Gen5 Glock heat issues

[ST911]

Playing with a Farnam rotator or plate rack, a few hundred rounds in 15-30 minutes, my G45 can't be reholstered AIWB. OWB, enough heat sinks through the holster that it is uncomfortable. One of my last outings I left the gun in a puddle for a few minutes to cool, shook it out, and kept going. Because Glock. I don't recall similar heat issues OWB with earlier gens, but I didn't think about them either. I also think I'm just shooting gen5s better, and therefore probably more.

I wouldn't think there'd be much if any difference, but who knows.

[Clobbersaurus]

I’m heading to the range in an hour or so. I’ll do 50 rounds of consecutive doubles drills with my Gen 2 and my Gen 5, which should get them pretty hot (it will only take a few minutes for each), and see if I can tell a difference by feel with the two guns. I wish I had a temp gun, but best I can do. Will report back tonight.

It sucks that TC is having these issues, as the Gen 5 is a great gun. Without the optic concerns, it would be more of a range issue, like the P7, but with his chosen optic and it’s battery issues, I get where his concerns are coming from. It’s a big issue, especially if his training and carry guns are the same.

[TCinVA]

I mean, other than this particular issue I don't have any complaints about the Gen5 gun. It's accurate enough to score 300 out of 300 on the Rangemaster bullseye course and it hasn't exhibited a single stoppage in thousands of rounds.

It's a really good pistol, especially for a Glock. I just wish it didn't burn my dick root.

[Spartan1980]

I have lost track, what is the latest thinking on this topic:

1) that if it is hotter, is a comfort issue with appendix and high volume shooting. Yes

2) it is a potential durability issue for Gen 5 pistols. Very, extremely, highly doubtful. To change the heat treat/temper properties it'll have to get way past being able to put into a holster without melting it. And the frame of the gun...

3) it is a safety issue (cookoffs). Very doubtful

4) it is a red dot battery issue. Possibly

5) it is a red dot durability issue. Possibly

6) none of the above. No

See above.

I'm very curious if this ends up tracking back to certain ammunition types and the powder used in them. I know when I was shooting revolver in comps, Titegroup was a no go. It heated the gun up so much that practice was an arduous affair with waiting for the gun to cool off. No such problem with WST or Clays.

[Clobbersaurus]

Just got back from the range, temp was about 77 deg, no cloud, and bright, late afternoon sun. I put both guns on the range table while I set up training equipment and loaded mags.



Both guns were not hot to the touch at all after sitting in the sun, I could feel no difference between slide temp in either gun. Oddly enough, the frame of the guns was slightly warmer than the slides.

I ran the doubles drill on both guns, 50 rounds each. Splits were all under .25 for both guns and I reloaded and shot again after a quick look at the timer to confirm splits. With the Gen 2, after 50 rounds of doubles, the slide forward of the ejection port was two hot to hold for any longer than about a second. The slide behind the ejection port barely felt warm.

The Gen 5 felt exactly the same as the Gen 2. Slide forward of the ejection port too hot to hold for more than about a second. The slide behind the ejection port was barely warm.

I holstered both guns after the drill and put my hand around the bottom of the holster to see if I could get any heat transfer, I didn’t feel anything, but I use a thick Blade-Tech competition holster.

I went through 300 rounds in just under two hours. The slide of the Gen 2 got a bit hotter than the doubles drill during an extended Blake drill session, but not hot enough to bother my trigger finger when in register.

Maybe I’m just not putting rounds out fast enough to see an issue. I hope the OP gets it figured out.

Edit to add: ammo was 124g AE.

[Doc_Glock]

Thanks for the back to back.

[LOKNLOD]

2) it is a potential durability issue for Gen 5 pistols. Very, extremely, highly doubtful. To change the heat treat/temper properties it'll have to get way past being able to put into a holster without melting it. And the frame of the gun...

Im not judging it as a problem yet, but would note I think the frame is the concern from a a durability standpoint, not the slide.
IIRC what finally “killed” Todd’s P30 test was a piece of the frame broke and HK attributed it to heat from the heavy firing schedule.

[JodyH]

"Point and shoot" IR thermometers are not very accurate due to two major flaws (not really flaws, more like limitations that must be accounted for).

Spot size ratio - You have to make sure the object you are trying to get a temperature off of fills the measuring area. There should be a diagram or chart of what diameter that measurement area is at varying distances. The inexpensive handhelds are basically averaging the temps of everything within its view, if you have 1/3 slide and 2/3 cooler background in the viewing area, your average will be way off what the slide temp actually is.

Emissivity - Getting an accurate temperature with IR requires you to know the emissivity of the object you're trying to get a reading off of and then account for that. The handheld IR temp guns have a fixed emissivity and that makes comparing objects with different emissivities much more complicated. I haven't calculated them, but just glancing at the various Glock generation finishes it appears they might have significantly different emissivities.

A great way to show the effect of emissivity on the apparent temperature of an object is to lay a flat piece of polished aluminum (aluminum foil works great) out on some hot asphalt on a hot day and let it heat up to where you can barely touch it. Then use your IR temp gun to see what it says the temperature is... you're going to be surprised at how "cold" your IR temp gun thinks it is because the temp gun is probably set to .95 emissivity and polished aluminum is around 0.1 .

As to why the Gen5 might actually get hotter at the outer surface? My guess is the thermal conductivity of the finish is transferring the heat to the surface at a faster rate than the old finish. Could be good in that it's drawing heat away from the internals of the pistol and sending that heat off into space. Could be a bad thing in that some of that heat will soak into something like a ACRO sight with an aluminum body full of electronics (lot's of good conductors) that also has air cavities and assorted insulating materials which trap that heat.

Maybe if I get some free time I'll take a few high end IR cameras and guns to the range and run a few experiments to see what's going on.

[Mike C]

Im not judging it as a problem yet, but would note I think the frame is the concern from a a durability standpoint, not the slide.
IIRC what finally “killed” Todd’s P30 test was a piece of the frame broke and HK attributed it to heat from the heavy firing schedule.

You are correct from what I remember and I’ll add the gun continued to run when it was cool but when it heated up it started to malfunction IIRC.

@JodyH, super interesting post. Thanks.

[JHC]

Playing with a Farnam rotator or plate rack, a few hundred rounds in 15-30 minutes, my G45 can't be reholstered AIWB. OWB, enough heat sinks through the holster that it is uncomfortable. One of my last outings I left the gun in a puddle for a few minutes to cool, shook it out, and kept going. Because Glock. I don't recall similar heat issues OWB with earlier gens, but I didn't think about them either. I also think I'm just shooting gen5s better, and therefore probably more.

I wouldn't think there'd be much if any difference, but who knows.

IDK but I find this all very interesting. I'll probably never see it as my typical, almost universal range session is 150 rounds spread across about 2 hours of structured drills in which I typically log the time and hits of each run and usually mark the hits on the target for accountability of scoring the subsequent run. Hence a lot of cooling time.