GLOCK FAILURES IN GUNFIGHT
 

Hi:
From previous posts forum members know that I have three immediate family members with the Saint Petersburg Florida Police Department that were in involved in the shooting incident where three officers were shot with two of the three killed.
Telephone conversation with one this P.M. discovered that the Agency's issued Glock Model 22 .40 S&W did not perform to expartations.
The officer rescue squad had number of FTF/FTF malfunctions while firing at the lone suspect hiding in the attic. These Glock Model 22s are ten years old and have had many, many rounds fired though them.
This happened to several of the Glocks involved in this shooting incident.
The weapons that worked perfectly were shotguns and AR-15s.
It will be interesting to see if new Glocks will be issued or another different manufacturer.
Jimmy

With all the many many rounds fired through them over 10 years they worked fine... then choked when shooting at a bad guy? Recent ammo change? Or?
I'm assuming the guns and ammo used were not chronic problems over the 10 year period that simply went unaddressed.

I'd think a "not of the arm proper" issue reared its ugly head. perhaps ammo being the most likely as there could be a difference between duty and practice ammo. could also be environmental as well ... FL is good for salt spray and corrosion along its shores. I can see how duty ammo, left un inspected could grow a little green around the gills and choke at go time.
then again with some departments allowing officers to carry 1911's as duty weapons now, the Glocks may be suffering from low self esteem and their feelings of inadequacy could have lead to performance anxiety:D

Neither my 17 or 19 suffers from performance anxiety. ;)

http://smith-wessonforum.com/members...2-dsc04195.jpg

Sir.
I was never a LEO, so I won't armchair quarterback their decision to have Glock in hand. Police tactics are not my speciality.
I was Marine, if ambushed, any weapon will do to return immediate fire. If given an opportunity to select weapon before engagment, get an offensive weapon, not a defensive weapon. Get more than enough fire power to win.
Bill@Yuma

Maybe it is time to go back to the 686!

Goes to show those of us who are unwashed in the Austrian plastic glow- that it is just like any other piece of machinery made by man...it may fail just like anything else.

It's just a gun- like all the others. Some people prefer it, some do not.

Never take a pistol to a gunfight, if you can carry a rifle or carbine, or shotgun..

There are documented instances of Glocks going over 150, 000 rounds without a malfunction. I would look at ammo, and magazines. Mag springs will get weak, especially if not rotated.

A few years ago an officer near here lost his Glock during a struggle. The bad guy tried to pick the pistol up. All the officer could do was try to hold the gun on the ground as the bad guy had the better grip on the gun. Another officer came up and put his Glock in the bad guys back. The bad guy would not give up the fight so the officer pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He racked the slide and put it back in the badguys back and pulled the trigger again. Still no bang. He gave up trying to shoot him with the Glock and just hit him over the head with it ending the fight. When the gun was inspected everything appeared to work fine. The problem turned out to be that when he pressed the gun to the badguys back the slide was displaced backwards a little ways and the gun wouldn't fire. I also had a friend whose Glock jammed several times while qualifying. I guess I wouldn't feel very confident taking a pistol on patrol that I know has jammed on me before.

if not some corrosion of duty ammo yeah I'd look at the mags ... but then again, its just more fun to take a poke at the tupperware :D

gamedic is on the right path! What happened in the fight he described was that the officer jammed the gun into the suspect so hard that it pushed the slide out of battery, therefore the weapon wouldn't fire.
In the case being discussed there is a possibility that, that may have happened, or the officer limp wristed the piece, or something might have jammed the gun between the holster and the target. This can happen with any recoil operated pistol not just Glocks!

cleaning tech
 

When cleaning a Glock one must always face the firing pin down.
If cleaner/lubricant gets around the firing pin it can cause a build up and eventually the firing pin will not move. After a good clean and lube one should always shake the slide to ensure that the firing pin rattles.
I have several thousand rounds (9mm, 40 and 45's) through my Glocks, with very few failures. All were racked and tapped clear.
As we all know, maintenance is key with all firearms. :D

"People dont rise to the occassion but rather fall back on their skills and abilities"

bottom line...sad to say...their skill set was too low, they should have been able to clear any ftf with muscle memory and get back into the fight with in seconds....

I carried a Glock 22 for 9+ years before we switched to the M&P. I have total faith in my Glock, it never jammed.

