Glock 42 Reliability

[Duelist]

A borrowed G42 was the first gun I cleaned a 5yd dot torture with - with the first 50 rounds. My wife liked it so well she shot all of the ammo we had with us through it. The G43 got one magazine and she called it painful; the G26 got most of a magazine and called awkward.

I made a deal for a G42 and it’s been her carry gun ever since. I found myself swiping it for tiny gun duties often enough that I got a second one. It’s unique in that it suits her small hands very well, and sits in the creases of my hands so well when I burrito around it that it is very comfortable and easy to shoot fast and well.

They are very reliable with FMJ round nose ball and JHPs, but do not seem to like flat nosed WWB.

Haven’t been shooting much with anything but .22s in the past year or more. A box or two a month at most of centerfire is about it. Kind of glad to have vetted guns and some ammo on hand right now.

[jandbj]

Since the first 42 I shot at an LE demo, that little pocket rocket shot like a rimfire and ran like a scalded dog. Lost my first one in the divorce. Recently replaced with a newer one and it runs great too.

It’s such a great combination of tiny while still being exceptionally shootable.

[lwt16]

We have three at home. One early vintage, one mid, one recent build. The mid had a few stove pipe failures with Wolf steel case which seemed anemic in power but after that first box it ran well after that.

The late mode is my son's and he hasn't had any failures. He's ran fmj, Gold Dots, and Hornady HPs through it as well as some cheap steel cased loads.

I carried one on my ankle at work for many years but recently replaced it with a P365 since the Galco Ankle glove for the G42 fits that also. I've only had one failure out of about 700 rounds with the P365 so unless it gets stupid in the future, the G42 will remain in the safe. 9mm is just cheaper to train with and unlike most cops, I train with the back up as much as the primary. I'm down to about 1/2 a case of .380 left in the stash which hurts me on the inside.

[jh9]

About the "M4 cuts" in the feedramp, I tried to public-source serial numbers on GlockTalk. The picture is rather murky, the barrels with the cut and without the cut seem to be mixed in middle of the range. I have both and never noticed any difference in reliablliity, although of course it depends on the tolerance stacking. I feel like it might have been an experiment to fix some issue, which might have been abandoned.

Remember how Glock struggled with the premature slide lock-back on G42. At first they thought it was just QC. They swapped parts by warranty and hoped it would go away. Then, they decided that it must be the slide stop lever and revised it. That did exactly nothing. Only then they gave up and re-designed the magazines with the ridge that pushes bullets to the right (the "03" magazine). So in the end, the original slide stops were fine and they could return to the original spec if they wanted. Perhaps with barrels they did return, if old barrels were cheaper to make.

Tolerance stacking might be the cause. But changing exactly one variable-- the barrel-- between range sessions drastically impacted reliability for me on an early (AASA prefix; 2014ish) 42. The gunsmith modifications (polished ramp and throating to remove the bump) went from being iffy with flat points and outright unreliable with any JHP to feeding with anything. Of course it still only has a few hundred rounds through it since I don't keep a lot of .380 on hand. Datapoint of one, of course.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I bought a first one (stupid, gun nut panic). It was a horror. Jammed on the first shot so hard I couldn't clear it. Karl Rehn had to figure it out for me. Then at the range, it jammed and jammed. It fired out of battery, scaring the crap out of me with flames and smoke coming out of the injection port!!

Went back to the factory and was OK. The mags are not drop free usually and it didn't jam in several bug matches. I'm mildly suspicious of it but haven't decided to do anything about it.

[Ed L]

The mags are not drop free usually and it didn't jam in several bug matches. I'm mildly suspicious of it but haven't decided to do anything about it.

I get the feeling that it is designed to be a pocketgun that is as small as possible with no consideration of reloads after it is empty.

[GearFondler]

I get the feeling that it is designed to be a pocketgun that is as small as possible with no consideration of reloads after it is empty.

In that case they should have actually made it small.

[757_Magnum]

I get the feeling that it is designed to be a pocketgun that is as small as possible with no consideration of reloads after it is empty.

In that case they should have actually made it small.

IMHO, I think they were trying to get as close while keeping the gun shootable and allowing decent manipulation, rather than another entry in an already crowded niche. I ran mine in a 200+ rd concealed handgun class, with about 700 flawless rds total. I repeated this class specifically to decide if the little 380 had a place in my toolbox, or if I was just fooling myself and wearing it as a talisman. This was not your typical 2 hrs of lecture and 15 minutes on the range. We ran multiple scenarios from various starting positions, including cover/concealment and no shoot targets to simulate bystanders. The only mod on the 42 was a green Dawson fiber optic front sight, and a Vickers TangoDown mag release. It ran without any hiccups, and speed and accuracy was nearly on par with my doublestack Glocks. Manipulations were fairly easy, though I learned I had to move the heel of my palm out of the way for mag changes, and that the TD mag release wasn't that great since it moved the pressure point further back on an already tiny grip. Reloads were with stock mags drawn from my left front pocket. I was happy with the results. I can't imagine I would have felt the same with any of the true pocket guns I've owned in the past, nor would I be comfortable employing most of them with bystanders nearby.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I found a two mag DeSantis pocket holster designed for a cargo pants pocket. Since I wear them a bit, LL Bean usually - it was good. Not fast but convenient.

For a BUG, short range match, I had a Blade-Tech two mag on my belt and the other in my cargo pockets.

[Gater]

The mags I have have 03 marked mag bodies and 02 marked followers...is there anything more recent than that?