Stress fractures in Glock slide

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I don't know if it's true or not, but.... Talk around the station is that Glock has several Gov contracts and trying to fill the orders. Rumor is that Glock is not taking care of anyone right now. Like I say, don't know if it's true, only rumor. I left it up to the Lt. to talk with them and hopefully take care of the situation. I bought mine in 93 and always thought it was a gen 1. The Lt., and others, looked at it and said it was a gen 2. I always had seen the brass ring on the breech face and cleaned it off, no biggie. Then when the memo was issued, looked a little harder. Thought I saw cracking, but was not sure. I let several armorer's at the dept. take a look. All agreed it was cracking. Honestly, I would have never noticed unless brought to my attention. I could barely see it without the mag glass.
I have shot about everything thru it that would feed. I don't know how many reloads I've put thru it. I've only had a couple stove pipes (limp wristing, my fault). I don't want to sound like a person saying not to buy a Glock. It has been a good weapon, been in all the elements without problems. I just think it's time was up, too many rounds, some prob a little too hot. Rumor also has it, and please don't quote me or blast me, just rumor.... 2 folks have already been.... yes... killed due to this. I did not want to post it, but it was said and is a concern. From the story I HEARD, your looking down the sights, fire. WHen the breech face gives way, everything comes back. Only the plastic cap is holding the guts in. All that comes right back in your face. Like I say, please don't blast me, just the talk around the station. I would think it would be publicized, but I have not read anything about that happening. Since mine was shot, no pun intended... I sold it for parts. Was looking to do the LE trade in, but it would be re-released to the public and I could not do that in good concience.
So basically, everything I've posted here is "for what it's worth". Just what has happened to me, my LT. and rumor going around. Hopefully nobody else has this happen.

JR
 
Hmm...

I think it's broken?

Serously,

Stuff happens. All mechanical things break. Heck, I broke an anvil once. (No black powder involved, I swear!!)

This is one more piece of evidence that gear needs to be closely inspected on a fairly regualr basis.

I am sure it's not a dry firing problem, although I do think it is a curious failure. I'd love to see a side view of that disk from the breech face, and a photo of the hole it came out of. If it is a fatigue failure, the direction of the stress should be obvious in the surface of the fracture.
 
Forgot to mention, for the trade in, I believe they replace everything but the frame, so no need to feel guilty.
 
I know this is an old thread, but I just had this happen to me and was refered to this site and thread from the folks over at CalGuns.net.

Was there ever any solution or resolution to this incident?

My situation:
IMG_0603.jpg

I was dry firing my Glock21 when the sound and feel became a little different. The pistol has approximately 25K to 30K rounds through it with no problems. Dry firing has at least the same amount.

Thanks in advance..good to be here and apologies that the first post couldn't have been on a lighter note.
 
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Well, the same thing happen to my Glock 23! I dry fired my gun with snap caps and still this happen.

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nope, "harder than woodpecker lips"

on the rockwell hardness scale, a glock slide is about 64 (pretty hard)
most high quality pocket knives are about 50-60 Rc. but this treatment only hardens the surface of the metal. kind of like casehardening.

the harder the metal is, the more brittle it becomes. ever had a knife balde snap off? same thing here.

you must find the sweet spot between hardness and toughness.

i got bored in the machineshop once, and got a scrap piece of A-2 tool steel, hear treated it to 68Rc dropped it on the floor and it shattered like glass.

its probably the tenifer finnish cracking and not the slide itself, a glock slide is like a M&M, hard and crunchy on the outside, soft and chewie on the inside.

these glocks are all 1st generation!!! it looks like the breechface was WELDED on to me, just by the way the crack is jagged and rough, like the metal was soft and tore like sheet of paper...
worth looking into... ive NEVER seen hardened metal crack like that, usually its a clean sharp zig-zag crack.

its hard to explain, so please forgive me if this is confusing to anyone...
 
I have had on hand two third generation G23's and one G27 with the same problem.
 
Wow. I knew Glock slides are not through-hardened, but I had no idea the breechface was so thin. It's kinda curious how the structure looks almost cast where they broke, too.

I've had a couple of cheap guns mushroom the firing pin from dryfiring, but never seen breechface cracks like that.
 
May be bcause of being too hard. You can get some major damage from the metal being made too hard and then not being annealed properly.
Also maybe the firing pin is a little too long and put to much pressure on the rear of the breechface. Perhaps a combination.
GLOCK should step up and find out what the proble was and fix it!
 
