Gen 3 Glock recoil spring

[steadyrock]

I just brought home an unfired gen 3 Glock 21 of which I am not the original owner. My gen 3 G26 has the two piece recoil spring and stainless steel guide rod, but this one only has the one piece spring and a plastic guide rod. I'm not sure how much it matters, but the build of the other spring assembly seems much better. I've heard that Glock will upgrade the recoil spring assembly to the two piece one for free, can anyone confirm this? Should I even worry about it? This will be for HD and occasional CCW, so reliability is a must.

[ElDub1950]

I don't think there's a dual spring for the G21. The Glock SubCompacts use the dual recoil spring but not the full and mid sized. As far as I know.

[5ZS]

Unless you are going to shoot ++p++ ammo, just stick with the single spring of the Gen3 for the longer barrel/slides pistols. The shorty G26 needs the dual spring, as most 3" pistol have a dual spring.

Gen4's added dual spring to the larger Glocks, not exactly the best results. =|

If you must dual spring on a Gen3, try Sprinco (not really sure if they make them for the 21).

Just swap a metal rod and a spring. Personally I prefer normal coil spring over the flat coil.

[WASR10]

I have never heard of Glock replacing the spring for free if there is nothing wrong with it. The dual spring isn't exactly an upgrade in my book.

I will say, though, that I replace the stock spring with a stainless steel on each glock I get. I have some very high mileage glocks and I just feel better knowing the spring assembly is metal.

Sent from my tappy device thingy

[Bill Steele]

The Gen 3 G21 stock RSA is a single spring, plastic guide rod unit. It will work fine, change it out every 5K rounds or so.

The dual spring RSA's that are now standard fare on all Gen 4's have given Glock more problems than all the single spring units they ever shipped. Seems these issues are slowly getting worked through, but many are skeptical of this design because of the Gen 4 experience.

If you really hate the idea of a plastic guide rod, there are any number of stainless aftermarket offerings, pair it with a 17lb ISMI flat spring and you should get similar reliability from it as a stock unit (which will be flawless).

If you go the SS guide rod route, pick up a 22lb spring while you are at it and you will be ready to shoot some Underwood or Buffalo Bore 45 Super's. Hold on tight when you pull the trigger😉

Have fun.

[CinnamonBear723]

I have a gen 21 as my duty weapon and just use the recoil spring it came with. Ive put all different kinds of ammo for a total of about 7000 rounds through it without issue. If you are really set on getting rid of the recoil spring, you can change it out with a stainless steel one. They have some for pretty cheap at lone wolf distributors.