I don't like to second guess but multiple failures by multiple weapons in the same instance seems very odd.

My dept. issued the Glock 22 with streamlight TRL lights. We had countless problems with them. Mine included. We argued with Glock for quite sometime and they finally replaced them with 17's or 21's. I decided to go with a Smith 627. I like the 8 shots of 357 magnum anyways.

On another gun forum there are many complaints of the G22. The complaints are by police officers. Some of them have been complaining for years.

I'm not a Glock guy. But if I had to trust one, it would be a 9MM Glock.

The bad thing about guns is they only fail when you are shooting them. They seem to work just fine in the holster. I have carried a Glock for 20 years and the only failure was in a match when I did not fully seat the magazine. Tap, rack, back in business. Just like everything else man made, Glocks do break, just not very often.

Love my Smith's and Colts....
Lots of rounds with a Glock 23 and 19.

Show your Smith's and Colts to your friends.

Show your Glock to the badguys.............

I own a Harley Davidson motorcycle and a Suzuki motorcycle. Go to the Suzuki forums and they're always dissing the Harleys . . . go to the Harley forums and they're always dissing the rice burners.

No different here.

All mechanical devices fail with enough use and time. Sometimes that time is vary poorly timed. I just hope they track down the problem and so something about it to better protect their officers.

True. Hey, should I bring revolvers into the mix? Never seen a revolver fail an operator. Just need to train the operators to hit their target with six shots or less. ;)

A Glock revolver would not have gone out of battery when pushed into the bad guy's back. :)

While I like to poke fun of the Glock, I did consider it as a carry piece.
Starting with everything that can be taken seriously and eliminating from there, the Glock stays in the running almost to the bitter end.
revolvers got eliminated out of the gate.
Im a firm believer in "it starts with a four and ends with a thud" ... well thats a wide chunk of hardware as much as I love the 44 magnum.
this mandates an auto to trim up that waistline.
frame mounted safety ....
lemme get this straight ... the keys to the car are located in that part subject to the most violent of forces in the entire machine and you expect them to stay put in a drag race....
Safety's cant be in the slide
Glock still fits this description ...
in fact at this point I was down to 6 guns .. M&P, USP, XD, Glock sig P220 and 1911 ... reliability and availability considered.
I wanted a device that resembled a traditional safety .... Glock finaly got eliminated as did others
USP, P220 and grandpa 11 remained

I dont like plastic as KB's can happen USP lost
11 or multiply by 20 .... the hot rodability of the 100 year classic won.

Under serious thought and stringent criteria ... I might pick on it ... but I must also admit that its elimination boiled down to things one might dismiss as matters of taste alone ... that says something.

Only a naive person forces a gun into his foe's back. Not only will an auto go "out of battery"; getting that close leaves you open for a disarming attempt.

While I was in the academy a number of people, mostly females, where having lots of malfunctions with their chosen Glock 19s. The most common cause was "improper grip" i.e. limp wristing. When the instructors handed them a 5946 the guns ran perfect. That didn't score Glock any points in my book.

And as I sit here and think about it, most of the AD stories I can think of involve Glocks. Weird...

"And as I sit here and think about it, most of the AD stories I can think of involve Glocks. Weird..."

Well, understandable because Glocks have been the most purchased semiauto handgun in the U.S. for quite a while, especially among those who carry a gun the most, cops, with who they are wildly popular. Although though my department issues something else, 7 of the 8 current officers in my squad carry them even though they had to buy them if they wanted them. The other fellow carrries an M&P (department issue) and I carry a Colt 1911 type (Commander).

Also, taking a Glock apart to clean it involves pulling the trigger while the gun is still fully assembled.

As to the original point of the thread, yes, that is wierd. Glocks are normally as reliable as anything else made currently, simple to use and usually still work while filthy dirty.

One disturbing practice I have noticed in police ammunition issue: Many departments will use up the duty ammo the officers have been carrying for a while during a qualification or training shoot, and then issue new carry ammo at the end of the class. The officers load it up and go back to work. It isn't unusual for officers to be issued ammo from a new production lot or batch and nobody knows that the new batch is good until either the next training shoot or until an officer shoots some of it during an encounter and experiences a problem. If there is a problem with that ammo batch, no one may find out about it for a long time.

