Glock 43 won't feed hollow points

[halfmileharry]

Less Glocks than 1911's the budget market on 1911's is considerably bigger than the budget Glock market. But hey, 100 years from now, some whipper snapper will be telling me the same thing about my Glocks!

100 yrs from now you probably won't give a ****. I know I won't.

 

[Route 45]

Buy a S&W Shield !

Best advice in the thread.

 

[injb]

Well, I went shopping and bought various different JHP rounds, and spent literally hours testing the gun. Here's what I found out:

* it's the 147gr Hydrashok that's the biggest troublemaker, not the 124 as I had thought.
* when it happens, I discovered that tapping the mag home instead of racking the slide also fixes it. However, doing this in advance doesn't improve things (I think it might actually make it worse but I would need to spend a lot more time to be certain).
* it happens a lot less often if I only load 5 instead of 6, but it does still happen sometimes.
* it happens a bit more often with one magazine than the other, but definitely happens with both.

With the various brands I bought, I did the following experiment. I loaded the mag with 5 of the 147gr Hydrashok, then for the top round I loaded 1 of the brand being tested, racked the slide, dropped the mag, unchambered the round, put it back in the mag, and repeated all that 10 times. Here are the failure rates I got:

Hydrashok 147gr: 4-8/10
Hydrashok 124gr: 0/10
PMC Blazer: 0/10
Speer Gold Dot: 0/10
Fiocchi : 1/10
Hornady CD : 0/20

Still 0 failures out of several hundred for any brand of FMJ.

Throughout this experiment I periodically repeated 10 cycles of the Hydrashok as a control, hence the varying failure rate. It was pretty consistent.

I find it weird that the lighter Hydrashok appears flawless. I have to test that one more but my hands are sore now so it will have to wait. Interestingly, you can see a difference in these 2 weights. The lighter ones have a crimp mark around the circumference of the case, and the heavier ones don't. I measure the length of each brand and they're all very close to 1.1". There's a small variation between brands but I couldn't see any connection with overall length and reliability. Hondary Critical Defence were the longest and they were totally reliable.

Anyhoo...I think the magazines are suspect and I might give Glock a call and see what they say.

 

[VERT]

Well, I went shopping and bought various different JHP rounds, and spent literally hours testing the gun. Here's what I found out:

* it's the 147gr Hydrashok that's the biggest troublemaker, not the 124 as I had thought.
* when it happens, I discovered that tapping the mag home instead of racking the slide also fixes it. However, doing this in advance doesn't improve things (I think it might actually make it worse but I would need to spend a lot more time to be certain).
* it happens a lot less often if I only load 5 instead of 6, but it does still happen sometimes.
* it happens a bit more often with one magazine than the other, but definitely happens with both.

With the various brands I bought, I did the following experiment. I loaded the mag with 5 of the 147gr Hydrashok, then for the top round I loaded 1 of the brand being tested, racked the slide, dropped the mag, unchambered the round, put it back in the mag, and repeated all that 10 times. Here are the failure rates I got:

Hydrashok 147gr: 4-8/10
Hydrashok 124gr: 0/10
PMC Blazer: 0/10
Speer Gold Dot: 0/10
Fiocchi : 1/10
Hornady CD : 0/20

Still 0 failures out of several hundred for any brand of FMJ.

Throughout this experiment I periodically repeated 10 cycles of the Hydrashok as a control, hence the varying failure rate. It was pretty consistent.

I find it weird that the lighter Hydrashok appears flawless. I have to test that one more but my hands are sore now so it will have to wait. Interestingly, you can see a difference in these 2 weights. The lighter ones have a crimp mark around the circumference of the case, and the heavier ones don't. I measure the length of each brand and they're all very close to 1.1". There's a small variation between brands but I couldn't see any connection with overall length and reliability. Hondary Critical Defence were the longest and they were totally reliable.

Anyhoo...I think the magazines are suspect and I might give Glock a call and see what they say.

Great test! I appreciate the results. My opinion is you are over thinking this though. Sometimes a particular gun just does not jibe with a specific bullet profile or cartridge length. Not uncommon at all. Just don't carry 147 grain hydrashok. I would also be interested in seeing what the Fiocchi had in common with the 147 Hydrashok.

