I wonder if it is really. It could be something similar happening in very rare circumstances, but not easily observed or replicated outside of that context.Originally Posted by KevH
How was it determined that the WMLs were causing issues, and why wasn't it discovered prior to weapons being issued with those WMLs? I can't recall the particulars.
My opinion is more of a hammer vs striker,than poly vs steel/aluminum. Most all of the guns that we are comparing against poly striker guns are hammer fired. I believe a hammer gun is more reliable and more susceptible to fire with debris involved.
A lot of the older glocks and different striker guns did choke when limp wristed. I have personally seen it happen multiple times. But that same shooter tried a hk usp and a p226. Neither choked. This is with different people.
There have been some damn good poly hammer guns through the years that have been solid.
I agree the newest iteration of Glocks are solid. I think being better sprung and having tighter lockup and more positive ejection play a big role. Striker guns are still evolving. And now we have so many different designs.
But HAMMER is mo better IMO.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Wow.
So the thread title talks about tactical accuracy of polymer frames vs metal frames but the OP is all about reliability differences ?
Since we seem to be talking about reliability differences...
This has been discussed here before, maybe in the OIS video thread or various Glock threads.
First eliminate incidents where rounds struck the weapon or the officer's hands. Any gun will be compromised if it, or the shooters hands take a round.
Even excluding hand/gun hits, there seems to be a noticeably higher incidence of malfunctions seen in OIS videos vs on the range.
Now that that is out of the way. Is frame flex in some polymer guns an issue ? Maybe but it's the least of the factors at play here.
So what are the key factors ? I see two.
First, IME heavier guns are both easier to shoot well tend to be less sensitive to grip induced malfunctions. Why? more mass in the frame means more of a stable base for the forces that cycle the pistol. Less mass in the frames means your grip has to provide the stable base for the cycle of operation.
Second, as KevH mentioned there is a lot going on in gunfights and participants rarely stand still. why is that important? Two reasons, IME most LE firearms training involves shooting while remaining stationary and when people used to shooting while remaining stationary start to move they tend to relax their grip on the gun.
I'm not just talking about people relaxing their grip when shooting while moving. I see it when they move then resume shooting while stationary. I've seen this in USPSA and IDPA, Hell, I see it at work in in shooters transitioning from shooting to standing to shooting kneeling in the same spot. For a long time I noticed many shooters would hit standing and start missing when they went to kneeling. I finally figured out they were relaxing their grip. I helped several shooters up their scores simply by having them re-grip the gun after going to kneeling.
Both the mass of the frame, and the distribution of that mass can effect reliability. This is why many agencies now test potential duty guns both with and without WML. The WML induced issues with Gen 3 glocks .40 cals were a some what different situation where frame flex and structural integrity were factors.
It's not.
Modern Glocks work differently with a dual-captive recoil springs and guns like the P320's and M&P's work off of a steel chassis independent of the polymer frame. The frame still flexes and absorbs some recoil, but it is nothing like the Gen3 40 S&W issues.
To make a really long story short, when Glock chambered guns in 40 S&W in the Gen2 era they essentially took a 9mm and bored out the barrel to .40 caliber. They didn't change anythinge else (recoil spring, magazine springs, etc.). To ensure the larger diameter flat point 40 S&W rounds fed, they also left the back of the chamber heavily beveled. This caused two things. The locking block pins would break as the guns beat themselves to death with the much higher pressured round and the unsupported chamber caused by the bevel would cause reloaded cases or other weak cases to blow hence what was known as a Glock "Kaboom." Towards the end of the Gen2 Glock added a third pin to the locking block and increased the chamber support. They did nothing to change spring rate or add weight to the slide to mitigate the increased pressure (other guns like the H&K USP series have heavier slides in 40 S&W than 9mm). Glock offered an "upgrade" from their Gen2 guns to the new Gen3's for next to nothing back then. The 40 S&W was by far the most popular police cartridge in the late 1990's and early 2000's so everyone "upgraded" to the Gen3 Glock 22 and Glock 23's for duty use when they came out.
When Glock stuck a rail on the dustcover of their guns (Gen3) it was designed to function with their polymer light or the polymer Insight M3/M6. Both of these lights use a pinch hold down plate similar to what a Surefire X300U-A uses today. They don't clamp, they have simple bar pushed up into a slot by a spring to hold the light in place. Since both were made of polymer the both had some flex under recoil.
In 2004 or so, Surefire introduced the X200. This was when WML's really started to take off. The X200 sold like hotcakes and it and the Streamlight TLR started being not only carried, but purchased and issued by departments. And this is when the problems started...
The Surefire X200 (and later X300) are made of metal, and while the way they attach to the rail is similar to the old polymer lights, it is typically much tighter. The Streamlight TLR is even worse as no only is it made of metal, but it has an adjustable screw tightened clamp which can be made really tight.