Sure, the firearms staff should do some random testing of any new batch of ammo before issuing it, including a chronograph test, but few departments do consistently.

Twice during the 20 years I have carried a .45 ACP, my department has changed the specific load they issued for .45's. Changes were within the same brand and bullet weight, from Federal Hydro-Shock with the post, to the more rounded bullet without the post and in Plus-P, and then to the bonded bullet in Plus-P. Each time, I asked, "How do I know this is going to work in MY gun?" Blank looks, followed up with, "Because it's good ammo" or "It works in the 9's; we shot some" or such. Which didn't answer the question, "How will it work in MY gun?" I would ask for an extra box of 50 to go shoot right then, but the stuff is expensive and they never did. I always went to a commercial source and bought some myself and tested it, but it is never from the same production lot the department has. Even with all department ammo, and even if it is the same style and loading the department issued before, it is rare they give me ammo from the same lot as the old ammo I just shot up.

I can see why; in my department, officers will be carrying duty guns in .380, 9mm, .357 Sig, .40 S&W and .45 ACP, in multiple models of guns from Glock, Sig-Sauer, S&W, Springfield (XD), Beretta and Colt. The only way to verify that everybody's ammo will work in everybody's guns is to give them 50 or 100 rounds to shoot right now, and then if that works, issue them more from the same production lots to take back to work. That is expensive, using up twice the high priced JHP duty stuff we use now. Yes, the extra premium duty stuff would reduce the amount of ball purchased and used to train with, but that ball is a lot cheaper to shoot.

I hope the Saint Pete's P.D. finds out what caused the problem quickly. When you need your gun, you need to have confidence it is going to work, because you have other concerns needing your immediate attention.

May God watch over your kids, Jimmy, as well of the rest of us.

I would bet that these "accidental discharges" had a couple of things in common:

1. They were not in a holster nor lying in a safe. I'd opine someone was handling them.

2. The "accidental discharge" occurred when they were being holstered.

My dad told me that I should always leave things alone that I did not fully understand. Some of them are rattlesnakes, red-headed bartenders, chain saws, and semi-automatic weapons. I, now, understand semi-automatic weapons--they will not discharge if one keeps his/her finger out of the trigger guard.

I guess the beloved Blocks, dont go bang every time after all.

I have recently read a report which blames many of the Glock .40 failures on the fact that (at least in certain models) the .40 fires from an unsupported chamber. It seems there have been a great many cartridge blowouts and deformed cartridges which have caused malfunction.

I am truly sorry to hear of the loss resulting from the incident posted in the OP. I pray God keep and protect the fallen and heal the families.

that's why my criteria includes a frame mounted traditional safety.
I've had my coffee this morning I am alert, I could safely handle a Glock for hours without incident in my current state.
throw in a long hard day, perhaps a fever from the flu and a strong desire to just curl up in bed and sleep ..... I am not so confident I could then handle a Glock without issue.
thats why I cling to the traditional safety lever that the Glock has deleted.

Multiple failures "out of the blue" during a high-stress situation would seem to definitely point to poor grip discipline (limp wristing or similar). Glocks are not the only semiauto THAT could happen with. Trusty revolvers, still being a mechanical device, are not immune to failure either....ever lost a cylinder latch or had a cylinder lock up...nothing is 100%. For everybody that has had a failure, there is always that guy who has fired 100,000 rounds with no issues.

Statistically, if multiple officers experienced the same problem at the same time, it's less likely human factors or individual gun issues. I agree with the other posters that suggested you look at the ammo. If all the rounds are from the same lot and have been maintained similarly, that would explain the problem better. I wouldn't be the least surprised to learn the ammo has some issues.

Perhaps Jimmy will clarify, but when he posted "[The officer rescue squad had number of FTF/FTF malfunctions while firing at the lone suspect hiding in the attic.]" I took that as meaning having failure to feed AND failure to fire malfunctions. How does one hold a Glock to cause failure to fire?

This may or may not have any bearing on the incident in question: A few departments issuing 3rd gen .40 Glocks have had issues with stoppages, usually but not always with lights attached. Despite changes in magazine springs and followers Glock wasn't able to completely eliminate this from happening.