To date, over a period of twenty years, I've owned nine Glocks in calibers 9mm, .40S&W and .45ACP, and shot uncounted tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of rounds through them, with no breechface cracks. (I did get a barrel lug fracture on a G27, though.)
They do happen, and there's good pictorial evidence, but it's not as though it's anything like a common occurence.
 
Count me among the victims.

I have a 2nd gen G19 serial # series BZK---. I noticed when dry firing a couple of weeks ago, the last trigger pull felt different. Tried racking the slide and the slide would only go back about 1/4". Was able to field strip the gun but the barrel wouldn't come out of the slide. Removed the fire pin and extractor plunger but the barrel still wouldn't come out. Took a flat head screwdriver and was able to gently pry the barrel past the breechface. Was surprised, shocked and bummed to see cracks around the breechface pushing outward. A thread that I started on AR15.com http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=5&f=13&t=80861 discussing the problem led me here.

Attached is a link for some pictures.

http://s605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/rauchman/G19 Breechface failure/?albumview=slideshow
 
icebones hit it on the head. The increased RC surface hardness of the Glock slide works against it when it comes to impact resistance. Over time, the breech face has been impacted by the toughest part of the casing and what the dry firing does is send vibrations ringing through the breech face, and though a milder form of working force, it does its bit.

Eventually, the light hammering of the brass and the vibration from the striker going off chunks off the breech face along where its crystalline matrix has faulted. All this a result of the breech face being too hardened for the application. Most other slides on the market are way softer even after a surface hardening.
 
Does anyone know if this is only in certain generation guns, serial #'s, year of manufacturer? I'm not positive, but it seems that every Glock mentioned here, is either a 1st or 2nd gen gun. Are there examples of this problem in 3rd+ gen guns?

I've never heard of this happening on other models from other manufacturers. Does anyone know of any other brands where this has been mentioned?
 
For gods sake people use snap caps they cost what, a whole 6 bucks?

As has been previously illuminated, this is not the problem.

How 'bout customer service reports? Glock is typically quite on the ball when it comes to repairs. Can anyone chime in on Glock's response?

vanfunk
 
Yep, them is broke:eek: Just think if a case failed at the same time as the breechface, someone might have been eating one of them plastic slide end cap thingys:scrutiny:
 
JR719, isnt it amazing how there are always so many "experts"...As a Glock lover, thanks for the heads-up. Believe me, I'm sure Glock will make it right. With them having a "lions-share" of the nations PD business, they can't afford a black eye. Keep us posted, and good luck...
 
"Has anyone had this happen?"

I have it on good authority it can't happen, as according to Glock- and many owners of Glocks - nothing can go wrong with them and all problems are due to "user error." :p
 
You have a relatively thin piece of hardened metal that takes a lot of force. You'll also note that the firing pin channel is rectangular. This shape makes it easier for a crack to begin at one of those four corners. A round or oval shape would be more resistant to cracking at that point. The rectangular shape rather invites it particularly with it's sharp corners.

I don't know if this is a common problem, or how often it turns up, but if you designed a part to intentionally fail at a certain spot putting a sharp corner right there would work.

Also looks like the section of the slide that takes the brunt of the recoil is harder than the rest of the slide, or a seperate piece welded in. I don't know enough about Glock construction to say but that pattrern of breakage suggest a two piece slide or an area that is not hardened deeply.

tipoc
 
Greetings,

I s/w Glock cust serv today. They are going to fix, rather give, me a new slide. The person I s/w seemed to know of this problem and right off the bat, mentioned that this gun probably had a lot of dry fires. I mentioned that the manual says it's ok to dry fire and he acknowledged that, but did mention that it would be a good idea to use Snap Caps.

Anyway, the gent I s/w was A-OK in my book and Glock is going to fix my pistol - woo hoo!!!

Will report back when I get the pistol back from them. Will be sending it out either tomorrow or Thursday.
 
If you look in the armorer's update, it does say that dry firing my damage the breechface just as you're describing. Something about thin walls, yadda, yadda, yadda. It went on to say that "excessive" dry fire could damage it (along with the firing pin safety wearing from being rotated as the trigger bar moves it).

How are they planning to fix, rather than replace that slide, I wonder?
 
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