Gravity assistance for empty mag drop (specifically, on Gen4 Glock 19) ?

[LeeC]

Magsz, LittleLebowski -- Thanks for the lube suggestions.

Magsz -- didn't know about the assist from the follower pushing on the slide while in battery, good point.

Joseph --

"the end result is you will never have to worry about stripping an empty mag with a loaded mag in your reload hand. lol"

Yeah, already been there, done that. My primary interest is defensive carry, so I'll give your technique a try. Thanks much for taking the time to spell it out for me.

JV -- I'll check for mag burs, thanks for the tip.

Chris -- My bad for not thinking in metalworking terms. I've done way more sanding with sanded paper which is why that came to mind. Plus, I hadn't read your profile, which I should have done before replying, because I thought there was a chance that you were just joking. I'm saving your recommendation as a more advanced remediation if I'm still having trouble after applying the other good tips.

Thanks all. What a helpful forum!

Lee

[JV_]

When the slide is locked back you have nothing but gravity to work for you.

I wouldn't say it's nothing but gravity, you do have a little bit of spring tension from the follower pushing UP on the slide release. If you check out a brand new Glock, the mags pop out of the mag well pretty nicely. After the mag springs set-in a little, it's less forceful.

[Byron]

I start with 180-grit wet-dry paper. You don't want to go to fine, because you don't want to polish the inside of the magwell - that can actually increase friction between the magwell and magazine.

Hey Chris - would you mind expanding your thoughts on this statement? In my mind, polishing a surface = less friction, though I recognize that is probably overly simplistic.

What is happening that causes a smoothly polished plastic surface to produce more friction than a roughly sanded one? Is it simply that the polished surface has more surface area that is making contact with the magazine?

[Zhurdan]

If you're going to sand... go super slow. You can't sand some back on.

[LeeC]

If you're going to sand... go super slow. You can't sand some back on.

Roger that.

I unloaded all seven of my 15-round Glock factory mags to do more testing on. Not exactly "brand new" but have only had about 2,000 rounds divided evenly among them, all on indoor, clean range floors. Figured out one reason why my gravity-only mag drop was hit or miss. I have two Gen3 mags and five Gen4 mags.

Only visible difference is the extra notch on the Gen4 models for lefties. Both of the Gen3 mags drop without a problem. I thought maybe I was pushing the release so hard that I was binding from the opposite side, since the Gen4 mags are notched on both sides, but couldn't prove that theory. Four out of five of the Gen4 mags won't drop if empty, even after generously lubing with Ballistol (what I had on hand). I closely compared the one Gen4 mag that would drop empty to the four that would not, and could not find a difference.

Just out of curiosity, I figured out that it takes 9 or 10 rounds before the rest of the Gen4 mags will drop with gravity alone, and no sane amount of wrist flipping would do the job. I don't have calipers to check for slight dimensional differences between the mags, but increasing the size of the mag well very slightly sounds like a simple solution with no down side other than the effort to make it so.

So-o-o-o, I think I'll be stripping down to the frame and sanding down the mag well just a tad as Chris suggested.

[ToddG]

FWIW, quite a few folks have had to tweak the internal angle on the mag button for the gen4 guns because it can hang up the mags on occasion.

[LeeC]

FWIW, quite a few folks have had to tweak the internal angle on the mag button for the gen4 guns because it can hang up the mags on occasion.

Todd, by tweak the internal angle, do you mean to remove some material from the mag engagement end of the button, such as the area shown in red below? Stock parts look pretty much 90 degrees on both the button and mag on the horizontal face that retains the mag. Seems like shaving a few degrees away would help free the mag towards the end of the button press. Could also be that my thumb gets tired and I'm not pressing as hard.



I stripped the gun down to the frame and sanded the well some with 3M #400 wet/dry paper for plastics. That has mostly solved the problem but I did have one mag not drop during range drills yesterday. I should have stopped and noted the mag number but was focused on the drill and tossed it to the floor with the others. Will have to run through the mags to see if I can find the oddball, if the problem is even in the mag. Before sanding, one of the gen3 mags would drop all of the time and the other most of the time, but I couldn't see any difference with the naked eye. After sanding, all mags dropped with gravity only during the test at home. I added the Grip Force Adapter where I had no adapter before, so that moved the end of my thumb back a tiny bit also, compared to the bare frame, but probably not enough to make any difference.

[ToddG]

LeeC -- It was more along the back top edge of the contact point between the mag and the catch. The catches sometimes seem to be just a bit too long there and won't drop mags properly unless the button is held down throughout the entire drop.

[LeeC]

ToddG

LeeC -- It was more along the back top edge of the contact point between the mag and the catch. The catches sometimes seem to be just a bit too long there and won't drop mags properly unless the button is held down throughout the entire drop.

Todd -- that sounds like a slightly different problem, because once my mag starts to drop, it always drops completely. But when it hangs, no amount of button pushing will free it up and get it started dropping without a tug on the bottom of the mag. But both malfunctions are probably caused by the same issue of the button not completely disengaging and clearing the mag.

I ran drills with my Glock 19 on Monday with the newly sanded magazine well. Looks like I'm almost there but still have some minor mystery malfunction. One of six mags failed to drop. Pushed release button several times, snapped gun downward, but couldn't get the mag out without left-hand assist. So I set that one (#6) aside and didn't use it anymore. Back at home, the same mag dropped fine. So I emptied all 6 mags and ran through a couple dozen empty mag gravity drop tests, and was able to reproduce the hang on a different magazine (#1).

Since it seems that the mag may sometimes be getting snagged on the very end of the release button, I'm going to try shaving that down a bit to see if it solves the problem. If I screw it up, I'm only out about $5.

[LeeC]

On Friday, I reduced the size of the mag release button surfaces that contact the magazine, and sanded the well a bit more. Did a couple dozen dry runs at home and had no failures to drop mags. Had no failures at the range either. However, Saturday during a drill, I had a mag hang on me again. Major frustration. I'm fighting a head cold, so I didn't investigate further after the range.

Today, Sunday, I just did dry runs again at home and kept going for about 10 minutes, just running through slide lock mag drops and reloads on empty mags. I was beginning to wonder if the heat of live fire was somehow changing things, and then I had a mag hang. I think I figured out what is going on. There were mechanical issues with the mags catching and I've taken care of those with the sanding. But there was also operator error creeping in.

I noticed that because my thumb can just barely reach the mag release button, over time I was starting to cheat and not rotate my grip any for the reload. This works for a little while but my wrists are damaged from carpal tunnel syndrome, so it doesn't take many stress reps stretching to depress the button before fatigue sets in. Because my wrists are screwed up, I don't have normal pressure feedback and rely somewhat on discomfort level to gauge applied pressure. Didn't even think about all that until just now. As my wrist was getting tired from abnormal thumb extension, the discomfort level was tricking me into thinking I was applying the same pressure on every release press, but in reality the pressure was falling off with fatigue. Like the doctor says, if it hurts when you do that, then don't do that!

I think if I make a conscious effort to rotate my grip slightly for the reload, the problem is solved.

Thanks,

Lee