New Glock 17 Gen 4 recoil assembly flew apart

[jmurch]

I was getting ready to to go to the range today to shoot a new Gen 4 G17. I was doing a quick check to make sure the rails had some oil, etc. I had the re-coil assemby sitting on the workbench about a foot to the side and got hit in the face with something and the arm with something else.

Scared the crap out of me as I was after all working on a pistol.

The recoil spring assemby had come apart all on its own sitting on the bench. The point of failure was where the metal 'cap' is pressed/riveted into the plastic guide rod. The actual piece that holds the two together is about 1/32" in diameter and maybe 1/4" long. What a crap garbage design. As long as its never removed from the slide I guess it would be fine but geez.

Needless to say there is now a Glockmeister stainless guide rod in it.

Jeff

[Jman]

Sorry to hear this. The more I hear about the Gen 4 the less I want one. I'm sure the replacement assembly will do the trick.

[G34 CORDY]

Iam so glad I didnt buy a gen4, I was looking at a gen4 22 but ended up buying a gen3 34. I like the glock but these gen4's new to get the bugs worked out of them. and it's always the new recoil spring assembly. Good call on the aftermarket recoil assembly, how is it working out for you so far?

[Field]

damn tupperware

edit: lol jk

Edited August 27, 2010 by Field

[jmurch]

Cordy,

I'm going to the range this morning. I'm hoping that it will be a good choice. I didn't bother with that the re-designed re-coil assembly that the factory wanted to send me.

I preferred a Gen3 but this particular 17 came along used on the local gun exchange web site with mepro sights, 3 1/2 lb connector, extended slide release and 5 normal cap factory mags, bladetechs, etc. I couldn't pass it up for the price so now I have a Gen4. I'm hoping that the recoil asssembly is the only big difference and now that's fixed.

Jeff

Edited August 27, 2010 by jmurch

[G34 CORDY]

After the new recoil assembly you shouldnt have a problem. I would of done the same thing and just ordered a aftermarket guide rod and spring. Good luck and let us know how it works out.

[GunOneDown]

I have one, but am ordering the GlockWorks adapter to use old style rod assembly. The Factory assembly in the 17 Gen4 is too strong because it was designed for the 22 Gen4. Lesson here learned is too throw a towel over the factory spring assembly when you take it out for cleaning the gun HUH...

[Duane Thomas]

While it's true the Gen-4 G17 originally featured the same springing as the Gen-4 G22, Glock has fixed that in subsequent production and gone to a considerably lighter, 9mm appopriate spring combo.

[ck1]

I don't know if clipping some coils off the original assembly and then stamping "02" on them makes them exactly "9mm appropriate"... From my experience and from what I've read from user reports from guys who've shot them, most find the "02" spring only makes the guns maybe slightly more reliable at the expense of feeling crappier than the first assembly.

IMHO the new gen4 dual-spring assembly stinks, just makes the guns finicky and creates a weak point, and the reports that are starting to surface of them coming apart and/or sometimes locking up guy's guns is kind of frightening, not to mention very un-glock-like.

I don't think they've fixed anything, the lighter 02 spring is just a band-aid at this point...

Edited August 28, 2010 by Duane Thomas

[CJ1]

I'm going to have to agree with ck1. I am giving my Gen4 G17 one more chance by trying out the Jager guide rod. From all accounts I have read, the Jager guide rod has fixed all the problems people have had with the stock assembly, so I hope it will be the same for mine. I was very close to just giving up and getting rid of my Gen4 and getting a Gen3, but the availability of the Gen4 recoil rod from Jager has convinced me to try it out. Other than the recoil spring, and the crappy factory sights, I love this gun. The grip texture, the slightly smaller grip(without any added backstraps) feels great, and the new magazine release are big improvements over the Gen3 IMO, but they should have stopped there. Instead they introduce that funky dual spring design that was an answer to a non-existant problem, at least with the 9mm Glocks.

[sigsauerfan]

this thread make me feel like the winner of the day lol.

all my glocks are 3rd gen,i played with the idea of a NIB G17,after reading all the posts i'm still interested, but now i know it has to come with the jager system.

lol i knew something was wrong with the dual spring concept . .

[ck1]

FWIW, I put 5000rds through my gen4 g17 before I gave up on it...

I liked the new mag release, the SF grip, and the RTF3 texture too, but just too many failures to excuse.

Wouldn't you know, went back to a gen3 and after 5000+rds not a single stoppage...

[jmurch]

It shoots and feels good now.

Luckily I live a few miles from Glockmeister and was going that way yesterday afternoon for dinner anyway so I went by and just bought the new recoil assembly.

