Weird dead trigger event (and subsequent spring refresh)

Jayne

Jayne

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At the match tonight in the middle of a stage the trigger on my G34 went dead. I tried to fire it a few times but the trigger was back as if the gun had already fired.

A quick tap/rack kicked out the round in the chamber and reset the trigger. It appeared to be in battery for the split second before I racked the slide, but even if it wasn't 100% the trigger shouldn't have been totally dead like that.

The round had no primer strike, so it wasn't just a "click" instead of a "bang" that I missed in the middle of a stage.

I didn't think you could cycle the slide without resetting the trigger, but there ya go. Ran fine the rest of the night and nothing odd looking inside when I opened it up at home. All stock internals, but might be time to replace them with some fresh bits.

Guess I can't say my Glock hasn't ever malfunctioned.... after ~15425 rounds it let me down for about 1 second. I'm sure I should have bought a CZ/M&P/Sig/whatever because those never fail. :rolleyes:
 
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The only frightening thing about all that is that you know exactly how many rounds you have fired. Lighten up a little. Maybe dump some ammo in a zip loc and go shoot without counting one day. :p
 
Slacker said:
Could it have been that the slide was not fully in battery?
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The trigger seems to reset in the last 1/4" of forward slide movement (just checked it out). For the trigger to 'stay dead' after a shot, the slide has to be visibly out of battery to where you can actually still see the round through the top of the slide. If it goes past that then the trigger resets and while it won't fire the trigger will move back and forth. I would have easily noticed it that far out.
 
Catfish said:
Hey lighten up, he did say ~ that many.
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Exactly. I knew how many it had before the match and how many after (I start the match with 10 full mags and just use new ones each stage so it's easy to count as I reload them after) so I guessed about where I was based on when the failure was. Easy.
 
Any chance you detail stripped the frame recently? Improperly installed trigger spring can cause this, but probably more than one time in a match. And you don't have to remove the trigger spring for it to be installed wrong - all you have to do is knock it out of the notch on the trigger bar.
 
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Jayne said:
At the match tonight in the middle of a stage the trigger on my G34 went dead. I tried to fire it a few times but it was back as if the gun had already fired.

A quick tap/rack kicked out the round in the chamber and reset the trigger. It appeared to be in battery for the split second before I racked the slide, but even if it wasn't 100% the trigger shouldn't have been totally dead like that.

The round had no primer strike, so it wasn't just a "click" instead of a "bang" that I missed in the middle of a stage.

I didn't think you could cycle the slide without resetting the trigger, but there ya go. Ran fine the rest of the night and nothing odd looking inside when I opened it up at home. All stock internals, but might be time to replace them with some fresh bits.

Guess I can't say my Glock hasn't ever malfunctioned.... after ~15425 rounds it let me down for about 1 second. I'm sure I should have bought a CZ/M&P/Sig/whatever because those never fail. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Do you still have the round that was in the chamber when the malfunction occurred? I had a Glock 17 do the exact same thing & there was something wrong with the cartridge. I tried to fire that round several times & I just got a dead trigger. It was WWB 115gr.
 
Teacher said:
Do you still have the round that was in the chamber when the malfunction occurred?
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yep, and I checked it in my gauge and it's totally in spec. I've had wolf/tula ammo not go off on the first strike before, you get a nice primer strike and just no ignition. I'll just take that round and load it into the next mag and it always goes off on the 2nd hit. This was something else because the striker didn't fall and the primer was untouched.
 
Catfish said:
Any chance you detail stripped the frame recently? Improperly installed trigger spring can cause this, but probably more than one time in a match. And you don't have to remove the trigger spring for it to be installed wrong - all you have to do is knock it out of the notch on the trigger bar.
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haven't taken it apart ever, although I've done others so I know what you're talking about. I'll take this one apart when I all new springs to refresh everything.
 
Jayne said:
yep, and I checked it in my gauge and it's totally in spec. I've had wolf/tula ammo not go off on the first strike before, you get a nice primer strike and just no ignition. I'll just take that round and load it into the next mag and it always goes off on the 2nd hit. This was something else because the striker didn't fall and the primer was untouched.
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The next time you're at the range try to fire that round & let us know what happened.
 
Jayne said:
haven't taken it apart ever, although I've done others so I know what you're talking about. I'll take this one apart when I all new springs to refresh everything.
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The trigger return spring popping out of its groove or just being ready for replacement is most likely.
The connector being flat against the trigger/ejector housing is another possibility. The connector should stick out and work almost as a spring against the trigger bar, but some people think the connector is “bent” and try to straighten it so it lays flat against the trigger/ejector housing. If the connector doesn’t have the outward angle the hump on the slide will not push the connector over and allow the trigger bar to return to its upward position.

I’ve only seen that when people try to bend them but I haven’t inspected any glocks with that many rounds.
 
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Parts came today so I did a little refresh tonight. New trigger spring, firing pin spring and spring cups and cleaned some of the junk out of the connector area, striker channel, etc. Handy having the Glock mat right there to remind me of what I was doing.

I have a new extractor too, but am leaving the original in there to see how many rounds of steel case it takes to actually wear it down or break it.

glock_rebuild_2.jpg glock_rebuild_3.jpg
 
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