Question for the Glock crowd about the Glock 42 Reliabilty

[puma guy]

My wife and I have been trying to decide on a small .380 EDC for her to replace her 9mm Shield. She has small hands and has trouble consistently actuating the slide fully on the Shield. She has shot 8-9 different small .380's including a Glock 42, which she liked above all the others. While we were shooting the Glock it failed to reset the trigger several times. I noticed it the first time after inserted the loaded magazine and racked the slide to load the chamber. II removed the magazine and ejected the cartridge and let the slide go to close it and the trigger again failed to reset and if we left the slide open after the mag was empty. I racked it several times before it finally reset. I pulled the trigger and racked it another time and it wouldn't reset. It never failed to reset while she was shooting it, but it did fail to completey close on a round once. I have done some research on th G42 and there are many complaints about this very thing but there doesn't seem to be a consistent cause. I've read everything from a weak striker spring to a bad trigger return spring and even poor ammo quality. Many have returned their pistols to Glock for repair with inconsistent results I went to the Glock forum and I only found one short post on G42 trigger reset failure. In that post the author was told by the Glock Armorer recommended to him by the manufacturer that he was at fault due to operator manipulation. He didn't post whether it was ever fixed. Not being a Glock guy is this a problem with Glocks in general or just this model? My wife really likes the pistol and shot well with it among all the others,but I worry about the reliability. I'd like to know if any of you Glockers have any experience with this and was it resolved? I mentioned the trigger return issue to the clerk at the gun range and she said she'd send it to their gunsmith to examine it.

[couzin]

My 42 was perfect out of the box, no issues at all. I kinda think something is wrong with yours. Could be just some bit of excess plastic where it shouldn't be. Is it new out of the box? Was it used? Maybe strip it, clean it (if new, maybe even the gold/copper colored break-in lube since you have shot it), spray/drop some remoil down into the striker and trigger bar area, and oil/lube the rest of the gun per Glock. Go run a couple hunert rounds through it and see. If it runs, bring it back, strip it completely and clean it then oil/lube per Glock.

[rentz]

I had a 42 and it was kind of finicky, I had some failure to lock back the slide on last round issues but no trigger problems or jamming of any sort. In the end I just didn't shoot it as well as the shield so I sold it off and moved along to something else

I think the early ones had a few issues that got worked out later, similar to how gen4 had early problems for some

[G.A. Heath]

I had a Glock 42, I really liked it and it was very reliable. In fact I liked it so much I gave it away, seriously. i don't just give firearms away, and when I do they are gifts to family members who I feel need them. I gave this one to my sister and strongly recommended that she get her license and carry whenever she can.

If I didn't have a Sig P238 and a Sig 938 I would have carried this as my pocket/BUG.

[puma guy]

My 42 was perfect out of the box, no issues at all. I kinda think something is wrong with yours. Could be just some bit of excess plastic where it shouldn't be. Is it new out of the box? Was it used? Maybe strip it, clean it (if new, maybe even the gold/copper colored break-in lube since you have shot it), spray/drop some remoil down into the striker and trigger bar area, and oil/lube the rest of the gun per Glock. Go run a couple hunert rounds through it and see. If it runs, bring it back, strip it completely and clean it then oil/lube per Glock.

I had a Glock 42, I really liked it and it was very reliable. In fact I liked it so much I gave it away, seriously. i don't just give firearms away, and when I do they are gifts to family members who I feel need them. I gave this one to my sister and strongly recommended that she get her license and carry whenever she can.

If I didn't have a Sig P238 and a Sig 938 I would have carried this as my pocket/BUG.

Sorry I wasn't more clear. We haven't bought one yet, it was a rental. It appeared to be well used and other than the one FTF and the trigger reset it was a pleasant surprise for me. I have not shot many Glocks, only a G22 a couple of times several years ago. She shot very well with it, too. Beside the Glock, she shot a Sig P238, Walther PPK, Bersa Thunder and my old Llama MKIII .380 at the range yesterday. She has previously shot a Keltec, S&W and Taurus ; all .380. We looked at a Browning 1911-380 and a Kimber at Cabela's after we shot, but neither of those were to her liking. We had looked at the Sig P238 a couple of days before we went shooting and she liked it best until she shot it. Her felt recoil was less with the Glock than the Sig.

