Light Primer Strikes With Glock 20SF

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  • 71silverbullet

    Sharpshooter
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    Oct 30, 2010
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    First off, full disclosure...I have not shot factory loads with this gun. I reload on a Dillon 550, using Winchester primers of 2 different lots.
    I acquired this gun used, and it has non-factory springs and parts of unknown manufacture. It is misfiring about 50%. Sometimes they will fire on second try, and sometimes they will not. The ammo seems fine when fired in my other revolvers. The primers do not appear to me to be "high"
    I have disassembled the gun and cleaned the striker channel, no problems there.
    I'm leaning towards the springs as the culprit. I'm not a Glock expert and don't know what springs to replace or where to get them.
    Suggestions? (other than try factory ammo, I will do that this week)
    Also would like this to be a carry gun not a range toy.
     

    shibumiseeker

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    Nov 11, 2009
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    near Bedford on a whole lot of land.
    First off try different ammo including some factory. I know you said this, but it's the easiest thing. Winchester LPP tend to be on the harder end as they are both used for magnum and regular pressure rounds.

    The striker pin itself may be a little peened, or whoever was monkeying with it before may not have known what they were doing. The striker channel liner can be gouged or roughened in installation and cause drag. In short there are a number of reasons. You can get all parts from Lone Wolf Distributors (among many places) and Glocks are ridiculously easy to work on. The only caveat is if you decide to pull the striker channel liner you will destroy it getting it out and it is well worth buying several as they are probably the most difficult part of the gun to work on.

    Also check for the gun to go completely into battery. Even a tiny bit out of battery, not enough to cause the gun to not fire but a millimeter or so will lead to light primer strikes. I had one problem with a dirty chamber and a lighter, worn recoil spring on a heavier mass slide causing this.

    A quick and dirty diagnostic is to put your upper on someone else's lower and see if the problem persists. That will tell you if it is a lower or upper issue.

    I have several G20s, G29s, and a G40, and a G20 Longslide I built before the G40 was made, and have tens of thousands of rounds of reloaded 10mm through them and have seen several issues over the years.
     
    Last edited:

    71silverbullet

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    Thanks for the suggestions. I detail stripped the gun tonight and wiped everything down. I also ordered an extra power striker spring just so I know whats in it. Also ordered a few striker channels and an extra set of striker spring cups.
     

    oldpink

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    Apr 7, 2009
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    As usual, Shibum gave you some great suggestions.
    The only thing I'd add would be to (of course) give the Glock a thorough cleaning and judicious lubrication, regardless of what parts you replace.
    That will take that part of the equation out of the picture, and it certainly can only help matters, regardless of whether the parts replacement alone does it for you.
     

    nra4ever

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    Check the color of the spring. I bet money the spring has been changed. I had that happen with a 26 that i changed the spring on.
     

    singlesix

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    I'm leaning towards the firing pin spring, I changed my to a Wolf light spring, and I had about 50% failure rates with Winchester Primers, about 10% with Remington Primers. This on a Glock 17.
     

    71silverbullet

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    Check the color of the spring. I bet money the spring has been changed. I had that happen with a 26 that i changed the spring on.
    Don't know which spring you are referring to but, they are all silver.

    I'm leaning towards the firing pin spring, I changed my to a Wolf light spring, and I had about 50% failure rates with Winchester Primers, about 10% with Remington Primers. This on a Glock 17.
    I have an extra power striker spring ordered. Should be here by the weekend. If I get home in time today I'm going to try some factory ammo before I make any changes.
     

    71silverbullet

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    Shot 50 rounds of factory ammo this evening with no misfires, couple of ftf but I think that was due to really weak ammo (PPU). I had fewer misfires with reloads, 6 out of 20. All 6 fired when I tried them in a revolver. Hopefully the new parts ordered fix the problem.
    Also of interest, the primers flattened a little in the revolver but not the Glock. 155 grain jhp over 12 grains of Bluedot. The PPU flew at 900fps and the reloads were at 1400fps.
     

    nra4ever

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    Who ever owned that gun before you messed with the trigger pull. It will be smoother but you lose reliability with some ammo. Not a good thing for a self defense gun. I bet they also changed out the connector and possible some of the other springs. Make sure it runs fine before you use it for EDC. Plenty of videos on how to install the parts yourself.
     

    71silverbullet

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    Who ever owned that gun before you messed with the trigger pull. It will be smoother but you lose reliability with some ammo. Not a good thing for a self defense gun. I bet they also changed out the connector and possible some of the other springs. Make sure it runs fine before you use it for EDC. Plenty of videos on how to install the parts yourself.
    I believe you are right. I don't really know enough about them to know where to start so I think I'll just replace all the internals. It definitely won't see any holster time until it is reliable.
     

    nra4ever

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    Just do the firing pin spring first. Try it after. More than likely that will make it run reliably if your only problem was light strikes.
     

    88E30M50

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    Dec 29, 2008
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    Check the color of the spring. I bet money the spring has been changed. I had that happen with a 26 that i changed the spring on.

    This is what I was thinking too. A couple of years back, I shared a pistol bay out at MCFG with a kid that was bragging about his tricked out G19. Once or twice per mag, he was getting a failure to fire and he kept blaming the cheap aluminum cased ammo he was using. He was ejecting live rounds all over the place and when I got home, I found one of them in my range bag. The primer had barely been dented. The spring package he was running was screwing the pistol up and he just figured that it was bad ammo.
     
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