my glock 19 had its 1st malfunction.

What exactly was the malfunction?

Stove pipe?

Steel case ammo has a ton more friction in the mag than brass, and especially nickle chrome jhp's.

I'd blame ammo first. 9mm has a bit less power to cycle the slide (minor power factor) and more rounds in a mag means more friction surfaces. Not to mention that cheap steel ammo is often loaded weak.

I'd detail strip and clean the slide to be safe.

Could be a combo of both. I have used both in my 40-9 barrel for the G22. never had a issue. tho i never used them together. and used the same ammo and mag in the G26. No issues.

Congratulations. You have now reached the point in your firearms growth where you are forced to accept the reality that there is no such thing as a gun type or brand, nor even individual gun, that literally never has a malfunction.

That sounds more like an ammo malfunction to me.

Document it and move on. Likely an ammo issue. But if you haven't had any malfunctions or parts failures, you don't shoot enough.

Some Glocks (probably a low percent) have issues with some steel cases.

from: https://www.ssusa.org/articles/2018/6/27/handloading-shell-shock-technologies-nas3-cases/

"Crimp and Glocks
Crimp is always important, and might be especially important with NAS3 cases for some Glock pistols, as I experienced extraction failures with improperly crimped NAS3 cased ammunition in my Glock 19C. During the extraction phase in my Glock, the barrel unlocks and drops down low enough that the rim of the extracting case is exposed to the case mouth of the top round in the magazine. The case mouth has a very sharp edge and can snag the edge of the extracting round’s rim, preventing the fired case from extracting. Shell Shock Technologies advised me that they have not seen this in their tests of Glock pistols. This type of malfunction has also been reported in a Glock 43 by another shooter however, one Dr. Martin D. Topper. Whatever the case, I stopped extraction failures in my Glock by applying a -.003-inch crimp. Glock owners who experience the same problem I did should give this a shot to remedy the issue."

There is a rare chance that it might be the ammo for this reason.

There might be other reasons it doesn't like the steel cases. Just something to keep in mind.

Sounds like an ammo issue not enough force acting on the slide to fully clear the chamber to eject.

Steel case has more friction resulting in lower slide velocity and steel case ammo isn’t the most consistent ammo on powder charge.

I concur with the others sounds like the steel case ammo. Even Glocks have trouble sometimes.

Underloaded round ?

I shoot steel ammo in my G17 and G26 all the time, and if round friction itself was a factor, I’d have stovepipes as well. Now round friction + not enough powder seems very plausible.

That's what it sounds like to me.

My Barney mag is always loaded with full power .40 ammo, whenever I'm competing with .40 minor. Because the first shot is always the hardest to eject cleanly.

I have never used aftermarket mags, so I can't vouch for them one way or the other- but Glock doesn't recommend doing so. Also, everyone knows about the lack of QC on that ammo- even though my beat up 17 eats it up. An aftermarket mag and mediocre ammo? Playing the odds towards a malfunction. In my experience, MOST malfunctions on otherwise sound autopistols are magazine related. Switch to factory mags and some US brass cased ammo and try to repeat the malfunction.

Ammo. Or limp wristing. (Sorry, had to toss that in...)
99% probability of it being ammo.

FL-NC said:

Switch to factory mags and some US brass cased ammo and try to repeat the malfunction.

Click to expand...

Betcha it won't.

1. From my experience of shooting several thousand rounds of steel-cased ammo, I vote for the ammo being the main problem. As others have said, those steel-cases have more friction and the Glock or Magpul mags don't reliably push the stack of ammo to the top of the mag.

2. I've also noticed Magpul-brand Glock mags are a bit weaker in the mag-spring making the steel-case-ammo friction problem even worse.

Go to shooting mainly quality brass-cased ammo (even aluminum cased ammo) and you should be fine.

I’m with everyone else. Don’t stress it, Just keep note of it in the back or your mind.

As long as it doesn’t start happening more often.

bullseyebob47 said:

its a gen 3 with a couple thousand rounds through it. i was using a magpul(?) mag with steel case ammo. blame the mag or ammo?

Click to expand...

What specific ammo? There's a lot of stuff out there, and it might matter which brand you used.

bullseyebob47 said:

its a gen 3 with a couple thousand rounds through it. i was using a magpul(?) mag with steel case ammo. blame the mag or ammo?

Click to expand...

It failed to go bang. Just count it and move on. Making an excuse is just that.

Anything mechanical made by man will break or malfunction sometime, never expect it to function and be ready to clear a malfunction in it occurs

bullseyebob47:

You realize that the worst 'steel-cased ammo' some of us have tried is US-made? I won't pretend that any US-made ammo is decent when it is not. We're certainly not talking about the handicaps with .22LR ammo in handguns.
My .40 Sig P229 had a few times (in 100 rds.) when Russian Tula didn't have quite enough reactive force to strip a round from the 'factory mag', or the slide did not lock back.

But Winchester "Forged" in the brown/black boxes - the 9mm variety- is Far worse than Tula. Could not believe it was made by Winchester (a few months ago), and is 9mm. Worse than 9mm White Box.
Even "MAC" on the Military Arms Channel stated that "Forged" caused the first malfunctions in several of his handgun types. Even my newish CZ 75D 'PCR' had a malfunction with Forged.

For training, no big deal, but why bother, wondering whether there might also exist an issue with an actual gun?

My vote is a limpwrist. But it is hard telling to be honest without being there. They are just guns after all. They run well but no gun runs perfect. I had one that did over 20,000 rounds, but it was a sample of 1. I shoot only my loads. Can't afford it any other way.

While it can be disconcerting when things stop working, it really is just a part of things here, and one nature of the beast. As long as its not a regular thing, I wouldnt worry to much about it, and better yet, learn from it. Better to do it beforehand, than in the moment.

I shoot a Gen 3 17 a couple of times a week. Been doing so with the same gun for about 10 years now. Ive been using the same 20 or so Korean surplus mags for my weekly practice, and 99% of what I shoot through it are my reloads, which pretty closely mimic what I use in the 17 I carry.

Normally, the gun works fine, the mags work fine, but depending on whether its a new lot of brass, or an older one, is where the problems start to pop up. The older brass is normally the issue.

I shoot my reloaded brass to failure, and it gets reloaded a lot, and a lot goes literally for years before it gets tossed. What Ive come to find is, the rims on that older brass gets chewed up over time, from the constant cycling and extraction, and is what I believe, is the main cause of the problem. The extractor isnt always getting a good purchase on the rim, and things go awry.

Im pretty sure thats the problem, as the gun runs fine with factory and new lots of brass I load.

While that may seem like a problem and annoyance at first blush, Ive come to find its actually a big plus, especially when it comes to practice. I now get random, unplanned, unstaged malfunctions, and because of it, dont even bat an eye when the gun stops running. I just clear the stoppage and continue. Doing it all the time in practice, just makes it a regular thing, and theres really no thought given to it when it happens.

It removes the "deer in the headlight" look you usually see when someones gun stops running, and while they stand there looking at it and trying to diagnose why, when youve already cleared the problem and moved on and without hesitation.

Something to think about.