slide lock fell out of my G19 while shooting

[JonInWA]

At one point, I believe early in the Gen 3 production, or perhaps earlier, the wasp-waisted (thinner in the middle) slide lock spring on the compact Glocks was replaced with one that is equally wide along the entire spring. If you have the earlier one, simple replace it with the newer production one.

Best, Jon

[David Armstrong]

The slide lock spring shouldn't normally get much abuse, so those round counts without problem don't seem surprising (good work with shooting that much, though!). My guess for the issue is occasional bad batches of springs. I probably replace them too often now--but at $3.00 a part it seems like cheap insurance against a slide going down range at an unfortunate time.

Thta was sort of my thought, something unusual in a run of springs or a change in the part. Regarding the shooting, I was lucky in that my job involved a lot of shooting, I enjoyed shooting in various competitions, my hobby was shooting and shooting also was a way I relaxed when stressed out. Getting a fair amount fo free ammo helped quite a bit also. Put all the guns together and it comes out to a bit over 500K for the lifetime count. Now I'm pretty stove up (some of it due to shooting, ironically!) and I doubt I'd average much more than 100 rounds a month. But it was fun while it lasted!

[Artemas]

This happened to me about 2 weeks ago. The slide lock simply fell out with the spring. I replaced both and it happened again within two mags.

The second new spring and lock are very lose once you lock the slide open. The spring also has some track marks on it where the recoil spring assembly is touching it, but I can't get it to push down any further (RSA is properly seated too).

[Chuck Haggard]

This happened to me about 2 weeks ago. The slide lock simply fell out with the spring. I replaced both and it happened again within two mags.

The second new spring and lock are very lose once you lock the slide open. The spring also has some track marks on it where the recoil spring assembly is touching it, but I can't get it to push down any further (RSA is properly seated too).

That simply ain't right. I'd call Glock on that one.

[Jeep]

This happened to me about 2 weeks ago. The slide lock simply fell out with the spring. I replaced both and it happened again within two mags.

The second new spring and lock are very lose once you lock the slide open. The spring also has some track marks on it where the recoil spring assembly is touching it, but I can't get it to push down any further (RSA is properly seated too).

Are you sure you have that spring seated correctly? First time I re-installed the spring, something similar happened to me, but it turned out that I had the spring/lock in wrong (which pretty much always happens to me the first time I try to get small parts in correctly).

[JBP55]

This happened to me about 2 weeks ago. The slide lock simply fell out with the spring. I replaced both and it happened again within two mags.

The second new spring and lock are very lose once you lock the slide open. The spring also has some track marks on it where the recoil spring assembly is touching it, but I can't get it to push down any further (RSA is properly seated too).

Wrong spring or not installed properly.

[Artemas]

Are you sure you have that spring seated correctly? First time I re-installed the spring, something similar happened to me, but it turned out that I had the spring/lock in wrong (which pretty much always happens to me the first time I try to get small parts in correctly).

Pretty sure. I tore down my other glock the see which way it all goes together. Slide lock faces with the notch down and the cut out to the rear. The spring only goes in one way (unless it is suppose to stick up in the air and I need to bend it down).
I looked into the slot where the spring goes in, I can see something shiny in there. I am not sure if it is a piece of broken spring or just the frame with some errant lube.

I will likely fiddle with it more until I get a chance to call Glock.

[Jeep]

Pretty sure. I tore down my other glock the see which way it all goes together. Slide lock faces with the notch down and the cut out to the rear. The spring only goes in one way (unless it is suppose to stick up in the air and I need to bend it down).
I looked into the slot where the spring goes in, I can see something shiny in there. I am not sure if it is a piece of broken spring or just the frame with some errant lube.

I will likely fiddle with it more until I get a chance to call Glock.

I'd try to knock whatever it is out of the frame. If that doesn't work then I would call Glock (who will probably tell you to find a local Glock armorer).

[JBP55]

Pretty sure. I tore down my other glock the see which way it all goes together. Slide lock faces with the notch down and the cut out to the rear. The spring only goes in one way (unless it is suppose to stick up in the air and I need to bend it down).
I looked into the slot where the spring goes in, I can see something shiny in there. I am not sure if it is a piece of broken spring or just the frame with some errant lube.

I will likely fiddle with it more until I get a chance to call Glock.

If you remove the spring from the second Glock and look in the slot for the spring it will look the same as the first pistol.

[DBR]

I have done 4000fps video of several Glock models. For some reason during recoil the G19 slide lock bounces up and down almost its full range of travel several times as the slide cycles. I observed this on two Gen2 G19s and a Gen3 G19. This means the slide lock spring is seeing two or three up and down cycles every time a shot is fired or about three times as many cycles as the recoil spring.

I did not see this phenomenon on several G17s, a G22 or a G27.