibility with your obviously biased rants. For instance:

Primers need to be seated to function. The last portion of the seating operation correctly positions the anvil for ignition. Being able to ignite any unseated primer is the equivilent of a bar bet. It doesn't reflect at all on other real ignition related problems like hard primers. So there's no point in this test.

Saying that a striker, which is a spring launched firing pin, can't work as well as a firing pin launched by a hammer launched by a spring is ridiculous. It's the same damn thing. If anything, the hammer introduces an extra part. Since when is more complicated better? Didn't Browning design striker guns as well? Was he on drugs in those periods?

As to lockup, the barrel locking lugs engage the slide on their FRONT edge (not barrel hood) as the pressure pushes the barrel forward and slide rearward. Lockup is real easy to measure; it's the frontal surface area of the lugs that actually engage the slide recesses. The Glock has an enourmous area in front of the chamber block pressing against the slide. The fact that most production 1911's have very little locking engagement in the slide is well known. Gunsmiths combat this 1911 production problem with extended links and tools to open the lugs up in the slide.

There are some problems with Glocks. I don't feel completely comfortable with anything but 9mm Glocks because of out of battery firing issues. Their triggers are too light. Whatever! I'd rather have a Glock on me in a combat zone than most anything else.

But you're not even making sense when you denigrate this mostly usefull weapon in favor of the 1911 with an ancient safety system and a fragile extractor. Most people aren't buying it because of your sour tone. I'm not buying it because your logic is often completely faulty. It's like discussing cosmology with a Christian fundamentalist; your mind is made up beyond any logic or evidence. Give it a rest if you want anyone to benefit from what you do know.

[Watch-Six]

At one time I had a priming tool shell holder crack and I accidentally built some 9mm rounds with poorly seated primers. I discovered this when one of my Sig P226s started having misfires. Oddly a second P226 did not have any problem with the bogus ammo. My conclusion was not that one P226 was better than the other, but that defective ammuntion is unreliable. Watch-Six

[Shake]

This whole story stinks to me:

I was going to fire some reloads when I noticed that I had failed to ajust the primer seating depth on my automatic press that resulted in a few loaded rounds that had extremely high primers.

How is it that you loaded "a few" rounds with high primers without catching them BEFORE going to the range? Generally, a reloader will set up his press, reload a few rounds and check for proper primer seat, OAL, etc. before kicking out a bunch of rounds. Do you want us to believe that you just locked in your dies and merrily started pumping away without checking anything (rememeber, you have 35 years of experience)? If initially when you checked your first rounds, the primers were seated "extremely high" as you stated, wouldn't you have corrected the problem and either discarded or broken down the high primered rounds? I would have. Or, does your press "wander" (i.e. change OAL, primer seating depth) as you load? If so I would assume you would be mindful and check each loaded round. It is good practice to periodically check the finished product during the reloading process.

. I deliberately loaded the same type of defective ammo for the Glock I then proceeded to fire them off. No luck.

What does that mean? You fired them off, but they didn't fire? How do you fire something off but it doesn't fire?

Does it seem strange to anyone else that Wild Romanian happened to have a .45 caliber GLOCK on hand? I find it strange that WR would even be in the same room with someone who liked GLOCKs, much less go to the range with one of those cheap plastic and sheet metal GLOCKs.

As I said before, this whole story stinks to me.

What WR has proven is that he is really not very good at reloading (despite 35 years of experience); he hates GLOCKs (I know, news flash) because they aren't SIG 210s, BHPs, 1911s, or Stars; he tried to fire bad ammo in two guns and then called it a "test. Had the 1911 not fired the ammo and the GLOCK had, he would have been telling us that the results of his "test" favored the 1911 because it won't fire out of battery like the POS GLOCK.

WR, I've been reloading for about six years now and I've yet to load any high primered ammo that I haven't caught before going to the range.

Take a reloading class and forget about your little "test".

Shake

[zanthope]

This might be over-simplification, but what I'm reading is:

* 1911 fires wild-eyed Romanian garbage ammo
* Glock will NOT fire wild-eyed Romanian garbage ammo

This is evidence for:

* Glock "PERFECTION," per logo
* Suspicious efficacy of wild-eyed Romanian garbage ammo

[KelBench400]

I loaded up some ammo with double and even triple charges. Then I went to the range and let er rip. Damn POS blew up right in my hand! What was Gaston thinking when he designed this thing?

In all honesty WR...your argument is one of the stupidest I've ever heard. Who cares how the glock performed with out-of-spec ammo. I wound't have shot the stuff anyway.

Kel

[blades67]

wr - what an utter lack of respect you showed your friend. Did you tell him that you wanted to borrow his gun for an experiment that could have resulted in the destruction of his gun? Did you actually try this crap? If you're really doing this crap, are you telling the people near you you're about to try out for a Darwin Award and they should find a safer place to be than next to your ignorant arse? :barf:

P.S. There's no hate in this post, just total contempt for stupidity.

[355sigfan]

Your test proves nothing as you should inspect your ammo before you load your mags with it. I would never load any of the crap you reloaded.
PAT

[snappy]

Blades, you hit the nail on the head my friend.

[Tecolote]

Dawg23,

I nearly cried from laughing when I read your post. Years ago my folks had a Pomeranian that would always attack my then GF. She took to calling it Wild Pomeranian. Your post brought back some pretty funny memories. Thanks.