benclimbing
FNG
For years I’ve carried my trusty Glock G29 in the backcountry but just the other day it warned me that pistol maintenance and practice is just as important as the attention we give our rifles.
A couple weeks back I was out solo scouting for a bear hunt and while working through some chokecherries along an old two-track I ran right into a feeding bear. The bear was only about 25 feet away, we both startled each other, but it didn’t act aggressive and simply turned and moved off into the thicker brush. I had instantly drawn and presented the sidearm, though not as smoothly as I should have. Fortunately, we went our separate ways without incident. That encounter, along with watching this recent video, had me thinking that some more practice was in order so I did just that. This pistol has an aftermarket barrel and trigger and it has served me well for many years. During this practice, I ran two different but familiar loads, 180’s and 200’s, and for the first time ever I ran into a trigger reset issue with both. The trigger began failing to reset intermittently. And worse, I could make it happen more frequently by increasing my rate of fire (as one might do when being charged). However, during my previous trip to shoot this same pistol (many months prior) none of this was evident.
The aftermarket trigger has adjustable set screws for pre travel and over travel, and both are fixed from the factory with locktite. I’d never checked or adjusted these two screws because the factory setting was fine and I didn’t want to break that locktite bond and have to reapply it. After complete pistol disassembly, I found that both of those set screws were loose and could rotate as freely as they wanted to. Did the locktite deteriorate? Had excessive heat cycling caused it to break up? Who knows. Regardless, one of them had rotated so far inward that it was right on the edge of preventing the reset. And this likely happened as a result of vibration while driving the washboarded roads I travel all summer when hiking and scouting. I thoroughly cleaned the whole thing, readjusted those screws, added some locktite, and put it all back together. I allowed plenty of time for the locktite to dry and then went out to see how it performed. Problem solved. Zero failures.
The lingering question here is: What might have happened if I needed to let a half-dozen rounds fly in rapid succession at that bear? I had assumed that it would work flawlessly just because it did so months prior. But this was a mistake on my part, and it’s one that I won’t be making again any time soon. I had no way of knowing that this problem had slowly began creeping into my system (one tiny screw rotation at a time over many months). The failure was going to present itself at some point, I’m glad it did so when it was the least consequential.
A couple weeks back I was out solo scouting for a bear hunt and while working through some chokecherries along an old two-track I ran right into a feeding bear. The bear was only about 25 feet away, we both startled each other, but it didn’t act aggressive and simply turned and moved off into the thicker brush. I had instantly drawn and presented the sidearm, though not as smoothly as I should have. Fortunately, we went our separate ways without incident. That encounter, along with watching this recent video, had me thinking that some more practice was in order so I did just that. This pistol has an aftermarket barrel and trigger and it has served me well for many years. During this practice, I ran two different but familiar loads, 180’s and 200’s, and for the first time ever I ran into a trigger reset issue with both. The trigger began failing to reset intermittently. And worse, I could make it happen more frequently by increasing my rate of fire (as one might do when being charged). However, during my previous trip to shoot this same pistol (many months prior) none of this was evident.
The aftermarket trigger has adjustable set screws for pre travel and over travel, and both are fixed from the factory with locktite. I’d never checked or adjusted these two screws because the factory setting was fine and I didn’t want to break that locktite bond and have to reapply it. After complete pistol disassembly, I found that both of those set screws were loose and could rotate as freely as they wanted to. Did the locktite deteriorate? Had excessive heat cycling caused it to break up? Who knows. Regardless, one of them had rotated so far inward that it was right on the edge of preventing the reset. And this likely happened as a result of vibration while driving the washboarded roads I travel all summer when hiking and scouting. I thoroughly cleaned the whole thing, readjusted those screws, added some locktite, and put it all back together. I allowed plenty of time for the locktite to dry and then went out to see how it performed. Problem solved. Zero failures.
The lingering question here is: What might have happened if I needed to let a half-dozen rounds fly in rapid succession at that bear? I had assumed that it would work flawlessly just because it did so months prior. But this was a mistake on my part, and it’s one that I won’t be making again any time soon. I had no way of knowing that this problem had slowly began creeping into my system (one tiny screw rotation at a time over many months). The failure was going to present itself at some point, I’m glad it did so when it was the least consequential.