The dustcover of the 40 S&W Glocks had flexed under recoil and absorbed some of the impact the recoil spring assembly (RSA) could not. This was not a design feature, but an unintended consequence of going to a higher pressure cartridge and using the same RSA. The metal lights made the dustcover stiff and added weight and now could not flex at all and all the recoil had to be absorbed by the RSA. The same RSA that had been used in 9mm Glocks prior to the 40 S&W being introduced. Add to that the fact that most police departments don't keep up on spring maintenance and you had a recipe for disaster.
What many departments found was their Glock 22's would work just fine without a light. The light added the gun's wouldn't function. Take the light off some would function and some would not. What happened was the lights caused the springs to wear out extremely quickly and it would induce failures to feed and failures to eject. The magazine springs also could not keep up with the increased slide velocity. Sometimes you would find a gun that wouldn't work with "practice" ammo, but would run fine with hotter "duty" ammo (like my own departments 155gr JHP's), but those guns would suffer other damage such as cracked locking blocks and locking block pins or broken takedown levers as the hotter ammo functioned the slide, but beat the gun to death.
Glock didn't want to admit there was a problem for a long time and then several "workarounds" came out. None of them really fixed the problem. The Gen4's with their dual captive recoil spring were supposed to fix the issues, but they still occasionally reared their head. The early Gen4 guns went through several RSA and magazine spring changes (very quietly) until they could finally get them to function properly. The true fix was to do what Glock did with the Gen5 Glock 22 and use a heavier slide (and different springs), but now the 40 S&W is essentially dead for LE. The real answer (and what most departments did) was to switch to 9mm, which is what that frame size Glock was originally meant (and sprung) to shoot.
The malfunctions the OP is talking about have nothing to do with polymer frames, but everything to do with adrenaline and cortisol dumps the officers are experiencing in the stress of an actual lethal force encounter. They would screw up a metal framed gun if they were carrying them just as bad. The reason you don't see that in videos is that very few cops carry guns with metal frames anymore. We live in a polymer frame world where Glock is by far the most prolific in LE.
Last edited by KevH; 09-12-2021 at 01:35 AM.
...another thing to add...
The whole limp wristing thing is a total cop-out from Glock. That has been their standard answer to everything when their gun malfunctioned going back to the mid-90's. Why? It's a sleazy way for them to blame the user and keep blame off themself. I heard it all through the late 2000's during the 40 S&W debacle. Never once did it have anything to do with the gun not functioning.
Yeah, a firm grip is better, but go ahead and play with a Glock on the range one day. You can barely hold the damn thing and most of them will function just fine.
I've been an LE armorer since 2003. Never once has a gun repeatedly malfunctioning had anything to do with the user "limp wristing."
Most of the malfunctions in gun fights seen on BWC lately are caused by the user's grip (both dominant and non-dominant hand) interfering with the cycling of the slide or inadvertently contacting the magazine release or slide stop. In the "oh shit" moment they typically don't have a good grip on the gun and are inducing a malfunction.
The best way to deal with it in training is to emphasize proper grip (over and over and over) and to teach clearance drills (ye 'ole tap, rack, bang) until they're second nature. They'll screw it up, but at least they'll know how to fix it quickly.
Let's talk about old school, metal frame pistols. There was always somebody who would show up at a training day and start off with malfunctions because their pistol was bone dry. If they had been in an OIS instead of training, they'd have been doing non-stop malfunction drills.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
Let's not forget the "Lube Your Slide Or Die!" signs at many agencies who issued Beretta 92Fs! Motor officers seemed to have particular difficulty with this due to the pistols drying out while floating in the breeze.
I agree to the statements that the recoil spring has a big influence on the reliability to cycle.
Little anecdote: My P30 never culpably malfunctioned on me in more than 10k shots (failed only 1 time but it was the ammo's fault, primer did not work, also not in another shooter's pistol). Then I took my young cousins to the range, one of them as a first time shooter. I had put a new recoil spring assembly into the P30 and loaded it with ammo having light bullets (115gr). Intention: Lessen the felt recoil for the first time shooter. Guess what happened. He limp wristed and Excalibur failed for the first time (failure to eject or to feed). I jokingly told him not to hold the gun so gay, better hold it like a hammer. At that time, a German national IPSC champion was at the range, he agreed. Then it worked. We had lots of fun that day and of course I taught them beforehand to follow the Cooper rules.
Limp wristing + strong recoil spring + light bullet + light frame = bad preconditions for reliable cycling.
Limp wristing and a too strong recoil spring are worse than a light frame, I assume.
Last edited by P30; 09-12-2021 at 05:22 AM.
But that example has nothing to do with reliability.
Accuracy is going to be different for everyone. Hand size, shape, dexterity....
I have a buddy who can turn any rifle into a target rifle. He's just naturally good it doesn't matter if it's an AR, 10/22, AK, Win94 or whatever. He makes it seem like they're all precision sniper rifles. But give him a handgun and at 3 yards he's more likely to shoot himself than the target. No matter what he does it's like having a brand new shooter pick up a handgun for the first time. None of that says anything about reliability of either platform
Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk
"When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man."
Reply With Quote
