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Defects in NYPD handguns
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Defects in NYPD handguns
Half subject to jamming
By BOB KAPPSTATTER and ALICE McQUILLAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
More than half of the Police Department's handguns are subject to jam without warning, a potentially dangerous flaw that can leave the weapons as "useless as paperweights," police sources said.
Although the jamming is rare, the NYPD has been concerned enough to order a recall of 24,000 semiautomatic Glock handguns so they can be refitted.
This problem affects the Glock Model 19S - the gun carried by about 60% of the department's 39,000 officers. The flaw, in which the shell casing fails to eject, has only arisen during practice and tests at the NYPD firing range, police officials say.
"Our studies have shown this to be a rare occurrence," said police spokesman Chief Michael Collins. "In the worst-case scenario...we estimated that this has happened only once in 450,000 times when fired."
However, during an actual gun battle in Brooklyn, two Emergency Service Unit officers reported that their Glocks failed. Collins said that after an investigation of the October 2000 incident, ballistics experts said whatever problem those guns had, it was not the jamming malfunction that is the subject of the current recall.
To correct the problem, the Austrian-based Glock company has sent engineers to the NYPD's firing range at Rodmans Neck in the Bronx. Since June, they have repaired 3,200 weapons in a procedure that takes about an hour. Immediately afterward, officers tested the refitted weapons at the range, where the results have been excellent, Collins said. The process will continue until all 24,000 Glocks are fixed, he said.
There is a delay in fixing all the weapons, sources said, because cutbacks and the redeployment of officers to special details have made it difficult for cops to schedule time to have their guns repaired.
Sources also said that some of the Glocks have a different problem - locking. When a gun locks, a user can get it functioning again by removing the clip holding the ammunition and manually moving the slide to eject the stuck shell casing.
In that scenario, the source said, "You can be back in the gun battle in a matter of seconds, as opposed to the total jam where the guns become [as] useless as paperweights."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/12542p-11863c.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Half subject to jamming
By BOB KAPPSTATTER and ALICE McQUILLAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
More than half of the Police Department's handguns are subject to jam without warning, a potentially dangerous flaw that can leave the weapons as "useless as paperweights," police sources said.
Although the jamming is rare, the NYPD has been concerned enough to order a recall of 24,000 semiautomatic Glock handguns so they can be refitted.
This problem affects the Glock Model 19S - the gun carried by about 60% of the department's 39,000 officers. The flaw, in which the shell casing fails to eject, has only arisen during practice and tests at the NYPD firing range, police officials say.
"Our studies have shown this to be a rare occurrence," said police spokesman Chief Michael Collins. "In the worst-case scenario...we estimated that this has happened only once in 450,000 times when fired."
However, during an actual gun battle in Brooklyn, two Emergency Service Unit officers reported that their Glocks failed. Collins said that after an investigation of the October 2000 incident, ballistics experts said whatever problem those guns had, it was not the jamming malfunction that is the subject of the current recall.
To correct the problem, the Austrian-based Glock company has sent engineers to the NYPD's firing range at Rodmans Neck in the Bronx. Since June, they have repaired 3,200 weapons in a procedure that takes about an hour. Immediately afterward, officers tested the refitted weapons at the range, where the results have been excellent, Collins said. The process will continue until all 24,000 Glocks are fixed, he said.
There is a delay in fixing all the weapons, sources said, because cutbacks and the redeployment of officers to special details have made it difficult for cops to schedule time to have their guns repaired.
Sources also said that some of the Glocks have a different problem - locking. When a gun locks, a user can get it functioning again by removing the clip holding the ammunition and manually moving the slide to eject the stuck shell casing.
In that scenario, the source said, "You can be back in the gun battle in a matter of seconds, as opposed to the total jam where the guns become [as] useless as paperweights."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/12542p-11863c.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
BULL'S-EYE ON CHILDREN
August 20, 2002 -- Are innocent children gunned down in the streets to become a staple of the weekend news cycle?
The death of 10-year-old Maleny Mendez in The Bronx early Sunday and the wounding hours earlier of 4-year-old Katherine Chrisantos in Brooklyn - both victims of stray bullets - should be cause for concern at City Hall and One Police Plaza.
They provide further evidence, if such is needed, that guns are returning to the streets of New York.
Maleny Mendez was shot in the back while trying to flee the gunfire that erupted when a gang of street thugs pushed their way inside the Bronx church where she was attending a christening party.
Katherine Chrisantos was critically wounded at a birthday party for her 3-year-old cousin by a .38 caliber Derringer someone had brought to the event.
Actually, last weekend's events should hardly surprise.
In the first four months of this year, shootings in the city were up by an alarming 22 percent over the same period in 2001. This, even as crime overall continued to decline.
Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly responded by initiating a dubious gun buy-back program.
But the problem is that the bad guys are once again taking out their guns and using them to commit crimes or to simply wage mayhem in general. And the only way to combat that is by strong anti-gun policing.
In other words, with the now-disbanded Street Crime Unit.
An improved SCU, anyway - one that is well-trained and tightly supervised. Once the word gets out that the NYPD is aggressively targeting gun-toters again, there will be fewer guns on the streets.
Thugs will still be thugs, of course - but when was the last time a 10-year-old was killed by a stray knife or boxcutter?
