Posted: 1/9/2011 8:56:04 AM EDT
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Last week, my Gen4 Model 22 abruptly began exhibiting premature slide lockback (the slide stop lever was engaging the slide notch in the slide even though there were still rounds in the magazine).
This pistol had about 2,000 trouble free rounds through it (the only previous failure was a one-time failure to feed about 800 rounds into a pistol course). It didn't happen on every round; maybe about every fifth round or so. The top round in the magazine was not prematurely moving forward under recoil. It did it with other ammunition brands. It did it with other shooters. It did it with other magazines. Slide stop lever spring tension seemed OK. It did it with another slide (I happened to have another Gen4 22 on hand). It did NOT do it with another frame. Aha. Now we're getting somewhere. So I removed the slide stop lever... and found that the slide stop lever spring looked a little short. Yep, the tip of the spring had apparently cracked off right where it would normally extend to the rear past the locking block pin. There was enough spring under the locking block pin to keep the slide stop snapping down, but the tension was reduced to the point that the spring sometimes couldn't overcome recoil forces. I switched out the slide stop spring for another one and the problem disappeared. I've heard of "weak" slide stop springs causing this problem, but this is the first time (in my very limited experience) that I've seen (or even heard of) a broken slide stop lever spring. I guess it had to happen eventually. 
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Quoted:
I had one break in my G30 after 10 years, and about 6500 rounds. Mine wasn't exhibiting the same behavior as yours, but my slide stop just fell out of the gun when I closed the slide. Luckily, it fell where I could find it. I think you are referring to the slide lock. He is referring to the slide release or slide stop lever. |