View Full Version : What would cause not being able to pull the slide back on a loaded Glock?
Eurodriver
11-22-14, 15:42
I installed a threaded Storm Lake barrel on my Gen 4 G19 a while ago, and shot it today for the first time. I got it to run a suppressor, which isn't out of NFA Jail yet.
Once, I had a failure to feed where the slide almost went entirely into battery but didn't. I did a tap rack bang and all was good until I had a loaded round in the chamber about 20 minutes later when the range went cold.
I could not pull the slide back and eject the live round. It was locked in there. We had to ensure everyone had ear pro on and was back behind the firing line and I shot the round into the dirt - functioned perfectly.
My questions: What would cause this? What would fix it? Ammo used on the FTF was Blazer brass, the "stuck" round was Remington 115gr ammo.
I have no idea really. I've seen this same malfunction three times with two different Gen 4 19s a few years ago.
All I could come up with was the extractor somehow got wedged just right, locking everything up.
I was able to hammer the slide open and inspect the round, load it back into a mag, and fire it without a problem in the guns it just jammed.
Made me quit carrying them things...
Reloads? My guess would be a bullet not seated far enough and was stuck in the lands or a primer not seated fully causing the case to not be fully seated in the primer pocket. If it is factory, who knows. I would have table jammed the round and inspected it before firing.
What cause you to swap barrels?
Rounds loaded on the long side. Rounds without a proper crimp, dirt or grit in your chamber that could cause excess friction between the case and the chamber walls.
A round can become wedged into the rifling resulting in a stuck case. The proper way to clear this is to hold the slide with your left hand as hard as you can with an over hand grip and jam your right hand using the web between your thumb and index finger into the back of the grip. You're essentially "mortaring" the pistol. It is the same concept as clearing a stuck case from an AR15.
What cause you to swap barrels?
Read the post. He swapped barrels to run a suppressor bud.
Doublestack45
11-22-14, 16:29
I have the same setup for my 19 and it ran great right from the start. I'm curious if yours is a 17 barrel and not a 19?
Just measured the one I'm running, it's 4 5/8" long.
Eurodriver
11-22-14, 16:54
Hmm. Thanks for the replies.
Definitely a G19 Storm Lake barrel, not a 17.
The ammo is factory. I can get the exact round if anyone is interested, but they are Blazer brass and Remington ammo.
I didn't know the mortaring trick with the pistol. I'll have to try it if it happens again.
The barrel was brand new - could a packing oil (although none appeared present) cause this sort of issue? Can't see how dirt would get in the chamber. Maybe the chamber is under sized?
Also, I have shot The pistol with factory ammo and the factory barrel and not had this problem - just not either of these brands.
I'll have to agree with what has already been said.. Round/s that were too long, Possibly a short chamber, Check both..
I used to have this issue when doing dry fire drills with snap caps. I used the a-zoom ones (http://www.amazon.com/A-Zoom-Luger-Precision-Snap-Caps/dp/B0002IKANW). When the snap caps would get old and the rims were chewed up is when I noticed this problem the most. How did the rims on the rounds look?
My buddy and I both got a G4 G19 a few years back, and they are consistently inconsistent. But consistently so. What a stupid thing for me to say. Please let me explain.
With good ammo, we can both shoot them reliably so long as we're using both hands. With bargain ammo, we both experience failures such as you are describing on both guns, but they tend to happen more when he shoots and when I shoot off hand. He's got a wrist injury that has an impact on his primary shooting hand that I suspect leads to 'limp wristing' the gun, just as when I shoot off hand. I no longer rely on my G4G19 as a self defense weapon because of this.
The only failure we haven't experienced is the failure to extract a live round from the chamber. That's very odd. Did you have a magazine in the G19 at the time? Were there any rounds in it if you did? What did you try to do to clear the malfunction?
I know it is apples to oranges, but I had this problem with a rifle barrel. Turns out there was too much chrome in the throat so you couldn't get a chambered round out without mortoring the rifle. Maybe the chamber is out of spec if the ammo is good.
