Drop safety Question

[rskent]

I stopped off at the range on my home from work yesterday. I thought I would make some noise and forget the workweek. So the gun starting screwing up almost immediately. Pull trigger, no bang. Eject the round. Dented primer. Drop the round back in, pull trigger, bang. OK first round failure to fire. Things went on like that for several mags. Then it started to do it several times per mag. I started just resetting the trigger and firing the round. After a couple of boxes of ammo I just decided to go home and check things out.

I expected to find a worn out firing pin spring. What I found was a trashed drop safety (firing pin) plunger and little bits of metal floating around inside the firing pin channel. More correctly striker. I have never seen a firing pin plunger that had little bits of metal flaking off it. So the question is what might have caused it? Or was it just a bad or worn out part? The plunger, striker and springs are all stock Glock parts in a G19.

Any thoughts?

 

[earlthegoat2]

Are you sure that was the problem? Have you replaced the plunger with a new one and retested?

Do you know how many rounds have been fired in this pistol?

I have personally have no experience with this happening but anything can go wrong.

 

[Jim K]

That plunger can be nicked by the striker IF there is enough play in any part of the system to keep the plunger from moving and staying completely out of the way. But it looks like that one might have been installed upside down and then striker is ruined as well from hitting it.

Jim

 

[Drail]

And now you see why most people prefer a Ser. 70 1911 pistol over a Ser. 80. "Safety" is a very fine thing but the gun has to fire when you need it to. I have replaced so many chewed up firing pin plungers on customer's guns and the owners had no idea that their gun was on the ragged edge of not working.

 

[D Rock]

I can't tell if it's just metal flaking off or is it actually dented. If dented, follow Jim K"s advice.

If it's just plated metal flaking off that's not uncommon on the firing pin block. If it's flaking you can polish it to remove any loose metal coating or get a new one. I've got a G26 from 2008 that has had flaking on the base and that's what I did, now no problems.

Dave

 

[rskent]

Are you sure that was the problem? Have you replaced the plunger with a new one and retested?

Yea, I'm sure. Parts are on order.

But it looks like that one might have been installed upside down and then striker is ruined as well from hitting it.

Upside down? You are joking, right. I have never tried it, but I don't think it go together that way.

I can't tell if it's just metal flaking off or is it actually dented.

It is definitely metal flaking off. It looks like plating flaking off. I have no idea if Glock plates their firing pin plungers or if there is some other explanation for the flaking.
At any rate the new one will be here in a week or so. I have not seen this before and was just wondering if it was common. Thanks for the input guys.

 

[D Rock]

I have no idea if Glock plates their firing pin plungers

Yes, Glock does put some sort of nickle plating on those parts. Sometimes the type of cleaning fluid used can cause flaking.

Dave

 

[JDGray]

This is a good example of Darwinism!! Crap should not be put in guns to make them not fire!

 

[earlthegoat2]

What they are saying is that just because plating is falling off does not mean the part has been compromised. This was why I was asking all those stupid questions in my first post. I saw the flaking. I did not see any damage to the plunger.

Sure the flakes could have gone downstream into the striker channel.....IDK if that would have caused the misfires though.

 

[Kenneth]

Yes, visible flakes in the firing pin channel liner or the spacer sleeve could intermittently slow down the striker enough to cause misfires, but don't overlook the usual suspects like excess headspace or loose breach.

 

[rskent]

Yes, visible flakes in the firing pin channel liner or the spacer sleeve could intermittently slow down the striker enough to cause misfires

Flakes in the bottom of the firing pin channel. Looked like they were stuck in between the bottom of the channel and the flat part on the front
of the striker, not allowing the striker to go all the forward into the primer. There is a hole in the slide to stop crap from getting stuck there.
In this case it didn't seem to work. It took several Q tips to get the crap out. Not sure why.



Update:
So I decided to follow D Rock's advise and polished up the plunger a bit in the lathe. It looked like it cleaned up pretty good.

Took it back to the range. Shot fine, no stoppages of any kind. When I got home the new plunger was here. So I cleaned the gun and put the
new plunger and spring in anyway. It's here, may as well use it.


Note to self:
Even Glocks need a little love. Strip that thing down and give it a good scrubbing now and then.

 

[D Rock]

Glad that worked out. Makes me wish I had a lathe.

I use a method I picked up from a member at the M&P forum. He chucked a small roll pin into his Dremel Tool, ground it to fit snugly into the hole in the FP Safety (spring removed) and polished it on low speed. Fingers work too, just takes longer.

Dave

 

[critter]

Just a follow up story, although on a 1911. Bought a used Colt Delta Elite. Shot it some, but it had a trigger overtravel screw that was set to give quite a bit of overtravel. I set it to minimum overtravel and it wouldn't shoot-eve-even once!

Upon taking it apart, I found that the drop safety was stopping the firing pin from hitting the primer. It NEEDED that LOOOOONNNNG overtravel to push the plunger up and out of the way.

I CAREFULLY (using my electric drill as a lathe) filed a SLIGHTLY longer waist on the plunger and it worked perfectly with the overtravel set as it should.

SO, bottom line is that sometimes the "safety" is just TOO dang safe!

 

[BBBBill]

On any gun you must ensure enough lift of the lock plunger to clear the firing pin/striker before sear release. Proper adjustment on a 1911 involves measuring the lift of the plunger lever above the top of the frame. Most pro smiths look for .100". To get that either swap in the "Gold Cup" lever, put a spot of weld on the trigger lever and file to fit, or heat/bend the trigger lever.