Plastic or steel guide rod.

[jr_watkins]

I've actually broken the original guide rod on both my Glock 22 and 27. The end that faces away from the barrel sheered off on both. I went metal replacement on the 22, but for availability reasons at the time stayed polymer on the 27. They do fail so this isn't purely hypothetical.

 

[LiveLife]

But it has to be fake!

Note the Glock Prefeckion pistol trapped an empty case in the ejection port with a full mag and jammed.

That never happened in the history of the Glock Perfeck pistols before.

Proving the video is totally fake!!

Yes, it must be fake as Glocks never break, jam or blow up.

And Glock believes perfection only applies to us right handed shooters as they continue to ignore full ambi controls.

OK, back to OP.

 

[LiveLife]

I've actually broken the original guide rod on both my Glock 22 and 27.

"Original" guide rods?

Recoil spring assemblies are consumable items needing regular replacement.

How many rounds were fired before they failed?

So if Glock mag springs and followers wear, you would blame Glock?

 

[tarosean]

Note the Glock Prefeckion pistol trapped an empty case in the ejection port with a full mag and jammed.

That never happened in the history of the Glock Perfeck pistols before.

Oh, come on RC.. It's clearly evident the ransom rest was limp wristing!


As for guide rods.. I'll change plastic to steel when I change out recoil springs.. But I've never had an issue with the plastic ones in any pistol I've owned.

 

[GLOOB]

The purpose of the guide rod is to hold the spring while you install it. Even if the end breaks off, the gun will apparently still function, normally.

In one of those 1000 rd Glock videos, the guide rod melts and shoots out of the gun about 3/4 of the way through, and the gun finishes just fine.

And Glock believes perfection only applies to us right handed shooters as they continue to ignore full ambi controls.

The Glock would be my favorite gun, if I were left-handed. Mag release and slide release operable by trigger finger. No safety. I see no problem. The mag release is swappable, too.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

I've actually broken the original guide rod on both my Glock 22 and 27.

As noted above, a Glock guide rod assembly is NOT a plastic guide rod.

I've seen a couple of failed Glock guide rod assemblies, but in those cases, the guns continued to run. That was the case in that famous HIGH/FAST round count exercise available on YouTube, where the heat of rapid firing actually melted the the plastic parts of the guide-rod assembly -- but the gun continued to operate! Had that been a steel guide rod in a steel-framed gun, the shooter would have had to wear insulated gloves to even hold the weapon, let alone fire it!!

 

[boricua9mm]

I've actually broken the original guide rod on both my Glock 22 and 27. The end that faces away from the barrel sheered off on both. I went metal replacement on the 22, but for availability reasons at the time stayed polymer on the 27. They do fail so this isn't purely hypothetical.

It's been over 10 years, but a friend of mine had a G19C that broke the guide rod while firing. It was properly installed and passed cursory examination before we hit the range that day. So here's a +1, I have seen it happen with my own eyes. It's not a regular occurrence, but it happens.

Some people feel strongly that the guide rod is not load bearing and therefore is not subject to any stress, but clearly it is subject to the pressure of the recoil spring. It's not just there for convenience. It's to ensure that the spring does not kink up and overlap on top of itself while cycling. By doing so, it adds consistency to the cycle.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

Some people feel strongly that the guide rod is not load bearing and therefore is not subject to any stress, but clearly it is subject to the pressure of the recoil spring. It's not just there for convenience. It's to ensure that the spring does not kink up and overlap on top of itself while cycling. By doing so, it adds consistency to the cycle.

I don't think the guide rod is there to ensure that the spring does not kink up and overlap on top of itself. In most guns, there's simply not enough room under the barrel for that to happen -- the dust cover area closely confines the spring throughout the firing cycle. If there is a kink or overlap during slide movement, it's probably because of a defect in the spring steel, and there's going to be a problem whether there's guide rod or not.

For most 1911s, there isn't even a guide rod -- just short pieces at the front and rear of the recoil spring that position the ends of the spring while the spring is installed or removed.

.

 

[Tirod]

Composite bodied mechanic's ratchet: http://www.harborfreight.com/12-in-drive-composite-ratchet-62618.html

Mechanics tools aren't always all metal, in fact, it costs more and only makes them heavier. It's tradition that keeps an all metal ratchet alive, I have some composite ratchets and they work just fine. Only the gear teeth and a small rod down the middle are metal. All the rest of the shape was done simply because the maker chose a particular fabricating process.

Injection molding of rods is extremely cheap. Pennies per part and the cost is in the mold. Same for receivers, the cost for a lower is pennies. Add a few metal bits to connect to handle the slide recoil and plastic lowers do just fine - they take the punishment of .45 ACP all day long. So do the rods.

If anything it's exactly why polymer framed guns do handle the stress - they are flexible. Like a road tire they give on impact, absorb the force, and rebound back to shape. Unlike aluminum or some cast frames which are battered after a few thousand rounds and crack. Read the thread on rental gun use on arfcom and after 200,000 the AK's start cracking at the rear of the receiver. They weld them up but they are eventually junk.

I'd rather take a long trip on some polymer tread tires than solid steel ones. Let's not get too addicted to tradition or insist that only one material is suitable for use. A flexible guide rod does the job just fine. All it does is keep a flexible spring from collapsing off center which could entertwine the coils and cause a failure.

