My dept. currently issues the Glock 22 and we are allowed to carry it with a weapon mounted light attached. My current setup is the 22 with a Surefire X200B mounted. I have carried this setup for over two years now and have yet to have any issues until yesterday at SWAT training. I’ve read about shooters having problems with reliability and premature slide lock once a light has been mounted but I have not experienced it first hand. I have the newer Gen III, no aftermarket parts, with brand new mags (12 total: 3 for duty belt, 3 for Tac vest, and 6 for training)
While at the range and just running a few warm-up drills before training my weapon began to have the described malfunction. At first I thought it was me and I was limp-wristing or I was activating the slide lock by mistake and I checked to make sure I was clear from it which I was; however, the problem continued. I always carry spare parts with me so I swapped the recoil spring for a brand new one but still no fix. The training ammo I was using was Speer Lawman 160 grn FMJ. The slide would lock back and I would rack the slide and get off a few more shots before it would do this again. I also had the malfunction with all of my mags. I then shot several mags of the Lawman GoldDot duty ammo and had no malfunctions. It was only with the training ammo.
I tried different mags, a new recoil spring, different shooters and still it continued to hose up on me as well as the others. Without the light I had no problems. Am I just missing something simple or does anyone here have some suggestions. Our armorer was no help and seemed very uninterested. He just told me to take the light off. (Enough said) I like to think of myself as a pretty squared away shooter and this one has me stumped. Again I’ve carried this same setup for two years and have shot thousands of rounds with no problems and then all of a sudden it went TU on me.
I tried a search and came up with zip. If this has been discussed in previous posts, please post a link and I thank you in advance. Any help is greatly appreciated as this is my duty weapon. Stay safe!
I’m not a Glock expert, but doesn’t that particular mistake result in a more consistent pattern of the slide locking to the rear at inappropriate times?
I dunno, bro…that’s some weird behavior. It sounds like something broke on you, but I don’t know what.
Check the slide lock and the area around the slide lock really good to make sure that nothing is broken or wedged up in there. If that all looks good try replacing the slide lock altogether, or have your armorer do it.
Personally I wouldn’t pack the weapon if you aren’t absolutely forced to. Your administration shouldn’t have a problem with packing a different weapon since your issue piece is puking on you…
If you have a digicam handy, it might help some of the Glock armorers on the site to diagnose what is going on if you field strip the pistol and take some pics so they can see if anything is munged up.
This is the best picture of a healthy Glock slide lock area that I can scrounge up at the moment:
Check the profile of the bullet nose. You say it happened with the training ammo but not the duty ammo. Is the training ammo a truncated cone and the duty ammo more rounded?
Remove the slide from the frame and see if the top round in the magazine might be impacting the slide stop with your training ammo. This is a problem at times in 1911 pattern pistols and while I am not aware of it being an issue in Glocks it might be worth a look.
Mounting lights on a polymer frame gun is an issue. The frame flex is reduced with the weight of the light hanging off the front of the gun. Yet another potential souce of the problem…
Sounds like an ammo issue but remove the light and run some duty ammo and training ammo through it. The light on or off the gun should not make a difference if your not limp-wristing.
Why would you train with ammo that you will not use in the fight? Fixed this same issue with my department a few years ago. I can see using training ammo for your patrol officer quals but not for your SWAT guys. Train with what you will bring to the fight.
I just reread the OP and since when the light is off it functions fine it is something other than what I originally posted. And you are correct it would Malf’ pretty damn consistently if it was what I thought.
This type of issue was talked about a few days ago. Light rounds vs Heavy rounds. I would guess that your duty ammo is 180gr. The lighter rounds having a more sharper/violent recoil and the heavy rounds having a longer duration/less violent recoil. If you shoot 1911 type guns you can see the reaction or change in the operation of the gun just by changing ammo weight and/or brand. None of our Glock (45 ACP) carrying SWAT guys have any problem with lights on their guns causing malfunctions.
Department duty ammo:
Ranger T 180gr 40S&W
Ranger T 230gr 45ACP
Glock is aware of the problem and has a fix for it but you must send the pistol back to Glock, Oh Joy!
They aren’t telling anybody what the exact fix is, not even certified armorers.
If you have a certified armorer in the department ask him if he knows the fix.
Maybe they changed the policy for on duty non-civilian department armorers, but I doubt it.
If it’s not doing it with your ‘duty ammo’ and only your ‘practice ammo’ it sounds like a ‘ammo’ problem. Run the course of training with ‘duty ammo’ and see if it stops…if so it’s not a gun problem it’s an ‘ammo’ problem. With a light mounted the frame flexes less and it cycles faster which is why Glock had to make a stronger longer mag spring.
First of, thank you to everyone that has replied with suggestions. It gave me several different areas to look at to try and locate the problem.