Once had a Glock 36(45 cal). The only ammo it would load without problems was 240 gr ball ammo. I had FTF on every other type of ammo, ball, hollow points, etc. Got rid of it. I now have a HK in .45,. It will shoot a brick if you can get in the chamber. Glocks are overrated in MHO.
Hmm. Thanks for the replies.
Definitely a G19 Storm Lake barrel, not a 17.
The ammo is factory. I can get the exact round if anyone is interested, but they are Blazer brass and Remington ammo.
I didn't know the mortaring trick with the pistol. I'll have to try it if it happens again.
The barrel was brand new - could a packing oil (although none appeared present) cause this sort of issue? Can't see how dirt would get in the chamber. Maybe the chamber is under sized?
Also, I have shot The pistol with factory ammo and the factory barrel and not had this problem - just not either of these brands.
If you have the exact round and have a micrometer, if you can take some measurements you could narrow down the possibilities.
Chances are the ammo was out of spec as already mentioned. If the round wasn't fully sized down to the base of the cartridge, in a tighter chamber you could run into issues where the round would chamber but you could not retract the slide. Measure the dimensions near the base of the casing, should be under .384" I believe. Measure the length of the brass as well, it should be under .750". Lastly measure the crimp near the mouth of the casing, it should be <.378".
If you were jamming the bullet into the lands, you could see that on the bullet itself and, so measuring the OAL of the cartridge might not be useful as the bullet could've been set back through the process of being chambered.
If the round checks out, it's possible you need the chamber of the barrel finish reamed as it may have been short chambered.
If you have the exact round and have a micrometer, if you can take some measurements you could narrow down the possibilities.
Chances are the ammo was out of spec as already mentioned. If the round wasn't fully sized down to the base of the cartridge, in a tighter chamber you could run into issues where the round would chamber but you could not retract the slide. Measure the dimensions near the base of the casing, should be under .384" I believe. Measure the length of the brass as well, it should be under .750". Lastly measure the crimp near the mouth of the casing, it should be <.378".
If you were jamming the bullet into the lands, you could see that on the bullet itself and, so measuring the OAL of the cartridge might not be useful as the bullet could've been set back through the process of being chambered.
If the round checks out, it's possible you need the chamber of the barrel finish reamed as it may have been short chambered.
I was gonna say - sounds like a bulged case. Rounds should drop freely into the chamber. If there's any resistance, your throat is dirty or your ammo is out of spec. Unfortunately, there's no way that you can test this now since you fired the round off.
Seen this happen a few times from the same lot of factory ammo from a major manufacturer. Even had a couple of squibs. Ammo from that lot was inspected and was found to be the issue. As mentioned holding the slide and jamming the grip is what usually works.
Eurodriver
11-23-14, 15:54
Yes, I did fire the round and unfortunately I didn't inspect the ammo at all. My mistake.
The problem was we had so much 9mm that I'm not even sure if it was the Blazer or the Remington or the Glock. I was also shooting my Beretta 92 side-by-side with the Glock and it didn't have any issues. I'm not sure if that's coincidence (2 bad rounds out of a box, and I put both of them in the Glock by chance) or if the Glock itself has an issue.
I'll need to start measuring ammo and checking measurements. Who would does Glock gunsmithing work such as reaming a barrel that's quality if that's what needs to be done?
Slvr Surfr
11-24-14, 05:31
I've had similar issues with a 9mm Storm Lake conversion barrel for a Glock 27. The barrel is tighter than a standard Glock barrel causing it to be very finicky with my 9mm reloads. The same reloaded ammo would feed fine into my factory G19 barrel. I had zero issues with the same SL barrel when firing quality factory ammunition, especially our duty 9mm rounds from Speer.
I wasn't aware of mortaring a pistol (which might have been tough with a small grip pistol), so a used the rail road ties at the range to push against the top of the slide (above the barrel) while pushing forward on the grip. That solved the issue of getting the stuck round out.
Yes, I did fire the round and unfortunately I didn't inspect the ammo at all. My mistake.
