Not too long ago I was out for a day of shooting behind the house in Michigan when my Glock 23 had a blow out. I am certain it was no fault of the manufacturer. I happened to be shooting reloads that a friend of mine had brought out. He tends to load a little hot and I obviously chambered an overly hot round. Other than the fact that Glock advises not to use reloads because Glocks have an unsupported chamber, I did not see any reason not to use the reloads. I have shot hundreds of reloads through my pistol and never had an issue.

Never-the-less after about 150 rounds that day, while moving and shooting at a static target at about 15 yards, I pulled the trigger and the round detonated in the chamber. It blew out the extractor and spring, and left a partially disintigrated casing lodged in the chamber. My hand felt like I had just taken a metal baseball bat to a street light post, that numb tingling feeling. I was wearing shooting glasses thank god, because a shard of casing was lodged in the plastic lens of my right eye piece. I had a small cut on my right cheek, I’m a left handed shooter by the way, and some minor powder burns on my right hand.

I have heard a lot of the older shooters that I shoot with gripe about the composite frame of a glock and its reliability. I can tell you that the frame was not damaged in any way and dealt with the detonation fine. After a day or two I took the pistol to Jay’s Sporting Goods in Gaylord, MI. They are an authorized Glock retailer so I took the pistol there and asked what could be done. I was informed that Glock had a lifetime warranty against malfunctioning parts and that the shipping and repair was free. They could not tell me how long it would take but said it was usually pretty quick.

That was on a Friday, 10 days later on a Monday I got a call from Jay’s saying my pistol was in and I could come pick it up. The man on the phone apologized because it had actually come in Friday afternoon, but no one had called me. Thats pretty dang impressive a 7 day turn around including shipping. I picked up the pistol and opened the box. I checked it against my serial number and took it home. I was very impressed, the pistol looked brand new, the slide had been refinished, it had a new extractor, and was nice and clean, with a light layer of oil on it. Enclosed was a little hand writter note from the Tech that fixed it, saying “Mr Thompson, I received your firearm and fixed the extractor, the spring, and resurfaced the chamber, I polished the barrel, and refinished the slide…” “After completing the work I fired two 10 round magazines to safety check it and it is ready for your use” “If you have any other issues please return it as soon as possible, but I might suggest not shooting hot reloads again.”

Needless to say I still shoot reloads but only my own, and they are loaded to factory specs. I have put a little more than 1000 rds through it since that incident and have not had a single issue.

Obviously we all feel different about our chosen favorites but with customer service like that, I will be a Glock customer for a long time to come.

Stay Frosty,
USMC Patriot