Late in our last year, I ran a story about a Gen2 GLOCK 19 with Cirillo Visible Sights (designed by Jim Cirillo, NYPD). In that story, I’d found that I could feel the slide moving on the gun during firing. I did the “recoil spring check,” taught in the old days in the GLOCK Armorer course, to check it.

I’m not sure they do that anymore – I’ve not had an update since the late-Gen3 era. But it was a good test on this elderly G19.

For your interest, I cleared the (cleaned, properly lubricated) gun, put the muzzle in the safest available direction (where an unintended discharge would cause only minor property damage and NO personal injury), and pressed the trigger, pinning it back against the frame.

Directing the muzzle up, I withdrew the slide, still holding the trigger down, and gently eased the slide forward. It stopped short of battery, just a fraction of an inch. I released the trigger, muzzle up, and the slide went into battery. That’s a “fail.”

And I was out of my stock of Gen3 G19 Recoil Spring Assemblies.

Within a few weeks, colleague Mike Rafferty was taking a trip to the metro area and asked me to go along. I did and we stopped at GT Distributors, a great place for GLOCK OEM parts. I picked up a new recoil spring assembly for the G19 and a few for G17-sized guns. When I got back, I swapped the old for the new and the gun passed the test.

Thrilling, right?

Well, I took the opportunity to take two of my most carried semi-autos and field strip them. I was embarrassed at the amount of lint that had accumulated in these concealed carry pistols.

No, I didn’t take pictures. The memory of the shame is enough.

I used a can of air to blow the biggest clumps out, took a brush to them and used a Calbico Channel Cleaning Tool with a patch to get the corners cleaned out. Lubrication was done with Slip 2000 Extreme Weapons Lubricant; it’s the oil I had and it works fine.

When reloading, I marked the case head of the round I’d pulled out of the chamber. It went further down in the magazine stack. There were no other marked rounds in the magazines.

In a video from Concealed Carry Trainer, Mickey found that his daily carry GLOCK 48 was getting failures to fire. My guess it was the striker spring – he said the gun had 25,000 rounds on it, more than the majority will fire during the term of their lives.

It could also be the recoil spring assembly, could be crap in the firing pin channel – or it could be the firing pin safety plunger.

The easiest fix is to replace the RSA, striker spring and the firing pin safety plunger; after 25,000 rounds, parts replacement is mandatory, particularly springs.

He found out on the range, which is a great advantage to periodically shooting your defense handgun.

— Rich Grassi