I had this happen to me this week, and I’m wondering if anyone else have this happen also.
Here is the sequence of what happened.
Gun is empty.
Full magazine inserted into gun.
Rack the slide.
Trigger is locked forward.
Pull the trigger, and click.
It was very clear that the trigger bar was not engaged with the firing pin. Somehow when the slide was going into battery, the firing pin gets pass the trigger bar.
Rack the slide, and a round pops out, and the next trigger pull, the gun goes bang.
Happened one other time, and only when loading an empty gun.
No primer indentation…On trigger pull. The trigger bar did not engage the firing pin…ie the firing pin was already in front of the trigger bar like AFTER a completed trigger pull.
Sometimes you run into Mag-Tech ammunition that has primers harder than woodpecker lips. I have not seen this with Blazer ammunition and I have shot a lot of it.
Make sure the leading edge of the chamber is clean to ensure the slide is going into full battery.
How many rounds have been fired through the Glock? A local LEO had this happen to his Glock 17 and I cleaned a lot of gunk out of the striker (firing pin) channel. I saw this happen on a Smith & Wesson 5904 as well. A thorough cleaning got the 5904 up and running.
Tip: When you clean the breach face, lay the slide on it’s side when applying cleaning liquids. If you stand the slide on end and you are looking down at the striker hole, the liquid flows gunk into the striker channel.
I don’t think you guys are understanding the malfunction I’m describing.
It is not a primer issue.
Somehow the firing pin/striker did not properly engage the trigger bar when the slide goes into battery…and it is in full battery with the trigger fully forward.
ie the striker/firing pin is forward of the trigger bar…in the position it would be in after a trigger pull, and then manually moving the trigger back forward.
The gun is a few years old with several thousand rounds through it, and I clean it regularly. When I clean it, I detail strip the slide…meaning the extractor comes out, extractor plunger comes out, striker/firing pin comes out…etc. The weapon is clean.
Unusual malfunction…hence I’m asking to see if anyone else had one.
I’ve slightly reshaped the trigger bar upwards, and I suspect I will no longer have this issue.
But I’m wondering if this has happened to anyone else.
You need to check your striker tail engagement with the back of the cruciform.
It is easy to do if you have an inspection plate. If not, you have to take the plate off the back of the slide and you will have to try to hold the striker in place without letting it slip out and poke you in the eye.
You should have at least 75% engagement. If you can see a bunch of the back of the cruciform, that is bad.
If it is barely engaged, it might do what you are talking about.
To fix it you will need to swap to a new trigger assembly.
It might have worn to the point that you aren’t getting good engagement with the cruciform. It is one of the standard inspections for a armorer function check.
Just watch out trying to hold all that together if you don’t have an inspection plate. It can be done, but it it MUCH easier if you have the plate.
They are only a couple $ so it pays to have a couple on hand. It is good to be able to see the “guts” working and you can diagnose a lot of issues that way.
All the more reason to be glad Glock parts are cheap.
Hell as much as people like to screw with their perfectly functioning Glocks, you can probably find one even cheaper or free second hand on the various boards that some one took out of theirs with little to no rounds on it.
I was actually thinking that a few thousand rounds is a low round count to cause wear, but after I put the gun back together and started pulling the trigger to get the new feel…I remembered all those dry fire trigger pulls that I didn’t count.
I understand what you were saying now. Like others have suggested, I would replace the cruciform. If you bent it up, it won’t take as much for it to bend down on it’s own. Order an inspection plate if you can get one from Glock or another vendor.
Are all your components OEM? Any aftermarket parts, “.25 trigger jobs”, or “improvements”? If so, replace with unmodified OEM and start the process over.
Don’t reshape anything more. Parts in Glocks aren’t repaired, they are replaced. Since you’ve already reshaped the part, order new. You may be beyond spec and potentially creating other issues.
Do you have access to an armorer, or other credible, knowledgeable, and experienced Glock maintainer?
Engagement is worth talking about here. Here’s a picture of striker/cruciform engagement, with the proper slide cover plate installed. It’s the silver protrusion in the center of the gun, just below the orange piece.
i had this happen the very first 2 mags I ran through my gen 3 G19. after that… nothing but bang. Hopefully you figure it out… I always wondered about that