I've read an analysis of aftermarket parts added to guns, especially the 1911, and it pointed out that changing to a different rod than factory changes the dynamic recoiling of the slide. Whether that adds to or takes away from the operation within it's envelope of functional reliability can't be known unless the owner tests it before and after. No different than arbitrarily changing some engine part on the daily driver - it's speculative at best to say it's an "upgrade" without testing and measurement with data gathering and numbers. Plenty of posters report that adding a steel rod didn't make it "better." There's no empirical analysis to prove it. Just touchy feely.

We'd all be better off in a lot of cases leaving well enough alone. Hot Rod your carry gun with parts that have no demonstrated and tested ability to improve reliability? I've never seen the makers of steel rods post a 100,000 round side by side test against the factory plastic rods to prove it.

They never will. It's all based on emotional hype - the extremely conservative shooting community is no stranger to it, it's what actually drives most of their decisions.

 

[tarosean]

Had that been a steel guide rod in a steel-framed gun, the shooter would have had to wear insulated gloves to even hold the weapon, let alone fire it!!

That Glock test was copied from Todd Jarett's 1000 round challenge with a 1911. Without gloves I might add, although he did scream HOT multiple times..

PS: There was no blaming ammo for malfunctions in the 1911 test..

 

[boricua9mm]

I don't think the guide rod is there to ensure that the spring does not kink up and overlap on top of itself.

Wound metal spring coils don't just hit themselves and stop. It has a certain degree of fluidity in that regard, and coils can and will move when necessary. It is very easy to have a coil jump another one, given the amount of space in a dust cover. When you limit their travel, with a guide rod, you ensure that they can't leapfrog.

The 1911 guide rod, the stubby one, ensures the very same thing.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

That Glock test was copied from Todd Jarett's 1000 round challenge with a 1911. Without gloves I might add, although he did scream HOT multiple times..

I'll bet he'll wear gloves the next time he tries something like this -- or tries to beat his "record." He was shooting faster than they could reload toward the end.

He said the gun was STILL VERY HOT several minutes after the exercise was done. He grabbed the gun and quickly put it down! The magazines (which were being recycled as the exercise progressed) were also very hot. (I think the Glock test had a lot more magazines, all loaded BEFORE the test began.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

with a guide rod, you ensure that they can't leapfrog.

Only if the diameter of the guide rod is a close match to the recoil spring's inside diameter and the length of the spring (and, in effect, the distance it must travel) is relatively short -- and not all are. With some guns not using a full-length guide rod, the recoil spring can move around as it is compressed before the slide has moved fully to the rear.

I found this out when I was shooting CZs a lot and bought replacement recoil springs from Wolff. The springs Wolff offered, then, were the springs for the Tanfoglio-made CZ-pattern guns, which used a much larger diameter guide rod than did the the stock CZ guide rod. A lot of movement was possible in the CZ when a Wolff spring was used in a CZ with it's smaller (stubby) guide rod. There wold still be movement possible even if the stock spring was used -- but not as much.. The springs worked fine, but didn't offer a tight rod/spring fit.

But even if you used the stock CZ recoil spring (or the almost indentical BHP spring, which is what I use now), you'd still see some marks on the underside of the barrel or on the inside of the frame from where the spring would deviate from an evenly balanced (straight-back) compression. It's NOT a full-length guide rod! (The .40 models which use a full-length guide rod didn't show those marks when using factory springs.) The standard 75B in 9mm doesn't even use a plug or guide on the front end of the recoil spring to keep the spring positioned, just a small plug on the rear which keeps the rear of the spring positioned against the receiver stop on the frame.

The stock spring CAN and does KINK (or deviate from an even, straight-back compression) so to speak, but not enough to cause functional problems. Pressure keeps the rear of the spring in place and the dust cover seems to keep the spring from getting too far out of line...

.

 

[v35]

IMO, it's just another manifestation of this bizarre obsession that so many gun owners have to goober-up their guns with every little after-market "upgrade" they can hunt down on their computers.

IMO as well. There is an astounding tendency among people who think they know better than manufacturers of equipment of all descriptions, from firearms to cars to computers to airplanes. To modify a design in even a small way alters the design, meaning it will no longer conform to the product resulting from thousands upon thousands of man-hours devoted to engineering the product.

Companies who manufacture stuff by in quantities of tens or hundreds of thousands at great risk to their own liability are highly motivated to devote some thoughtful consideration to such things. I believe there is a reason to every design element in a gun; every tiny detail in any well-engineered product. Sometimes the reason is a minor cost consideration, but sometimes it isn't. The typical end user is insufficiently qualified to determine the reason.

 

[harrygunner]

In one of those 1000 rd Glock videos, the guide rod melts and shoots out of the gun about 3/4 of the way through, and the gun finishes just fine.

I saw that video about a half-dozen years ago. I was visiting Phoenix a the time and stopped by GlockMeister to buy a steel recoil assembly for my Glock 29.

I have no defense for that decision. But, if I ever need to shoot a thousand rounds without stopping, I'm good to go.

 

[HKGuns]

I replace all plastic guide rods with steel. You can do what you want with your pistols, this is what I do with mine.

 

[MaterDei]

I'm guilty of replacing a lost P32 guide rod with a metal one. I replaced it with a metal one; yes, unnecessary, I know. I'm just a little embarrassed about buying a metal one. I'm very embarrassed about losing the plastic one; what an idiot I can be. How the heck does somebody lose a guide rod???

Many here say that they replace theirs for aesthetic reasons. Wow, you guys must have good eyes. I can't even see my guide rod when my gun shoots. It shows itself for just a fraction of a second and then it jumps back into its hole.