The top round of a 9mm can be the most problematic because it is under the most spring tension and because the tapered 9mm case starts to nose down. This is a big issue with 10 round 1911 magazines, not so much with less then 9 round single stack guns. incidentlty the last round in the magazine can course problems for the opposite reason, that is lack of spring tension.

when you hit the bottom of the magazine it is jarring the round loose on the feed ramp and it is going into battery. Simple fix is avoid that ammunition.

Carry the ammo that is reliable!! Then figure out which is most accurate and controlllable. Ignore everything else. Just find a good hollowpoint from a reputable manufacturer that your gun shoots well and carry on.

Oh and don't carry the cartridges you repeatedly tested. Go shot them up or dispose of them.

 

[GNRPowdeR]

Anyhoo...I think the magazines are suspect and I might give Glock a call and see what they say.

I've used G43 for a class around 6 weeks ago with various extended mags that used the factory body with either different internals or extended plates and springs. The ones that I'd swapped out the internals for MAGGUTS internals gave me an extra round with factory base plates. I used TT and another brand of extended bases for a +2. I had no issues with the factory base or the TT mags, but the other brand (escapes my memory and I'm not around them) caused me to have issues with a timed reload on the FBI test.

Something I'd suggest is looking at the MAGGUTS internals. I liked the metal follower, the factory base plates, with a +1 spring.

 

[churchmouse]

Great test! I appreciate the results. My opinion is you are over thinking this though. Sometimes a particular gun just does not jibe with a specific bullet profile or cartridge length. Not uncommon at all. Just don't carry 147 grain hydrashok. I would also be interested in seeing what the Fiocchi had in common with the 147 Hydrashok.

The top round of a 9mm can be the most problematic because it is under the most spring tension and because the tapered 9mm case starts to nose down. This is a big issue with 10 round 1911 magazines, not so much with less then 9 round single stack guns. incidentlty the last round in the magazine can course problems for the opposite reason, that is lack of spring tension.

when you hit the bottom of the magazine it is jarring the round loose on the feed ramp and it is going into battery. Simple fix is avoid that ammunition.

Carry the ammo that is reliable!! Then figure out which is most accurate and controlllable. Ignore everything else. Just find a good hollowpoint from a reputable manufacturer that your gun shoots well and carry on.

Oh and don't carry the cartridges you repeatedly tested. Go shot them up or dispose of them.

Or just trade out of that model and get something that you find reliable that fits your hand.

 

[GNRPowdeR]

Or just trade out of that model and get something that you find reliable that fits your hand.

Just as with a finicky 1911, reliability can be achieved with diligence, testing, and adjustment of parts.

Fitment is for the OP to determine.

 

[injb]

I know a lot of people will think I'm over thinking it. But I'm not comfortable with it until I understand the nature of the problem. "The gun doesn't like this brand" doesn't cut it. There has to be some reason why and until I know what that is, there's no way I can say it's reliable with any given brand.

Someone told me that the bullet profile is likely the issue, and that bullets with a rounder profile would probably be ok. I took a closer look at all the brands and their overall dimensions, and this almost perfectly explains it. The Federal has an abrupt cut off, but the others are rounder, except Hornady which has a very narrow tip with a little polymer (?) piece protruding. If bullet profile is the issue, it looks like Hornady should be the most reliable. There's just not much there to catch the feed ramp. But there's one big problem with this theory: the Federal 124gr bullet looks identical to the 147gr. So why do they work so reliably while the 147gr is so consistently bad?

In any case, I've been told that there have been magazine updates. For all I know, Glock knows about this and has an updated magazine that feeds everything reliably. For now I'm going to stick with it and see if I can get it to work, and leave trading it away as a last resort. Especially since I just spent $130 on a set of sights before I discovered this problem lol

 

[Fordtough25]

I'd call glock for sure, know anyone else with a 43? Maybe try some of their mags and see if the problem stays consistent, I'll look at some of mine later today and see what the followers look like. Mine loves 147 gr hydra shoks, surely we can get yours there too!

 

[injb]

Here's something else I discovered. Sometimes, I can't get the problem to happen at all with the 147gr. With all the loading/unloading of mags I'm doing, I'm getting the feeling that if the rounds in the mag sit a certain way, it doesn't seem to happen. So I took a closer look at the mags, and I noticed that the top round usually has some side to side wiggle room. It's held securely at the rim, but the feed lips don't make contact from about halfway along to the front of the case. There's some randomness to this. As I load the mag and check each round, some are super tight and some are loose. The first 2 are always very tight. Then 3, 4 or 5 will always be loose, and frequently 6 will be loose too. If I push down the top round a little and let it pop back up, sometimes that fixes it and it the round feels nice and tight.

