I’ve really been strongly considering picking up a G17 Gen 4 for IDPA SSP, some CCW, and nightstand duty. I really like the Gen 4’s grip and ability to add a beaver tail, as “glock bite” is the reason I moved to M&Ps years ago.
I know these pistols were plagued with problems when the Gen 4s first came on the scene. Have they gotten them sorted out with the latest ones? I’m looking to buy brand new one for right around $500.
Thoughts?
ETA: I should preface this by saying I’m a little gunshy (no pun) after the P30 LEM experience I had a few years ago.
Buy it. I’m right at 2K rounds with mine and have had zero BTF or any other malfunctions to speak of. I recently noticed grant posted that some Glocks are showing issues between the 2-4K round marker. I will update if I do start to see any problems, but from my standpoint, I don’t see any reason to not get one if you’re interested.
Not the 17 but I have a VAP Gen. 4 19 that is running great right at around 1,000 rounds. I tossed the APEX extractor in from the beginning just for peace of mind. A friend has a US-made 7-digit gun (AA something, I think) with the factory extractor, and it seems to be running fine, albeit at only 300 rounds or so. I think the newer Glock tend to be good, and fairly easy to fix if they’re not (I had an RTF2 19 that choked every chance it got, but Randy Lee worked his magic and made it run).
The current production Gen4 Glock 17’s seem to have the problems fixed. Aside from a number of reviews of the late model Gen 4’s, I picked up a blue label Glock 17 gen 4 about two months ago. I only have about 1200-1300 rounds through it at this point, but have not had ONE malfunction yet. (this will probably jinx me now…)
This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for when I started the thread, thank you for your input Skintop.
ETA: There are some rumblings of people encountering issues when the pistol gets to approximately 1k-3k rounds. Has anyone noticed this at all? I see that Glock recommends recoil spring replacement at 5k for the Gen 4s, perhaps this is why the issues start.
For those who know about a large enough sampling size, any idea how far back in production is considered current enough to have better odds of picking up a non-problematic Gen 4?
We took delivery of 25 Gen4 G17s at the academy I have a second job at (fall of last year). at least 15 of them are at the 600 round mark and in early May 2014, these 15 will hit the 1200 round mark. I have one….they are prefixed VXFxxx. No issues or complaints to me but these are cadets and may not know what is right. The one I have does seem to behave. I did replace the Gen 4 trigger bar with a Gen 3 trigger bar and a Glock minus connector with a trigger average just over 6 lbs. We use whatever ball ammo we could find….usually Speer or Federal. I saw the ammo for the upcoming class….we will be using Speer 115 ball this go around.
I have 3 gen 4 Glocks. 17, 19 and 20.
The 19 probably have somewhere between 7-9000 rounds and the 17 between 3-5000.
The only malfunctions came from a bad production of Geco ammo (seemed to varying amount of powder in them).
With ammo which is in spec, they have been 100% reliable.
But have noticed ejection varies between 2 o’clock and approx 5.30.
That’s really surprising to hear of issues with the Swiss Geco ammo. I guess everyone producing ammo is letting their quality slip these days. That’s a real shame as I’ve always found European ammo (especially 9mm) to be pretty solid.
In the last 6 weeks I have personally seen 220 new serial G17 Gen 4’s and another training team has seen about the same number. All current 042 RSA and 30274 ejectors. 1 locking block pin partially walked out. Not sure why, but it was reset and held since. 3 factory Glock night sights were loose. I peened two of them. Running cheap UMC 115 grain, no issues with feed, firing, extracting or ejecting. Will see just over a total of 2200 Gen4 G17’s by the end of the year.
I just bought a Gen 3 G17 last week and put a couple hundred rounds through it so far and it ran flawlessly. Great ejection, nice trigger and very accurate. I know you asked about Gen4, but I hope this helps.
Thanks for the response!