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No, not that I know of....
I don't think Glock officially publishes any such information. (They might have in the past, but at least not currently - probably for legal reasons....)
I do not know about older editions of the Armorer's Manual. But the one I have is the Jan. 2022 Edition, and it does not give any specific information about maintenance schedule or intervals of any specific parts in terms of the round counts.
In the certification course I attended last year, we were not given any specific information about parts replacement intervals (in round counts), either. The only thing specifically mentioned was that the RSA needs to be replaced after every 3,000 - 5,000 rounds....
Then, we were told that parts other than the RSA are replaced "as needed" or "whenever the gun failed any of the function tests" as explained in the Armorer's Manual.... As to how often we should performs the "functions tests," we were also told to perform them "periodically" and "as needed" or "whenever the pistol is cleaned" - again with no specific round counts or time frame.
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837 Posts
Replace as needed. I hear people say 3k/6k, and I have fired that in a year. No troubles.
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FWIW,
I guess nowadays if a gun manufacturer officially publishes any specific information about their parts' life expectancies, etc., any such information can be used against them in a politically and financially motivated lawsuit.... (Pretty sad reality about today's society.) For this reason, perhaps Glock's "legal team" advices against being specific about "maintenance" or "parts replacement" schedules in writing... Only telling the customers to have the parts replaced "as needed" or "whenever a problem is found" is a good way to legally CYA as a gun manufacturer without making anything really specific.
In any case, I do have my own "maintenance" and "parts replacement" schedules that I have developed from my own 30-year experience with Glock pistols. Fortunately Glock OEM parts are still relatively inexpensive, so my own "maintenance" and "parts replacement" schedules tend to be more "proactive/preventive" and lean toward a more cautious side. (E.g., I replace many internal springs, firing pin safety, extractor and slide lock after every 10,000 rounds, even if they are not broken or worn out.) As such, they may or may not correspond with the schedules of other Certified Armorers who go by a more "reactive/restorative" principle of "as needed" or "whenever the gun fails any of the function tests"...
Basically all of my personal Glocks are for HD/SD use (even though I also use them for range practice). Therefore, I try to replace small parts BEFORE they break inside my carry guns, which can become a disaster in a critical situation. The very last thing I would ever want to find out while I am trying to defend my life or the lives of my family with my Glock is that something inside my Glock is broken...
I guess nowadays if a gun manufacturer officially publishes any specific information about their parts' life expectancies, etc., any such information can be used against them in a politically and financially motivated lawsuit.... (Pretty sad reality about today's society.) For this reason, perhaps Glock's "legal team" advices against being specific about "maintenance" or "parts replacement" schedules in writing... Only telling the customers to have the parts replaced "as needed" or "whenever a problem is found" is a good way to legally CYA as a gun manufacturer without making anything really specific.
In any case, I do have my own "maintenance" and "parts replacement" schedules that I have developed from my own 30-year experience with Glock pistols. Fortunately Glock OEM parts are still relatively inexpensive, so my own "maintenance" and "parts replacement" schedules tend to be more "proactive/preventive" and lean toward a more cautious side. (E.g., I replace many internal springs, firing pin safety, extractor and slide lock after every 10,000 rounds, even if they are not broken or worn out.) As such, they may or may not correspond with the schedules of other Certified Armorers who go by a more "reactive/restorative" principle of "as needed" or "whenever the gun fails any of the function tests"...
Basically all of my personal Glocks are for HD/SD use (even though I also use them for range practice). Therefore, I try to replace small parts BEFORE they break inside my carry guns, which can become a disaster in a critical situation. The very last thing I would ever want to find out while I am trying to defend my life or the lives of my family with my Glock is that something inside my Glock is broken...
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13,528 Posts
The more you use it, the closer it gets to mechanical failure. However, any part can fail at any time for a variety of reasons. You never know when something will break, so short of replacing every part every day, how can you time it so you 'replace the parts before they break'?
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Not perfect, but one thing that helps is to set up a second gun in the same way as the one you want to keep fresh.
Break the first gun in and stop shooting it. Then do your volume with the second/surrogate gun, and get some good data based on your personal specifics. Replacing good parts is stupid. What if the replacement is defective? And obviously it's not good for parts to fail in action.
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I see your point. I agree that any part can and will break at some point due to a variety of causes, and there is no way to really "predict" exactly when it will occur, unless you are a psychic.
I guess the rationale behind the "proactive/preventive" approach is NOT aiming to "eliminate" the premature part failure, but aiming to "reduce the probability" of part failure due specifically to cumulative metal fatigue with continued use, which is inevitable to any gun part if you continue to use it.... If you keep using the same parts beyond some point of threshold, it will eventually exhaust its life expectancy. By replacing the parts periodically (even if it is not broken yet) you can ensure at least theoretically that the parts will have plenty of life left in them. Of course, any part can break due to other causes than "cumulative metal fatigue with continued use". But you can at least exercise control over one of the major causes of part failure....
