Glock 17 and 19 get ambidextrous mag release

[Guest db99wj]

Are you referring to my XD? It wasn't caked up much at all. In fact, I was shooting it on the drier of the two days when the soil had already had a chance to dry up a bit. The Glock mags had some serious mud in them. The XD mags were just gritty and dirty from being dropped nose first into the soil.

Yes I was talking about the XD's. That's something to be aware of.

[TGO David]

I stuck one mag into mine when I could hardly see the top round for the mud. It cycled slow, but did what it was supposed to.

I could imagine a problem if there was a small rock in the mud.

To be fair, the XD itself was cycling fine. It was the follower in the magazine that was a problem. It became stuck in the magazine tube itself and as rounds were stripped off the top, the follower wasn't moving with them so the remaining rounds became a jumbled mess inside the magazine. Stronger magazine springs might remedy the situation, but these mags were virtually brand new and still had very stiff springs.

[molonlabetn]

That makes sense... I had to smack my mags a few times when I'd pick them up and the top round was nosed down because of the way it hit the ground.

[Guest db99wj]

That makes sense... I had to smack my mags a few times when I'd pick them up and the top round was nosed down because of the way it hit the ground.

A friend of mine has an XD and one of his mags that was used in some training went nose down, got kicked, got stepped on, all on concrete at the range. He started having some problems with feeding, come to find out, the metal edge had been bent, quite a bit. I guess that is something to be aware of with metal clips....err magazines.

[Smith]

I'm thinking any mag with the right mixture of grit is going to have problems. Mags are more or less all the same, right? glock mags are metal as well, albeit coated with plastic.

[TGO David]

I'm thinking any mag with the right mixture of grit is going to have problems. Mags are more or less all the same, right? glock mags are metal as well, albeit coated with plastic.

True that any mag can be made to fail with the right amount of crap shoved into it. Not entirely true that Glock mags are metal coated with plastic. They are made of the the same polymer as the gun's frame but have metal reinforcements to keep them from flexing and give rigidity to the feed lips.

It's not uncommon to see Glock mags spill their guts if loaded full and then dropped onto a hard concrete floor. The baseplates can pop off and send rounds, follower and spring in all directions.

Strong recoil spring and stable follower design are key factors in having mags that function properly in adverse conditions.

[Guest Verbal Kint]

Mags are more or less all the same, right?

In theory, yes. In reality, no. Different tolerances (as are different spring strengths, case materials, follower design/shape, etc) in mfg'ing yield much different results. That's why you'll see flocks of people avoiding ABC company over XYZ company for a certain firearm.

[Guest Todd@CIS]

We saw two Glocks go down this past weekend as Eddie alluded to in his reply about a broken slide lock spring and a broken front sight. But both of those weapons had seen a lot of shooting from what I understood. As in multiples of thousands of rounds prior to those failures.

In defense of those two Glocks...

The first one had the front sight fly off (not factory, user installed). Apparently the owner had never been introduced to LocTite.

The second one had an improperly installed Slide Stop Lever...it was not broken. The owner of said pistol loaned it to someone who thought he could do more than fieldstrip it. The owner just brought it to the range and would have inspected it prior to putting into service.

But yes, I have personally had Glocks break on two occasions. One was a broken Trigger Spring. Glock really needs to adapt the New York Trigger Spring design (virtually unbreakable) to a 5lb weight and deep six the standard Trigger Spring.

The second was a broken Take Down Lever Spring that caused my Glock to start doubling in a Pat Rogers class I was in...people were very impressed by my "splits"...LOL.

As my Dept's Glock Armorer, I have really only seen one other part break...extractors. That's usually caused by the dingdong Officer dropping a round into the chamber to load their weapon.

Edited June 19, 2008 by Todd@CIS

[Guest Todd@CIS]

I'm thinking any mag with the right mixture of grit is going to have problems. Mags are more or less all the same, right? glock mags are metal as well, albeit coated with plastic.

Partially true...

XD mags are way more dirt and grime sensitive than Glock mags. My Dept's general issue is the G22 or G23. SWAT is issued the XD45. We have seen the XD mags stop up faster/more frequently than Glock mags. Are XD mags bad? No, just a little more grime sensitive.