The problem was we had so much 9mm that I'm not even sure if it was the Blazer or the Remington or the Glock. I was also shooting my Beretta 92 side-by-side with the Glock and it didn't have any issues. I'm not sure if that's coincidence (2 bad rounds out of a box, and I put both of them in the Glock by chance) or if the Glock itself has an issue.
I'll need to start measuring ammo and checking measurements. Who would does Glock gunsmithing work such as reaming a barrel that's quality if that's what needs to be done?
Chambers on Glock replacement barrels are by design, tighter than factory Glock barrels. There is some measure of accuracy lost from the absurdly large chamber dimensions of the Glock that this corrects.
I realize no one but a reloader would generally do this, but if you want to measure where the lands start in your new barrel, take a fired casing and your desired bullet, place the bullet in the casing, remove the barrel from the weapon and drop the fired casing + bullet into the chamber and press down. Slowly and carefully extract this cartridge and measure the over all length (OAL). Get several measurements that are repeatable. This will tell you how long you can seat that particular bullet in that chamber.
For instance, doing this, if I measure my stock Glock barrel and a 124 gr PD conical HP, I get a maximum OAL of 1.156" in 9mm. If I measure a Bar Sto Precision barrel for that same gun, I get an OAL of 1.116", a significant difference.
The reason I mention this is if you were jamming the bullet into the lands, my recommendation would be to send it back to Storm Lake along with your training round and tell them you want them to ream out the chamber to meet that OAL.
If your goal is to increase the overall size of the chamber to accommodate shoddy ammo, I wouldn't recommend that course of action personally. Although in the south Tampa area near you I think there are a few APG pistol smiths, Kim Stroud and David Smith, that could probably accommodate you, although they're more into 1911's. Or you could also ask Storm Lake to see if they offer that service as well.
Larry Vickers
11-24-14, 20:01
Have the chamber reamed - certainly won't hurt and may very well fix your problem. Also if your not running Fireclean as a lube for your suppressed pistol then I highly recommend you do so - it works great on suppressed weapons.
Seen this happen a few times from the same lot of factory ammo from a major manufacturer. Even had a couple of squibs. Ammo from that lot was inspected and was found to be the issue. As mentioned holding the slide and jamming the grip is what usually works.
Hello Surf. Please check your PMs. Thanks!
Eurodriver
11-25-14, 06:30
Thanks for all of the info. I have contacted Storm Lake about this issue and will reply with their course of action.
While I would be more than happy to get the chamber reamed/polished myself, I still have the factory barrel that functions 100% and my suppressor won't be available for another few months at least. I'll give the manufacturer a shot at remedying this before I go and void any warranty that may exist.
The good news is that it appears to be a relatively easy fix.
I had this experience with a Glock 26 and factory barrel. Dropping the mag allowed slide to go back. Also, the event varied among ammo brands--less so with good stuff. When I reported it here about 4 years ago, an expert(gone now)told me that I worry too much. When I called Glock, the guy there said that he never heard of it before. I never figured it out.
I just fitted a Bar-Sto semi-fit barrel in one of my G19s. I'm doing this as range toy to see how accurate I can get the gun to be, and erring on the side of tightness over reliability. Once I got the barrel to go into battery, I still had to do some light stoning on the top forward part of the hood. Until I did, chambering a dummy round would result in a slide that was very difficult to retract. I haven't seen the storm lake barrels. Perhaps this slight angle is lacking on the SL barrel and needs either a little fitting or some hot loads to break it in.
Eurodriver
12-05-14, 09:32
Just wanted to update this.
I contacted Storm Lake about this and they mentioned a 250 round break in period.
Sure enough, after the issues I described in my original post I haven't had a single issue or failure of any kind with either ammo (and others) listed in this thread.
I've been shooting the heck out of this gun over the holiday and have well over 400 rounds through this pistol and the only failures were the ones listed in the OP before it hit the 50 round mark. I appreciate everyone's advice and I'll be sure to pick up some Fireclean and utilize the "mortaring" technique for pistols you all mentioned.
The barrel is noticeably more accurate as well!
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