[puma guy]

I had a 42 and it was kind of finicky, I had some failure to lock back the slide on last round issues but no trigger problems or jamming of any sort. In the end I just didn't shoot it as well as the shield so I sold it off and moved along to something else

I think the early ones had a few issues that got worked out later, similar to how gen4 had early problems for some

Interesting that you mentioned the earlier versions had problems. Many say the the later models had the trigger reset issues. I'm concerned there doesn't seem to be one common fix to remedy the reset issue.

[John Galt]

My 42 has been perfect with at least 300 rounds through it.

[Pawpaw]

I would not be too concerned about the performance of a rental gun.

My son and his wife once rented a Sig P239 in 9mm. They both had all kinds of problems with it, mostly failure to eject. The guy at the counter told them it required a tighter hold to keep that model from jamming.

When they asked me about it, I told them that was a bunch of bovine excrement. I have had a P239 9mm for years. Only one person has ever managed to limp wrist it. That was my grandson, when he was 10 years old.

[JerryK]

Limp wristing is a true phenomenon! I just returned from the range where my wife shot and she had 2 pistols a Glock 22 and Kimber Compact in 9mm jam up on her. When I shot the pistols ran just fine!

[puma guy]

I would not be too concerned about the performance of a rental gun.

My son and his wife once rented a Sig P239 in 9mm. They both had all kinds of problems with it, mostly failure to eject. The guy at the counter told them it required a tighter hold to keep that model from jamming.

When they asked me about it, I told them that was a bunch of bovine excrement. I have had a P239 9mm for years. Only one person has ever managed to limp wrist it. That was my grandson, when he was 10 years old.

Hey there, Paw Paw! My initial thought was the same as yours since it was a rental, but I read several reviews of the same trigger reset issue. I really thought she'd like the SIG P238 because we'd looked one over at my LGS and it fit her well. Goes to show you can't tell 'til you shoot it. I'm still leaning toward getting her the Glock 42. She really shot well with it and seemed to handle it better than all the other .380's she's shot. She likes her 9mm Shield, but I can tell she doesn't enjoy shooting multiple rounds due to the recoil and I want her to be able practice all she can comfortably.

[Dart106A]

Check for the "-2" etched in the slide release to make sure you get the "fixed" version. My GF bought a G42 last month, and easily has shot 200+ rounds of varying manufacture, and type through it. (Including JHP.) I've been with her for all of her shooting, and there has been ZERO issues. Glock has fixed the early problems.

http://glock.pro/glock-tech-warranty/10 ... sions.html

Go for it! It's a great pistol!

By the way, the Fiocchi 95 grain FMJ is awesome through hers!

[The Annoyed Man]

I can't speak to the G42, but we own a couple of G43s, which is basically the same pistol but in 9mm, and we've had no issues with it. OTH, I've owned a couple of different .380s (a Kel-Tec P3AT, and a Colt Government), and both of them had reliability issues with feeding almost everything except the hottest self-defense loads. I'm not sure how or what would cause a trigger reset problem (which I didn't experience in either of those two guns), but I've never had confidence in guns of that caliber ever since the problems I had. Ultimately, I figured that it must be something to do with the cartridge being so marginal that it didn't have enough pep to reliably cycle an action. But that was just my experience, and I know that a lot of people have no problem with it at all.

But if your Glock isn't functioning reliably, I would think that there's something wrong with that individual gun, because Glock has come by its reputation for reliability honestly. I know that doesn't help identify what the issue is, but it might help identify how to approach finding the cause.

[Blindref757]

My wife had her 42 at the range last weekend and we had 2 F2F with dented primers and no bang (shot 100 rounds). I ran the both back through and they didn't fire. Don't know if it was bad primers (it was cheap gunshow ammo) or if it was a weak spring. But either way, it was kinda concerning. I'm going with bad ammo until otherwise proven.