The alternative is a return to the high-crime, pre-Giuliani era when people were afraid to leave their homes.
And young children were being slaughtered in the streets.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/55079.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
I wonder what those "Best " guns you mentioned will pull at that rate of fire.
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
In that scenario, the source said, "You can be back in the gun battle in a matter of seconds, as opposed to the total jam where the guns become [as] useless as paperweights."
The quote above would be funny except that it's deadly serious. Most gunfights are over in a matter of seconds. The great attraction of the Glock was supposed to be that it fires every time you pull the trigger until it's empty, period.
I don't think the estimate of one problem every 450,000 rounds is a good number. Just instinct for numbers and politics here, not any special knowledge. This must be common enough for the problem to get the public attention it's getting.
On the second story, it seems to be hard for reporters to understand that there is a serious people problem in most major cities; the "gun" problem is a symptom.
an armorer that did not know what he was doing. I understand they are having the same problems with their new duty weapons also.
Guns only have two enemies: Rust and Liberals....
Rugster
Toujours Pret
Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem.Semper Fidelis
Any mechanical device will experience wear with extended use. The guns are being refitted despite the fact that very few have failed, in order for Glock to pro-actively assure quality control for the guns in the field. Ask the car companies to fix problems on a just in case basis -- they don't do a recall until lots of critical failures have already occurred and people are maimed and killed.
This is an easy one to jump on but the criticism, while it may be fun for Glock detractors, is bogus, particularly when compared to the record of any other handgun. They're as good, or better, in terms of the "Consumer Reports" style of years-in-the-field record for repairs.
- Life NRA Member
"If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Ooooooo-kay....
Preventive maintenance is preventive maintenance. If they recalled only those guns that misfired, they would have sent back about 1/1,000th of the number or less. It's clear Glock is being a good corporate citizen here. Since they recalled 24,000, they are upgrading these guns despite a lack of failures.
Don't forget that 1911s and Hi-Powers once started the phrase "jam-o-matic," and used to draw blood by firing, before the engineers got ahold of them and made decades-long little improvements on the guns. Hi-Power mags used to be loaded one round less than maximum to keep them operating properly. Ejection ports had to be relieved. Gun traditionalists freaked over Glocks because they were great new guns, not because they were perfect new guns. Now the traditionalists want to say we presented them as perfect, but we never did. You say tupperware, I say jam-o-matic. It's all the same, and equally bogus when your gun is in good shape. And equally true when it isn't, I suppose.
The great thing about what Glock is doing is that they are no doubt getting the opportunity to strengthen a design point, which will become part of the new manufacturing process, before large numbers are killed by a flaw in older guns that went un-addressed. My guess is that anybody with a Glock that wants a retro-fit will get one. Last time I sent my gun back to Glock, they corrected a misinstalled New York trigger at no charge, even though it was the dealer's fault.
- Life NRA Member
"If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
In the first scenario they say the guns "jam", describing this as a failure to eject. They go on to say this problem renders the pistol completely inoperative and infer that it takes an extended period of time to get it up and running. Whatever is happening here, it sounds like the pistol has to be field stripped or disassembled to clear it. That's a serious failure.
In the second scenario they say the pistols "lock". This isn't further described, other than to say it's also a failure to eject. They say it's not near as big an issue as the first scenario because all that's required is for the shooter to remove the magazine and manually cycle the slide to clear the weapon. As malfunctions go, that's pretty serious.
Whatever is causing these problems, they say it takes a factory
"engineer" an hour per gun to make the proper repairs. A Glock pistol can be entirely rebuilt in less time than this, so whatever is wrong with them must be pretty bad.
The article then says it wasn't either of these scenarios that caused the malfunction of two ESU officer's pistols during a firefight, but fail to say if these were due to weapon problems. Taking into account that these are some of the most most highly trained officers in NYPD, two malfunctions due to operater error in the same incident wouldn't seem likely.
I'm curious about what's going on with their pistols up there.
A near miss is still a miss!
Wasn't me(you?).......!
Today, while shooting the G19 left (weak) handed for the first time, one case ejected in my lap. After tightening my grip, the casings ejected 5 feet further. I've never experienced limp wristed problems before and it is a concern over a pistol that has been entirely reliable. The ammo was 115gr full power handloads.
Of course all you have to do to get a Glock to lock after every shot is install the New York trigger bar upside-down. It's made that way so it can be used to train new recruits one round at a time. Don't tell me their armorer has got some of them put together wrong... But it's not impossible. Could even be that they bought cheap leather holsters which are shedding rawhide particles into the gun around the port, I suppose. Until we know more, it's hard to say. Bad ammo could certainly cause these problems too.
As for limp-wristing, this has been a characteristic of the guns since they came out. You can't limp wrist a Glock and not expect failures to cycle properly. If the wife gets problems and you don't, that certainly what the problem must be. This by the way is why it took so long to get titanium into gun frames. Titanium has some elasticity too, I hear.
- Life NRA Member
"If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Glocks are one of those guns that you either love or hate. This article does nothing to explain the cause of the problems mentioned. It is written in a manner that those who love the Glock will be quick to blame the NYPD and those that hate it will blame the gun. You obviously know my opinion on the matter.
Edited by - idsman75 on 08/23/2002 03:07:16