When the weapon first began having problems I tried different mags, but that did not fix the problem (12 mags total). I then replaced the recoil spring with a brand new unit from my range bag, but still no good. I then removed the light and went through all 12 mags with no malfunctions. I then replaced the light and out of 12 mags I had 8 slide locks on mags with ammo still loaded. It appeared that the ammo was nosed down in the mag slightly, so I went on to my next fix. I replaced all of the mags springs. This helped but it did not eliminate the problem 100%. I still was having premature slide lock. I then wanted to make sure that it would shoot duty ammo, so I again fired through 12 mags of duty ammo with the light attached and did not experience any malfunctions. The ammo being used was the following:
The reason we use the Lawman for training is that, according to Speer the Lawman is suppose to function and recoil exactly like the GoldDot but you don’t have the high cost of training with duty ammo yet it is advertised to perform the same. I then checked the lot# to make sure it wasn’t a bad batch of ammo and out of all of the boxes I was using I had ammo from three different lots, which leads me to believe that it is not an ammo problem.
I then took the weapon to the armorer who did a complete detailed strip and checked each part (I know this beacuse I stayed and watched him). He did not locate any out-of-spec or damaged parts, and I trust his work. He told me to just take the light off the weapon (just because I trust his work doesn’t mean I trust his opinion )
For right now I have had no malfunctions with duty ammo (300 rnds) which is my main concern. Until I’m able to fix the problem, it looks like I’m going to be getting some good training on malfunction clearances.
Next time I’m at the range I plan on taking my camera to photo the position of the round in the mag when it does malfunction. Any other advice that you guys have is greatly appreciated. Stay safe and watch your six!
I do not use my Glock 35 for duty purposes at all, but I experienced malfunctions with my TLR-1 light attached. I highly doubt I was limp wristing the pistol, and I am almost 100% sure I wasn’t bumping the slide lock.
I still have not determined the problem. But I did remove the slide lock, and continued firing, the problem persisted. I also allowed another Glock shooter to have a go with it, he had the same issues. I do believe it might be the magazine springs (although at the time this first happened, I was using Wolff +10 springs in stock Glock 22 magazines. Or maybe there is some truth to Glock being able to tweak something, but they will nto discuss it (seems to be par for the course for Glock).
I have no intentions of carrying the gun concealed, nor do I plan to use it for home defense, so to me it is a moot point to continue testing it. I have since turned the pistol into a Limited gun for USPSA.
I am now awaiting another pistol purchase, for a home defense pistol, that I can attach a light onto. I will most likely be going S&W M&P in 9mm or .45.
If the armorer gave it a thumbs up and if you’ve tried a variety of magazines with no relief, the only option left would seem to be ammo. Have you been using the 160 grain stuff for a while?
is that training ammo the frangible stuff ? we use that junk for training in my department also . the range guys state that its crap and will induce malfunctions in our 9’s , but that’s good for malfunction drills . we also use the 9mm speer gold dots for our service ammo , and there are no malfunction issues . we however are not allowed to have weapon mounted anthing on our weapons . yeah i know - the NYPD is more worried about getting sued by a mutt or his family than allowing its members to keep up with technology
We’ve been shooting the 160 grn ammo since I started out here.
The training ammo we’re using is not the frangible. Just a standard FMJ.
Now you guys can see why this one has left me scratching my head a little. I think the only thing I have left that I can try is an aftermarket recoil spring. Since it is a duty weapon I’ll have to get that approved and those of us who are LEO’s know how it goes if you suggest changing your weapon in any way (even just a damn spring). It was hell just getting weapon lights approved for patrol and not just SWAT.
The problem with changing to a stronger spring is that it may work fine with the light mounted but a side effect may be that it’ll be more likely to jam (stovepipe and/or not picking up the next round with weak ammo) and it’ll have increased muzzle flip since the slide will be out of battery for a longer period of time when the light isn’t mounted.
Personally I think it’s the practice load. I’ve seen this problem before with Glocks and only in .40s (which have the most frame flex). If you can get 3-4 hundred rounds of your duty ammo I’d say try that shoot it all with the light mounted and run it hard…if it works it’s truly the ammo. Some pistol just don’t like some loads even Glocks. Glock .40s have the most trouble of all Glocks (except for the Glock 36).
If it works with your duty load then I’d pressure the dept to switch their practice ammo to the duty ammo (at least for a while). For some brands of defensive hollowpoint loads like Speer GoldDot there are practice loads (Speer Lawman) that produce the same velocities, bullet weight, trajectory and recoil of the GoldDot hollowpoint load very well.
You are shooting the same ammo through the weapon you’ve always used, only now it is puking on you but nothing is broken and the mags are alright.
It might be time to break out the holy water and call a priest…
Glock experts: Could this be a service life/wear issue? Our SWAT friend here has likely run his weapon pretty hard over the years…is it possible that the frame is starting to flex more now after thousands upon thousands of rounds through it?
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