Here's the thing: it's noticeably worse with the 147gr Hydrashok. It happens a little with other rounds, but most of them are much tighter. But I haven't figured out if this is connected to the feeding issue yet.

Does this sound like a faulty mag? Can anyone else check a 43 mag for me and see if there's any side to side play in the top round? Thanks!

 

[gmcttr]

...Here's the thing: it's noticeably worse with the 147gr Hydrashok. It happens a little with other rounds, but most of them are much tighter. But I haven't figured out if this is connected to the feeding issue yet.

Does this sound like a faulty mag? Can anyone else check a 43 mag for me and see if there's any side to side play in the top round? Thanks!

I tried four Glock mags, one with the factory base plate, two with TT +2 base plates, one with a Pearce +1 base plate. All of them could have the "side to side wiggle". Press down on the bullet end of the top cartridge (as tends to happen when loading a mag) and various amounts of "wiggle" was usually there.

However, one press on the rim of the top cartridge and in all cases, the cartridge seated firmly into the feed lips with zero side to side wiggle. Seems like your mags are perfectly normal. Simply end loading a mag by pressing on the rim if the wiggle bothers you.

As to why the wiggle is worse with the 147gr Hydrashok and not the 124 gr.....possibly the added weight on the nose of 6 stacked cartridges makes them a little harder to lift.

As with all self defense pistols, find what combination works for you and shoot enough of them to have confidence and don't worry about the rest.

 

[injb]

I tried four Glock mags, one with the factory base plate, two with TT +2 base plates, one with a Pearce +1 base plate. All of them could have the "side to side wiggle". Press down on the bullet end of the top cartridge (as tends to happen when loading a mag) and various amounts of "wiggle" was usually there.

However, one press on the rim of the top cartridge and in all cases, the cartridge seated firmly into the feed lips with zero side to side wiggle. Seems like your mags are perfectly normal. Simply end loading a mag by pressing on the rim if the wiggle bothers you.

As to why the wiggle is worse with the 147gr Hydrashok and not the 124 gr.....possibly the added weight on the nose of 6 stacked cartridges makes them a little harder to lift.

As with all self defense pistols, find what combination works for you and shoot enough of them to have confidence and don't worry about the rest.

Thanks for checking!

I am pretty sure I have found out why there's more play with the 147gr Hydrashok. All the cases I've examined have a rim diameter that's identical to the bottom of the actual case. So if you stand them up with the rims touching, the cases touch at the bottom too. Except the 147gr HS. They have a rim that's 0.1mm wider. So if you line them up with the rims touching, the cases don't touch at all. It looks like if you stack the 147gr rounds, they will tend to point inwards more than any of the others. You can really feel the difference if you slide one round along another. All of them slide smoothly except the HS 147gr. They catch each other's rims enough that you can feel and hear it clearly. This doesn't mean it's connected with the problem I'm having of course.


You can see this difference in the attached pic (HS 147gr on the left, HS 124gr on the right; all the other brands are identical to the HS 124gr). The light here accentuates the difference, but without the light it's still visible to the naked eye.

 

[SSGSAD]

Wait.....what.......a Glock will not feed.

Sorry folks I just had to. All the grief I get the opportunity is rare so I took it.....

I was going to say, that I haven't had ANY problems, with my S&W's .....

One I have owned, since 1979, have thousands of rounds through it,

and IS my DUTY GUN .....

 

[SSGSAD]

Well, I went shopping and bought various different JHP rounds, and spent literally hours testing the gun. Here's what I found out:

* it's the 147gr Hydrashok that's the biggest troublemaker, not the 124 as I had thought.
* when it happens, I discovered that tapping the mag home instead of racking the slide also fixes it. However, doing this in advance doesn't improve things (I think it might actually make it worse but I would need to spend a lot more time to be certain).
* it happens a lot less often if I only load 5 instead of 6, but it does still happen sometimes.
* it happens a bit more often with one magazine than the other, but definitely happens with both.

