Glock 19 range report

[23 Blast]

Okay, so I've taken my newly-acquired G19 for her first test drive. Only fired 130 rounds because I was in a hurry and didn't have all evening to spend at the range.

From the box, all I did was clean the barrel inside and out, and wipe the breechface. The copper lube was left on per the manual and fellow CGF Glockophiles.

Within the first two magazines, I had no fewer than 7 (!) malfunctions. A couple of light primer strikes resulting in no ignition. A stovepipe or three. By the end of the second magazine, I could feel the slide going "Ker-chunk!" as it slid forward (ie, not smooth slide operation). At least the rounds were more or less going where I pointed the gun. For me, it hits dead on at 7 yards, but prints low at 10 yards. Didn't think that 9 measly feet could make that much difference, but I adjusted my aim accordingly, using a 12 o'clock hold for the 10 yard shooting.

I was using only factory FMJ ammo, nothing exotic and certainly no lead reloads. After the second round, whatever heavy grease and or minor spring misalignment had worked itself out and the gun ran beautifully. I still occassionally felt the "Ker-Chunk!" of the slide, but all of those were definitely within the first 50 rounds.

By the end of this first (admittedly short) shooting session, the gun was running flawlessly and shot true. This is a very easy gun to shoot, and the fact that it's my only gun with night sights will make it a viable candidate to replace my 1911 as my bedside gun.

Now if I can just secure some 15-rounders.......

[stphnman20]

Nice going.. Another 200 rounds for the break-in period and the gun will never fail you.. I've had my G19 for almost 9yrs. Never once had a problem with it..

[rondre3000]

Hope it worked itself out permanently. Ran about 1krds thru my new glock in the first 2 weeks and the only failure I saw was the slide not consistently locking back after firing the last shot in the magazine. No FTF's or FTE's.

[cineski]

A Glock should be reliable from round 1, not 200. Personally, I cleaned my Glocks very well straight out of the box and they ran flawlessly from round 1. If this is not the case, send it back to Glock.

[dfens]

Yeah clean that sucker all the way factory grease and all then re-oil it then give it a try. It shouldn't have had so many failures out of the box it's not a Kimber or Kahr,we are talking about a Glock the king of reliabilitiy and abuse me and I run fine.

My USP had all that factory grease meant for storage when sitting on the shelf in a store, cleaned it throughly and re-lubed before taking her out and since round number 1 I've never had any kind of malfunction.

[Nynvolt]

The failures seem odd.

I encountered some failures with 165 gr. wwb, I count my rounds and found it was round 5 only with one magazine. I marked the magazine and have not had a problem since.

Hopefully it was a fluke, enjoy your new 19.

[Foriegn power]

Interesting range report, did i read correctly that you have seven failures? I think that is awfully high, but without further info it may be shooter error. With my new 9mm glock I have had zero failures since 8 months ago when it was new. Shot everything from wolf to winchester to hollowpoints.

[tacticalcity]

Failures make sense to me for a new gun you are not used to.

First, your springs are new and thus stiff so you need to short load the magazines by 2 rounds. This is not Glock specific, this is just something you should do with any semi-auto handgun. If your springs are too stiff and you top off your magazines your magazine will not seat properly and you get feeding issues. I short load my magazines by 2 rounds regardless of age because it reduces malfunctions drastically. Better to have to perform more tactical reloads than have a malfunction in a fire fight. By the way, this was a very hard concept for me to accept and I refused to do it for years. Once I did, malfuctions completely went away for me. Fortunately I have preban Glock magazines so I don't feel as bad of a pinch as I would with 10 round magazines. 1911 users feel it even worse with their single stack magazines.

Second, if you are relatively new to semi-auto handguns or just out of practice you could be limp wristing the gun. Semi-auto handguns need a specific amount of force to recoil against in order to load the next round. If you as the shooter offer too much give you could run into feeding issues. This sounds very likely to be what was going on because you say things improved the longer you shot. Sounds like your body naturally figured out what the problem was and fixed it. During a 4 day course at Front Sight a few months back, the shooter next to me kept having failure to fire issues (type one malfunctions). He would fire a round, then click, wrack the slide and it would fire, then click, and so on for each and every round. So I offered to swap guns for a little bit to see if I could help figure out the problem (before the instructors noticed he was having an issue). With my gun he had the exact same problem. But I could should his without issue. So we returned each others guns. The instructors came over, noticing his frustration and explained what was happening. Turns out the problem was with the part behind the gun. He was limp wristing it because he had reached a point of fatigue. So he sat down for bit, came back after a breif rest and did just fine.

Third, bad ammo with bad primers could be causing the failures to fire. Even high end brands can produce duds. Not striking in the correct spot might be feeding issues. There is not a lot of room to slop around in the chamber, however the problem cleared up as the day went on. So its definately not the firing pin or the gun itself.

Fourth, the cruncy slide does worry me. You should have stopped and cleaned it. That sounds like shards of metal and debris getting the in there. That could be dangerous.

Fifth, malfuctions occassional will happen in a fire fight. So hopefully you cleared them properly and go some good practice clearing your malfunctions.

Good choice on the Glock 19. It is my preferred handgun for CCW as well.

[den888]

Glocks should be much more reliable than that. If you continue to have issues, and have verified your grip and other variables, I would call Glock.

[kennytt]

With my brand new g19, I fired like 400 rds through it flawlessly...I did clean and oil it before going to the range and I did not limp wrist it. I don't know for sure that those 2 things had something to do with its performance anyway. Yours might be defective or you somehow limpwristed it...

[kazman]

I have about 800 rds thru my new G19 with no probs. Factory fmj, nato, +p, 147gr hst all good. Slide occasionally closes after inserting a new loaded mag but I dont mind that. I am tending to shoot high and to the left a couple inches.

[jdogg2000]

I've only shot about 500 hundred rounds through my Glock 19, but I've never, ever had a malfunction of any kind either (even straight from the box). I guess you can see how it is the next time you bring it out, but I'm inclined to think its either you or something's wrong with it...

[23 Blast]

Limpwristing. Hmm. I didn't realize I needed to be a body builder capable of bench-pressing 500 pounds to shoot a Glock Funny how every other semi-auto I've ever owned was forgiving of the fact that I don't look like our governor...

If you saw a thread I had made shortly before I went out and bought my own G19, I said I had rented one and liked it. It shot flawlessly and ran beautifully. That was the range rental which probably had chambered and absorbed more shots than a Tijuana hooker.

I'm guessing that my G19 was simply over-greased and perhaps had stiff springs. The "Ker-Chunk!" of the slide I described I'm thinking was probably the magazine springs also being stiff and not feeding the rounds smoothly onto the feed ramp, thus forcing the recoil spring to work extra hard to chamber the rounds. As mentioned, the malfunctions went completely away after about round #50, and I suspect that any subsequent outings with this gun will see it run flawlessly.

[evidens83]

Must be a lemon because such instances are very far and between. The stiff springs comments sound about right too although mine has never had that problem.

[Echidin]

Failures make sense to me for a new gun you are not used to.

First, your springs are new and thus stiff so you need to short load the magazines by 2 rounds. This is not Glock specific, this is just something you should do with any semi-auto handgun. If your springs are too stiff and you top off your magazines your magazine will not seat properly and you get feeding issues.

I can validate this as well. I experienced feeding issues with both brand new Glock magazines that came with my G17 the first time I took it out, however, none of the older magazines I had caused any FTFs. Although I don't short load my magazines, I haven't experienced any issues whatsoever since that first outing. And yes, you would definitely feel the pinch short loading with the 10 rounders.