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(Hattip Kilo-1 militaryphotos.net)

Lesson learned: Catastrophic G19 (Gen 3) failure – Breech Face Crack

In mid November of this last year, I found this when I was cleaning my G19 after a shooting session (no issues then) and realized I couldn’t rack my slide (the protrusion was preventing the barrel from dropping free). I was shooting Speer Lawmen 115gr in today’s session.

I’ve heard about breech face failures in the past, but was almost mythical because of the rarity of it. This is a Gen 3 Glock 19 (with Austrian roll marks) assembled in Feb. 2009.

I stripped the slide of everything (including my night sights) and sent it in to Glock at Georgia.
After talking to the tech and doing research online, it appeared the failure was caused by excessive dry firing without a snap cap. This gun was my “do all” gun, which included competitive USPSA/IDPA shooting, and also for my carry gun. I dry fired a lot w/o the caps, and the striker assembly punched a circular hole forward.

After sending it to Glock and getting it in the closing days of December 2011 (like the 30th), I got a new slide.

Pictures:

Moral of the story, use snap caps if you dry fire a lot. If you own a Glock, check your breach face occasionally to look for cracks, especially if you dry fire a lot w/o caps.
When buying a used Glock, check there as well, as you don’t know if the previous owner did the same thing I did with my old slide.

Also, have a second handgun just in case the primary one S*** the bed. I bought a G19RTF after sending my slide in.