The owner told me he wouldn't own a Gen4 with the original spring assembly.

Jeff

[Beretta Lover]

the Glock Gen 4 is another example of unnecessarily screwing with an already very very good design and product

other great ideas by a panel of marketing geniuses

1. New Coke

2. Pepsi Clear

3. Push feed (non claw) model 70 winchester rifles

4. Ford motor company announcing they were canceling the Ford Taurus line of cars (they are back)

[Duane Thomas]

I got in my Gen-4 G17 article sample gun with 02 spring assembly a few days ago and it works fine with my 130ish match loads. Admittedly I've only put a little over 200 rounds through it thus far, so the jury is still very much out, but I'm not ready to say the 02 changes didn't solve the problem. Based on my admittedly short-term testing, they did in fact solve the problem.

[CJ1]

Duane,

I really hope the 02 spring assembly fixes the problems I have been having. I received mine from Glock a few days ago, but I haven't tested it out yet. Probably going to try and run a couple hundred rounds through it tomorrow. I'm getting the Jager guide rod just for peace of mind since I have seen several reports from people who have the 02 assembly, but they are still having issues. That seems to be the biggest issue with the new dual spring assembly, inconsistency. I have seen many reports from people who have the original assembly, but they have had no issues at all. Then there are people like myself, and others that have had problems. Many have also reported that the 02 assembly fixed any problems they were having, but still others have reported that it didn't. Very inconsistent. Now we have a report of the spring assembly spontaneously disassembling itself. Not very confidence inspiring.

[Duane Thomas]

I don't know if clipping some coils off the original assembly and then stamping "02" on them makes them exactly "9mm appropriate"...

I realize - or assume, anyway - that you're being humorous, but just in case there are people out there who took you seriously, it's worth noting that Glock didn't just "clip some coils" off the original assembly to create the 02 assembly. This is a obviously a new, uncut spring - at least the large spring that I can see, I'm not quite willing to prise the thing apart to also examine the little spring, as well.

[JBP55]

The new 02 assembly appears to have 2 fewer large coils and 2 fewer small coils and the metal retaining assembly is slightly different. I can look at my two assemblies any time as I am running the Jager guide rod with a 15# ISMI spring in my gun.

[ck1]

I don't know if clipping some coils off the original assembly and then stamping "02" on them makes them exactly "9mm appropriate"...

I realize - or assume, anyway - that you're being humorous, but just in case there are people out there who took you seriously, it's worth noting that Glock didn't just "clip some coils" off the original assembly to create the 02 assembly. This is a obviously a new, uncut spring - at least the large spring that I can see, I'm not quite willing to prise the thing apart to also examine the little spring, as well.

Duane, I wasn't joking, the 02 spring I was sent was exactly the same as the original except 2-4 coils (depending on how you count them) were fairly obviously clipped off the larger outside spring and then poorly ground down a bit. There were at least 4 other pics up on glocktalk from different guys showing the same thing... I wouldn't doubt that they're in some form of real production by now as this was 3 months ago, but it was pretty obvious that it wasn't an assembly that was cooked-up or tuned to be 9mm specific through a bunch of R&D and testing like you'd find in a recent H&K or something, it was a hastily made cut-down, and while the spring-strength at lock-up was reduced the slide-speed/strength seemed unchanged... still wasn't right IMO.

I hope you're right and they're better now, but even as a Glock disciple, I'll be waiting a long time until I buy another gen4 that's for sure. Reports like the OP's of them coming apart and a few other reports I've read of the dual-recoil assemblies coming apart while installed and seizing up guys guns to the point where pins have to come out of them to get them broken down, and then the rumors (just rumors for now) of possible pending agency lawsuits because of this all add up to be very unsettling.

I wouldn't carry one with that recoil assembly in there, let's not sugar-coat it, it's just plain flimsy and feels like it's very possible to break one under normal assembly/disassembly.

BTW, I don't really want to start a flame war type thread here on whether or not the gen4's are good-to-go or just no good, and while I don't believe everything I read on the internet by any means I'll just say that there sure is a lot of chatter out there of guys having issues with them (and in my case I experienced my own and consider 5000+rds an honest enough chance to convince), and all the posts that inevitably show up of guys saying theirs are just great and run just fine don't sway me much as that's what they're supposed to do... after all, a posting of a Glock running 100% shouldn't really be a surprise to anybody, yet recently for some reason in the gen4's case it's worth note...