If you go to the 10-8 forums and search for "Glock 22 issue" you'll find lots of info on this. Several agencies that had issued the Glock 22 replaced them with Glock 17 because of the stoppages. I think the Indiana State Police was one of these agencies.

Well I might as well jump in on this one. First off I love S&W and I think they have the finest revolver in the world. I do own some S&W auto's. I do also own some 1911's. So that being said here we go. Why in the world would you EVER want to get close enough with a weapon when you dont have to and put it into someones back. I think EVERY police officer knows that a semi auto will not fire out of battery far enough or at least i hope they do. And if your fellow officer or another person is fighting over a gun and you have a clear shot, then why was the bad guy not shot by the other officer? The other problems have to be due to maintenance at some point. Maybe the armory did something wrong if they even have one. Some major agency's dont even have one at times. Not saying they dont. And again I have seen more things go wrong with ammo then with the firearm. And they might pass out duty ammo every few years. Some little police departments make the officer buy it so it at times has been with him since he started with his department. I also know some agencys will use a mag from a generation one in the flipping generation three's if its' still in service. We all know how well springs last for 20 years in a double stack mag loaded all the time. Can anyone here right now tell me we can take an M&P auto and burry it for anytime in the ground and dig it up wipe it off and it will shoot? Or a 1911? At Front Sight and Gun Sight as soon as the sand gets up and around the 1911 has A LOT of problems running. Love it and shoot it. But you can only re invent that wheel so many times. And back to how great the revolver is. Love it and they do work but they have problems also. Anyone ever seen the Trooper for South Carolina and his shooting he lost? Tpr. Coates fired and hit 5 of 6 rounds center mass in the bowling pin kill zone what have you with .357 125gr semi jacket lead noise HP, magic bullet. After the bad guy was shot he returned fire on the Tpr and killed him. The Tpr got shot because he could no longer return fire. You know why? He only had 6 rounds and they were all well placed. But **** happens and you do need more ammo. And the 20/20 on it now some other things wet wrong but the rounds didnt kill the guy. Police it seems actually qual more today then years ago. Just years ago people shot more on their own and grew up around firearms and had basic skills of shooting before becoming the police. How many guns you know that can do this?

YouTube - Glock 21 Buried 2 years then 500rd test fire

Glock Failures In Gunfight
 

The information I received via telephone from Florida was that the Officer Rescue Squad was firing upward from behind shields with Glocks and Failure to load and Failure to Fires were occuring. "Tap-Rack" and fire and
FTL/FTF again.
Monday Morning Quarterbacking on my part (three States away) I wondered if "Limp Wristing" (From behind shields and firing upward) might have been one problem?
I am sorry for the delay in posting but my medical issues has been winning this bout.
Jimmy

My son's department had a problem with Glock 22 AFTER installing the light kit....Seems kit was a little heavy for that weapon...Lighter kits seemed to correct the problem....Things change all those many years ago they taught not to hold lite directly under barrel as it gave the bad guy (guys) a direct target....????? I hate the Glock look but have always found them to be reliable, never tried one with a light attached, or in a gun fight.....

I too have heard of the Glock 23/22 and a light problem and the .40 cal Glocks in general having a bit of a hairball problem,that said......

If they were going at it from behind a shield then maybe the gun was rested on it? and maybe had a light on it? maybe that's why?

I haven't heard of the Glock in .357 Sig going kersplooy and I hope not as I have one......

Hey,nothings perfect.

I won't trust a Glock in a caliber other than 9mm.......my only Glock is a 17.

I carried a Glock 22 as a security guard for 3 years but aside from annual quals I don't have much experience with it. It worked OK for me, but I like my 17 better.

My .02 cents:

I worked in a PD that used S&W 9mms from the '70s until 1991, when they switched to Glock 19s.

There were a few mishaps. Out of 1200 users w/ no problems, a few dopes forgot to decock and holstered cocked pistols. Some one in adm decided the Glock was the cure - there were no more decocking incidents.

As far as reliablity, I never heard of FTFs that weren't traced to operator error. Both the S&W's (469s, 669s) and the Glocks performed well, again despite the fact these were carried by people that were not true "gun" people.

One other thing, regarding the reliablity of revolvers, a guy next to me at a range training course one day drew his model 64, fired three shots and the nose of the firing pin flew off. At least he had a convenient short club to use.