[dunndw]

yea...the 100 year old design kept on plugging away...dirt...mud...dodging flying Glock parts :-)

I did take my mags apart Sat night and clean them up a bit however. A little CLP...Miltec and a blast of compressed air...ready to go.

I was surprised that I DIDN'T have any issues...esp with the double feed drills. I thought the piece of dummy round that got ripped off was wondering around in there somewhere.

[Marswolf]

Apart from my (mostly) kidding of Glock owners, they are very tough handguns. The one part I know of that died, among my friends who carry Glocks, was a slide lock spring that broke after many years of heavy use. Oddly enough, this happened during a qualifying session. Whether Glocks are tougher than H&Ks, SIGs or other handguns, I don't have enough information to say. But they are tough enough.

Magazines, which we initiated call "clips" , are an interesting subject. Some are pretty much all plastic (often with feed lip metal reinforcement), some have metal sleeves inside the plastic, some are all metal. The most interesting I know is the one for the H&K USP. It appears to be all plastic until you take a magnet to it. The lower part is polymer and the upper about half has a metal insert encased on both sides in polymer. No wonder they cost $50 each. The main thing is to find ones that work well and are sturdy enough to not fly apart when dropped or crimp to where they are not usable. I've seen more than one AK magazine...err clip...that got a slight dent in the side and wouldn't feed. Plastic can have some advantages.

[deerslayer]

Well, you know you don't HAVE to carry with the hammer down. Just cock it and you have the equivalent of a striker fired weapon - with a bunch of additional options.

[Marswolf]

Uh.... on your .

[deerslayer]

A cocked, 3 or 4 pound trigger with maybe 1/8" of travel required to discharge is not comparable to 5.5 or even 8 pounds requiring 1/2" of travel. To quote a notorious local politician, "What you're telling me is just duummmbbbbbb..."

[Marswolf]

Sticks and stones....

[deerslayer]

Sticks and stones....

Mars, I'll stick with the first part of my post, but I apologize for the second part. It was thrown in there simply for the entertainment of a few Memphis-area TGOers. For those of you east of the TN River who have no idea what I'm talking about, here is an example of a typical day in Memphis politics (badly off topic, I know):

(fast forward to about 2:00 minutes):

[ame]

[/ame] Edited June 22, 2008 by deerslayer

[Guest Verbal Kint]

Wow. I seriously feel sorry for your state, for having elected representatives like her.

W T F

[Guest Valkyrie]

Holy crazy lady, Batman!

Good pick for a rep, TN!!

[Guest Verbal Kint]

Good pick for a rep, TN!!

Well... honestly... guess it's par for the course... have you seen the pro football team their state fields?

[Guest Valkyrie]

Well... honestly... guess it's par for the course... have you seen the pro football team their state fields?

You talking about this team?

[Guest Todd@CIS]

Well... honestly... guess it's par for the course... have you seen the pro football team their state fields?

Now Verbal, I happen to think pro football revolves around the Packers, but that's just mean.

The Titans are better than KY's te ..oops, sorry.

[Guest canynracer]

Holy crazy lady, Batman!

Good pick for a rep, TN!!

Well... honestly... guess it's par for the course... have you seen the pro football team their state fields?

Whatchyou meeeeaannnnn???? what you sayin aint hitting nothin on me.....

lol...yeah, she is a moron, but she is ours.... typical really...her, Nefiah...yep, dems our leaders!!!

LOL...I am moving to Kentucky..... (just joking....I cant live in a state where the abbreviation is KY...)

Edited June 23, 2008 by canynracer

[Guest Verbal Kint]

The Titans are better than KY's te ..oops, sorry.

That just means we are undefeated.

[Guest Verbal Kint]

LOL...I am moving to Kentucky..... (just joking....I cant live in a state where the abbreviation is KY...)

But, dude... we get to carry around alcohol! And if your cousin is a hottie... well...

[Guest canynracer]

But, dude... we get to carry around alcohol! And if your cousin is a hottie... well...

LMAO...well, now there is a temptation....

I am gonna have to search the KY gun laws....maybe....