I hope in your review you mention how many Glockers out there are pissed that Glock couldn't stop themselves after the grip-size, texture, and mag release (ergonomic updates), and had to go further and mess with the super-proven and reliable design we've all come to know and love, there have already been too many articles written that start out "gee whiz, glock sure didn't change very much for the new gen4's...", they changed the recoil-assembly which changes the whole Browning tilting barrel design... that's huge, maybe too much actually.

Edited August 29, 2010 by ck1

[Duane Thomas]

The outer spring in the gun I have in for test and eval obviously is not a cut spring, it's a "stock" (for lack of a better term) looking affair with both ends closed as they should be.

The reason Glock went to a different recoil spring system in the Gen-4 was not to "change a super-reilable, proven system" but because the 9mm appropriate spring/guide rod they were also running in the .40 caliber Glock 22 had proven, over the long-term, to not be super-reliable. Actually a 9mm recoil spring in a .40 was leading to problems with lack of long-term durability, and, in some guns, with some ammo, lack of reliability when the gun was fitted with a light. Since the G22 is literally the most popular gun Glock makes (probably because of all the law enforcement sales), they didn't really have a choice: they HAD to fix the G22. So there were good reasons for going to the new recoil spring assembly in the Gen-4 G22. We could discuss how much sense it makes, if experience had shown a spring setup optimized for 9mm (Gen-1 thru 3) doesn't really work that well in a .40, to then take a spring setup optimized for .40 (the Gen-4 01 assembly) and stick it into a 9mm. Probably not so much.

Like you I tend to trust my own experience more than anything else, so it's probably a good thing for me that I didn't get a Gen-4 Glock 17 until they'd sorted out the 02 assembly. If it works for me over the long-term, then I'll probably wind up with a positive impression of the mod that those whose first experience was with the 01 assembly in 9mm don't possess.

Just FYI, no biggie, but the tilt barrel system in the Glock is not the Browning (aka internal tilt barrel) system but the external tilt barrel system that I commonly hear referred to as "the Petter system" (though personally I am far from convinced it was Charles Petter who invented it).

[ParaGunner]

Man I'm glad I got the gen3 block.

[JHC]

Duane, I just picked up a magazine just to read your G22 review. Will the 17 review be in the same mag? Here in our battery we have 3 Gen 4's. Two 17's and a 19. Both the 17's have the original full power unmarked recoil spring assembly. One has 4100 rds through it and the other 1200. With the exception of about 100 rds of Winchester NATO through each, all the ammo has been WWB, Federal, Blazer, UMC, Fiocchi, and Magtech 115 grain. Oh and 50 rds of that 158 grain subsonic through one of the 17s. Zero stoppages of any sort. I know two other guys here with G4 17s and those are running fine too.

I got a 02 spring from a local shop just to play around with and it ran fine too and the gun handled more like a Gen 3. But I have no need for it in the gun so it's in the tackle box.

My primary 17 with the 4100 rds through it now has a Scherer 3.5 connector and the trigger is very similiar to a well used 5.5 vs the stouter Gen 4 factory setup. This is definitely the finest Glock I've shot from the dozen and I've shot more accurately with it than I have with G34s or G17s. Could be the large grip adaptor that suits me best but I think the lockup is tighter and drives better accuracy. Just a theory. When the time comes to change out the recoil spring, I guess I'll order the unmarked one for G22s.

Edited August 31, 2010 by JHC

[Duane Thomas]

Duane, I just picked up a magazine just to read your G22 review.

Thanks! That's very flattering.

[Flexmoney]

I got in my Gen-4 G17 article sample gun with 02 spring assembly a few days ago and it works fine with my 130ish match loads. Admittedly I've only put a little over 200 rounds through it thus far, so the jury is still very much out, but I'm not ready to say the 02 changes didn't solve the problem. Based on my admittedly short-term testing, they did in fact solve the problem.

What was the problem that had them go with the duel springy in the first place? My guess was that it had to do with hanging a light off the accessory rail ?

Also, the mini Glocks had the duel spring assembly for years. Other than size, Is the gen4 spring assembly of a different design or manufacturing process?

While I am in the camp that thinks (but never tested the idea) that Glocks that do lock up tightly seem to give good/better accuracy, I don't know that I need to go away from a traditional single spring and recoil assembly to get that. (I can usually drill pasters at 15y with about any box stock Glock I have picked up.)

The question for me is... Why would I want this new spring assembly? I go with Glocks because they are proven, proven, proven. I keep them close to stock for that same reason. Here, we seem to have introduced a variable that seems risky. What reward do we get for the risk?

(Duane...those questions aren't really pointed at you to answer. I just used your post to reply to. If you do have some background on why they went with this springy...?)

[Duane Thomas]

See post #20.