Some folks may think it is reasonable to replace parts in their Glock after every 20k rounds or 25k rounds unless they break before reaching the round count. Some others may think "reactive/restorative" approach is more reasonable.
To each their own.
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I like the idea of having a separate back-up gun or a dedicated "carry gun" that is mostly carried after breaking it in but not really practiced with. That way, you are less likely to experience part failure at the critical moment. As a matter of fact, I actually have multiple G43s (my favorite) in the same configuration - one to carry primarily, one to practice with primarily and one as a back-up. (But I still replace many of the internal parts of my "practice gun" after every 10k rounds or so just to reduce the possibility of unexpected part failure during my practice session.
)That being said, if you only have one gun and use it for your CCW AND practice with, just keep shooting tens of thousands of rounds without ever replacing any part just because they are not yet broken is pretty stupid, too.
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This is going to vary from person to person, of course. A reasonably serious shooter is going to have a competition platform and a carry platform. They may be the same gun, 2 guns on the same platform, 2 guns on different platforms, or even multiple guns on multiple platforms.I like the idea of having a separate back-up gun or a dedicated "carry gun" that is mostly carried after breaking it in but not really practiced with. That way, you are less likely to experience part failure at the critical moment. As a matter of fact, I actually have multiple G43s (my favorite) in the same configuration - one to carry primarily, one to practice with primarily and one as a back-up. (But I still replace many of the internal parts of my "practice gun" after every 10k rounds or so just to reduce the possibility of unexpected part failure during my practice session.
That being said, if you only have one gun and use it for your CCW AND practice with, just keep shooting tens of thousands of rounds without ever replacing any part just because they are not yet broken is pretty stupid, too.
Let's try to keep it reasonably simple, and say you have 1 carry gun and 1 competition gun, and they are on different platforms. You're going to do most of your development with the competition guns, transfer that to the carry guns, and just practice whatever else you need to fill things out on the carry side.
In that case, I'd say you want at least 2 of the carry guns and 3 of the competition guns. One carry gun is your actual EDC, the other is a practice surrogate. The competition guns are designated as dry, primary live and secondary/match live.
Assuming you shoot 30k/year between the two platforms, there would be no need to shoot more than 1k live on the carry surrogate. So it's not going to fail. The primary live comp gun would be used for all other live practice, so perhaps 25k. That leaves 4k for matches on the secondary/match gun.
So just take the secondary/match gun to the range as a backup. Shoot the primary comp gun until it breaks, and get some good data.
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The more you shoot it, the less you'll worry about it not working.
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Shoot them till the wheels fall off. I read somewhere that Reid Hendrichs of Valor Ridge training center shot like 250,000 rounds through his Glock before the frame finally cracked and he sent it back to Glock for a free replacement.
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OK. In that scenario, your actual EDC gun is simply carried after it's been broken in and function tested, so you do not need to replace any parts inside. The "carry surrogate" is only used to shoot about 1k rounds a year, so even if you use a 10k-round interval like I do, it will take 10 years to reach the cycle, which is not bad... If you use a 20k-round interval, you only need to perform parts replacement on your "carry surrogate" every 20 years.... Based on the average life expectancy for men, fortunately or rather unfortunately, I don't need to worry if any part may or may not fail 20 years from now. So I'd say that's a better than "reasonable" frequency!
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Right. And yet, there are people replacing recoil springs probably 20% over-power on a 5k interval, and they likely only shoot 5k/year. They could run that spring for the rest of their shooting career and it wouldn't get down to a proper balance.OK. In that scenario, your actual EDC gun is simply carried after it's been broken in and function tested, so you do not need to replace any parts inside. The "carry surrogate" is only used to shoot about 1k rounds a year, so even if you use a 10k-round interval like I do, it will take 10 years to reach the cycle, which is not bad... If you use a 20k-round interval, you only need to perform parts replacement on your "carry surrogate" every 20 years.... Based on the average life expectancy for men, fortunately or rather unfortunately, I don't need to worry if any part may or may not fail 20 years from now. So I'd say that's a better than "reasonable" frequency!
But whatever gets you through the night...
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Break it all the way down once a year and clean the delicates once a year.
If it still fires after I put it back together, it's good to go.
That's the schedule I'm on until it doesn't go bang.
(Intermittent cleanings are allowed on this schedule)
If it still fires after I put it back together, it's good to go.
That's the schedule I'm on until it doesn't go bang.
(Intermittent cleanings are allowed on this schedule)
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