Florida Sheriff’s Office Reports Problems with Glock Service Pistols (VIDEO)

The Palm Beach sheriff’s office is reporting an unfortunately notable streak of failures with their Glock service pistols. CBS4 obtained a confidential Sheriff’s report documenting the department’s Glock issues.

All of the Palm Beach sheriff’s problems have been striker-related, and the report is simply called “Firing Pin Issue.” In all instances of the problem, faulty strikers were causing failures to fire.

Other law enforcement agencies have heard of the Palm Beach sheriff’s department’s problems, with the Miami Dade PD even making a five-minute PSA video warning officers about the problem and how to check against it.

Glock is acting quickly to replace the parts. Glock is almost synonymous with service pistol across the country, with it being a relatively standard firearm for police departments large and small and agencies local, state and federal.

According to CBS4 News, Glock flew representatives in from Smyrna, Ga. to Palm Beach to work with the department in person and on site. Additionally, ammunition manufacturer Speer has been working directly with the PBSO to address the problems.

“We are committed to providing our customers with the best ammunition available to meet their needs”, said a Speer representative. “We have been working directly and swiftly with the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Department and their firearms manufacturer to determine a solution for their concerns about premature firing pin erosion. We are confident that we’ve jointly addressed their concern.”

It’s not clear what is causing them to see this unexpected failure rate, as there could be several causes for cracked or chipped firing pins, which is what the Palm Beach armorers have found. According to Miami Lakes gunsmith and experienced police officer Robert Hasmi, the culprit is the use of metal-injection-molding for the striker.

“If the metal is too soft that the manufacturer uses, that could also be an issue,” he said.

“Remember these are all working metal parts rubbing against each other constantly, that’s how a gun works,” said Hasmi. “The slide rubs against the frame, the barrel rubs against the slide when it, when you form its actions. It’s metal rubbing against metal.”

It’s not clear if these officers are using Glocks with the new strikers.

Many private Glock users have experienced similar problems with their strikers showing signs of accelerated wear following Glock’s transition to MIM strikers. Metal-injection-molded parts aren’t an issue if they’re done well and thoroughly inspected, and while not all guns use MIM parts, it’s not unheard of for companies to use the process, even for strikers and firing pins.

These strikers, along with a few other parts, have been criticized for not performing as well as older firearms using non-MIM manufacturing, with users seeing new Glocks that don’t extract reliably, eject case erratically and generally fail more frequently and require parts replacements at lower round counts.

Glock has often cited user error in these problem cases, however if these police departments are chiming in, then Glock may have to address the issue more directly.

The closest thing to a recall we’ve seen from Glock is an optional (but recommended) replacement recoil spring assembly that improved reliability with their then just-introduced Gen4 Glock pistols in 2011.

Do you have a Glock with a MIM striker? And have you had any problems with them?

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