Glock and barrel pitting

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Levan9X19

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This topic of barrel pitting is like the topic about blue dots appearing on samsung smartphones. Everybody knows there is a problem yet no word from manufacturer on it.

Recently a friend of mine bought brand new Gen3 G26, and returned it the same day because inspection of barrel revealed pitting in brand new gun. I was unable to make photos. My Glock 26 was with the same serial number, only lust one digit was different. Shot exactly 1001 rounds out of it, without any problems. Than my second friend bought new gen3 G26 with the same prefix, only last digit was different, so all three G26's from the same batch. After several months and couple of magazines fired, during cleaning he discovered severe pitting. This time I was able to make photos. you can see them bellow. Brand new Gen3 G26 barrel after a 20 or 30 rounds fired.

So what is it? My guess is the process they use has a small percentage of defective barrels, and defects show up after you fire it. If Glock admits that there is a distant possibility that some of their guns might have pitting, it means you are playing the lottery every time you buy a Glock. Same with samsung, they cant admit that after some time you might get those blue dots and spots on your smartphones which makes your camera useless. I can not explain why XX4 glock is bad, XX6 glock is ok, XX8 glock is bad.

The cleaning solvents they use are basically regular gun oil or Hoppes 9. I use hoppes 9 since last ten years, no problem. Some say it has to do with ammoniac, not true, we use frequently german Robla and all our Glock are fine with it. Some say it has something to do with ammo, again can not be an issue, we use Federal, IMI, Magtech FMJ ammo which runs just fine in other handguns.

One week ago I bought a brand new G42, wonderful gun, but with weird markings near feed ramp which where made obviously after the barrel was blued. Some say magazines on some G42's appear to be modified with dremmel tool. I understand there is huge demand for handguns but this does not justify the fact that a company with good reputation should sell unreliable products. But than we have also an R51.... :uhoh: the last photo is a barrel of my G42.

Let me add, that I am the HUGE Glock fan BUT at the same time I think Glock is doing something wrong with the latest Glocks. Never ever I heard about a problems with Glock pistols for the last 20 years these guns are sold in my country, once we started receiving Gen4's and US made glocks I hear all the time about problems with these guns. I am happy with my US made glock but this whole story make me feel bad about Glock....
 

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That doesn't look right... call Glock on that one; I'd guess they would supply a new barrel without much fuss.
 
I can not explain why XX4 glock is bad, XX6 glock is ok, XX8 glock is bad.

Facebook, get back to work, Facebook?

In all seriousness, it's a byproduct of mass production. They are obviously pumping out more than QAQC can handle..


Let me add, that I am the HUGE Glock fan BUT at the same time I think Glock is doing something wrong with the latest Glocks.

Yet you bought a 42 anyways...Therein lies the problem... They keep shoveling manure and people gobble it up.

They built themselves on a solid reputation, too bad they couldn't uphold that...


Course every glock can benifit from a fitted aftermarket barrel :evil:
 
The original Glock slides were low carbon steel with hardened surfaces from the Tennifer process, which worked a little like case hardening to put a layer of carbon into the steel. I think that's why you see the breech face galling problem.

I wonder if these new barrel are produced in a similar way.
 
I don't think Glock has stopped the use of easy to machine re-sulferized steel. There's a reason the pistol's are pretty cheap, lower carbon steels aren't as hard on tooling, and take less time on a mill to process.

Surprised to see the defects in a cold hammer forged barrel like the pitting in those photos. My guess is that the salt bath nitride process didn't go as planned for that barrel.

This is also where I will point out that if you want a quality Teutonic polymer pistol I'd look to Heckler and Koch or Walther these days. Glock quality control seems to be slipping.
 
Levan, try a P7 if you get a chance. A fantastic, refined pistol. Much less awkward and more intuitive than you would think by looking at one.
 
I love H&K pistols but they are bulky and not as shootable as Glocks
Really?

That's funny I used one of those bulky unshootable HK VP9's a few weeks ago in a pretty serious class taught by Pat McNamara, almost all the other students were shooting Glocks and so was Pat Mac. Yet the pistol championship "Certificate of Victory" on training day one went home with me and my bulky unshootable VP9 after shooting a perfect score. How could that have happened? Not to boast but only two shooters in the class shot a perfect score on that stage, and I had the tightest group...the other shooter to run a perfect score was Pat McNamara himself running a heavily modified Glock with a hand fit match barrel.

I know there are a lot of Glock kool-aid drinkers here and elsewhere, but when a company is selling pistols that end usets often feel the need to extensively modify to make them functional, are they really that good? Apex extractors to try to fix brass to face issues with ejection (Glocks display awful inconsistent ejection patterns), match barrels to try to improve mechanical accuracy, and trigger work seems mandatory. Not to mention you have to immediately ditch the plastic sights and install real sights.

Or you could go buy a bulky unshootable VP9 that is neither bulky, nor unshootable. I paid $670 for my FDE frame LE model, it came with 3 magazines, 3 sets of grip panels and back straps, a magazine loading tool, and good steel night sights already installed. Even better, at HK they still believe in test firing and zeroing a pistol before it leaves, so my pistol shoots 115gr and 124gr bullets to the top of the front sight out to 50 yards (yes I have confirmed this) and required no windage adjustment either. All I had to do was determine which combination of grip panels and back strap I perform best with.