With the various brands I bought, I did the following experiment. I loaded the mag with 5 of the 147gr Hydrashok, then for the top round I loaded 1 of the brand being tested, racked the slide, dropped the mag, unchambered the round, put it back in the mag, and repeated all that 10 times. Here are the failure rates I got:

Hydrashok 147gr: 4-8/10
Hydrashok 124gr: 0/10
PMC Blazer: 0/10
Speer Gold Dot: 0/10
Fiocchi : 1/10
Hornady CD : 0/20

Still 0 failures out of several hundred for any brand of FMJ.

Throughout this experiment I periodically repeated 10 cycles of the Hydrashok as a control, hence the varying failure rate. It was pretty consistent.

I find it weird that the lighter Hydrashok appears flawless. I have to test that one more but my hands are sore now so it will have to wait. Interestingly, you can see a difference in these 2 weights. The lighter ones have a crimp mark around the circumference of the case, and the heavier ones don't. I measure the length of each brand and they're all very close to 1.1". There's a small variation between brands but I couldn't see any connection with overall length and reliability. Hondary Critical Defence were the longest and they were totally reliable.

Anyhoo...I think the magazines are suspect and I might give Glock a call and see what they say.

I am NOT a g---k guy, NEITHER am I a "hater" .....

I say buy, and shoot what FITS, and works for you .....

Millions, of g---ks, have been sold, and owned .....

I do not like 147 gr., weight of ammo .....

DON'T ask me why .....

When I first bought my 9mm, back in 1979,

there were 90 gr., 100 gr., 115 gr., ammo available .....

I started reloading, and could buy 125 gr., soft point, and hollow point bullets .....

I like the way they performed, and I just settled on the 115, and the 124, 125 gr., weight .....

Now 40 some odd years later, we have all this wonderful research, and development .....

I like what I have, and see no need to change .....

 

[billybob44]

Not mentioned yet???

You got some GREAT pics. so far..How about one/two now of the barrel feed ramp..NO do NOT clean+polish it up before the pic.!!
Light machine marks will stick some "Square Cut" bullet noses.

Go ahead and FLAME..But...All of my pistols get green jewelers rouge to the ramp (YES with a Dremel) followed by Flitz polish. The ramps on my pistols have a mirror finish, with NO machine marks..
That's where I would start, and not worry about some SMALL dents in the magazine follower...Bill.

 

[churchmouse]

Just as with a finicky 1911, reliability can be achieved with diligence, testing, and adjustment of parts.

Fitment is for the OP to determine.

All I am seeing is a lot of ammo being shot. Hey I love shooting as much as the next guy but not much actual diagnosing the issue.
As stated just run the ammo it likes. Not every gun will run everything you feed it. If it does not like this, well, do not force it to eat this. Pretty simple actually.
But the op seems to be having some fun so what the heck.

 

[churchmouse]

You got some GREAT pics. so far..How about one/two now of the barrel feed ramp..NO do NOT clean+polish it up before the pic.!!
Light machine marks will stick some "Square Cut" bullet noses.

Go ahead and FLAME..But...All of my pistols get green jewelers rouge to the ramp (YES with a Dremel) followed by Flitz polish. The ramps on my pistols have a mirror finish, with NO machine marks..
That's where I would start, and not worry about some SMALL dents in the magazine follower...Bill.

Yes....this. Start somewhere. Not the ammo counter. There are a lot of things you can do toward tuning/adjusting any gun. Sometimes a smith is in order. Sometimes if you are handy enough YouTube can be your friend.

 

[Route 45]

All of this laser-sharp focused attention on the ammo is ignoring the fact that a properly designed pistol magazine does not let rounds wiggle around, regardless of bullet weight.

 

[WebSnyper]

All of this laser-sharp focused attention on the ammo is ignoring the fact that a properly designed pistol magazine does not let rounds wiggle around, regardless of bullet weight.

I get what you are saying, however, I've had mags feed 1000's of rounds fine and if you shake that mag you can hear rounds move. I'd say a properly designed mag performs it's function without issue and go from there. How it does it can be debated.

 

[phylodog]

All of this laser-sharp focused attention on the ammo is ignoring the fact that a properly designed pistol magazine does not let rounds wiggle around, regardless of bullet weight.

Why is that? If a magazine feeds 100% reliably, how exactly does it matter if rounds rattle around when fully loaded?