So for $670 I got a pistol that so far has displayed superb mechanical accuracy, has a very good trigger, very well regulated night sights (out of the box!), a totally adjustable grip, has been 100% reliable even in a high round count class in a dusty mica quarry, and that is barely showing even a hint of wear. My buddy bought one too and ran it in the same class, the two of us and a guy running a SIG P320 seemed to have few issues not only keeping up with the Glock fan boys (leaving Mac out who can shoot anything well), but more often than not out performing them.
 
The USP series was a bit boxy, but my P2000 feels very svelte compared to my G19. Both good guns though, can't go wrong with either.
 
Coal Dragger: said:
I know there are a lot of Glock kool-aid drinkers here and elsewhere, but when a company is selling pistols that end usets often feel the need to extensively modify to make them functional, are they really that good?

I like my box-stock Gen3 Glock 17 and Gen4 21, and I like my HK's, my HK45 is stock but my 9mm P30 V3 SA/DA has had the trigger reworked to lighten up that DA pull. I really like them all, they all serve their intended purpose, I could not give up any of these guns. I do agree on the comment about guns that have to be extensively modified to be made functional, I tend to avoid these in the first place, especially if they are intended to go in one of my holsters.

Coal Dragger: said:
...Glocks display awful inconsistent ejection patterns, match barrels to try to improve mechanical accuracy, and trigger work seems mandatory. Not to mention you have to immediately ditch the plastic sights and install real sights

My Gen4 G-22 did have "BTF" ejection problems, the 17 & 21 both eject brass fine, these don't need match barrels, and I wouldn't have bought these if I couldn't handle the stock Glock triggers. And the stock sights aren't the greatest, but they work fine for me.
 
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Brass to the face ejection is absolutely unacceptable. Seemingly every other pistol manufacturer that can turn out a functional pistol can also figure out how to make brass eject consistently in one direction. Glock evidently cannot from what I have observed. My HK's eject consistently, so do my SIG's, my one 1911 does too. The poor guy next to me in class shooting a Glock 23 was getting smacked in the face by brass at least 2-3 rounds out of each magazine, when it wasn't hitting him it was flinging brass out of the port in a random arc of about 140° or so. Even McNamara's customized Glock was spitting out brass seemingly at random, although not in his face at least.
 
Coal Dragger: said:
Brass to the face ejection is absolutely unacceptable.

Unacceptable but sometimes unavoidable, there's no way you can indict all Glock models for the "BTF" problem. I don't have that G-22 anymore, I traded it towards my HK45, and I think that was absolutely an upgrade. But my other two "G's" are definitely keepers.
 
I've seen it with G19's as well, and once or twice with G17's. Yeah you can't blanket statement that all of them do it, but if you get stuck with one that does Glock's response to most has essentially been to go pound sand because Gaston's design is perfection!

I theorize, but cannot prove since I don't have access to their data, that Glock has been running their production to capacity and has not been making capital investments back into their machinery and processes. I suspect this has caused some tolerance stacking issues, where even though everything shows to be within tolerance limits, when you get a slide, frame, extractor, and barrel that have enough deviations from absolutely perfect that you run into issues; even though all the parts are within "spec".
 
coal dragger said:
Yet the pistol championship "Certificate of Victory" on training day one went home with me and my bulky unshootable VP9 after shooting a perfect score.

My buddy bought one too and ran it in the same class

Would your buddy have shot a perfect score and got a piece of paper if he had used your pistol? Is it even possible that the shooter is more important than the equipment?
 
Of course it is the Indian and not the arrow most of the time, but good equipment always helps. The individual I was responding to implied that HK pistols are not as shootable as a Glock, which is utter rubbish.
 
Of course it is the Indian and not the arrow most of the time, but good equipment always helps. The individual I was responding to implied that HK pistols are not as shootable as a Glock, which is utter rubbish.

Your generalizations are no better than his. I shot the top of a couple pistol classes a few years ago with a stock Glock 19, but who cares? I happened to be the best shot in those classes using a pistol I prefer, it didn't indicate anything about my pistol, just that I shot the best out of those particular groups those days. Suggesting that all Glocks have to be modified to shoot well, or that all Glocks have an issue with BTF is just ridiculous, the only two pistols I have owned that had BTF issues were a HK USP( intermittent), and a STI Spartan 1911 (constant). The OP's experience is regrettable, and he should return the faulty pistols to Glock and see how they respond, but there is no reason to turn this thread into an anti-brand dogpile.
 
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The individual I was responding to implied that HK pistols are not as shootable as a Glock, which is utter rubbish

Depends on the person, their grip, their shooting style, etc. etc. etc. What works for you may not work for someone else.


I bought a VP9 when it first hit the market and liked the gun during practice and drills.. However, I sold it immediately after my first competition match with it. I realized after the first stage of the match, while under pressure and speed, that I was unable to get my normal high grip. The trigger guards shape was forcing me to reset my grip throughout a stage. In addition, because I have a high grip. I would routinely have the slide lock back during a string. Sure the solution was to change my grip but I own 30+ other handguns where it is not an issue. So like other HK's Ive owned... It got the boot.
 
The barrel is defective. It's no more or less defective than it would be if it had something else stamped on it.

Regardless of who made it, it needs to be returned to the maker for consideration and replacement.
 
Of course it is the Indian and not the arrow most of the time, but good equipment always helps. The individual I was responding to implied that HK pistols are not as shootable as a Glock, which is utter rubbish.
Its not rubbish its a fact. You dont see many H&K's in competition sports, qualification results dropped once several federal agencies switched to H&K's, several gunzines reported about this explaining that H&K are new to agents but the fact is that results where worse.
 
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