First off, I have no experience with Glocks other then shot a couple and didn't care for them.

Friend of mine has a 42 (.380) that she claims jams constantly. My first thought is maybe limp wristing.
What else should I look for when I get a chance to look at it and shoot it?

Early on, the Glock 42 had a lot of problems. Glock has made several updates to various parts to address these issues. She should contact Glock with her serial number to see if her pistol is one of the guns affected by the updates. Mine was-my serial number prefix is AAS. Oddly enough, my pistol works fine for me. The only potential issue is that the empty brass is ejected almost straight up out of the pistol, and I can envision an empty falling back into the breech as the slide is closing. I think I will go on and send mine in for the updates.

Link:

https://us.glock.com/customer-service/contact-us

Eta: I guess I jinxed my G42 when I made this post. I started having feeding stoppages and premature slide lock shortly afterward. The last box of 50 FMJ .380 resulted in 3 stoppages. I sent the pistol in on my nickel.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: arfmel, May 18, 2017 08:27 AM

It could be limp wristing. See if it happens when you fire it. I had an early 42 and it went back twice to Glock twice. First time it was failure to eject and when the gun came back the trigger would not reset. They fixed it for free both times emailed call tag. Works fine now. Hope this helps.

I have a problem keeping my thumb off the top of the magazine release. Had several stoppages at the first fam-fire due to hitting the release. It didn't fall free, but dropped enough to cause a failure to feed. Maybe check her grip position too.

I picked my G42 up last year and had problems from the get-go. I didn't notice when I picked it up, but it wouldn't even reset consistently when I dry fired it. Called Glock and they paid shipping to return it to them, they had it for a week, and sent it back. I sent three older mags with it - and they replaced all three. They enclosed a sheet which said they replaced most of the non-serial numbered parts in it. It has worked perfectly ever since ...

quote:

Originally posted by gjgalligan:
First off, I have no experience with Glocks other then shot a couple and didn't care for them.

Friend of mine has a 42 (.380) that she claims jams constantly. My first thought is maybe limp wristing.
What else should I look for when I get a chance to look at it and shoot it?

How experienced is your friend with firing pistols?

While there's a chance it could be some other things causing the problem, my gut call is that she's limp-wristing it/improperly gripping it.

When they first came out, I observed the folks who kept having issues with the 42's at the range I worked at, were those making the above mistakes.

Let us know what it does when you try it out.

I hope to get a chance to try it myself and watch her shoot it sometimes this week.

Do Glocks tend to need to be wet or dry in lube?

quote:

Do Glocks tend to need to be wet or dry in lube?

My experience is that is does not matter. The joke is the 42 is the exception to "Glock perfection". If you shoot it a few times it should be apparent if her grip is the problem.

quote:

Originally posted by gjgalligan:
I hope to get a chance to try it myself and watch her shoot it sometimes this week.

Do Glocks tend to need to be wet or dry in lube?

More dry, really.

They have very minimal lubrication requirements. A few drops of gun oil in the right spots, and they're good to go.

I use grease on all of my semi autos. With my new G43 that I bought a couple weeks back, I simply put a tad bit of Shooter's Choice grease on the contact points of the barrel and the four steel rails in the frame and rocked out with it. So far, I've got about 450 rounds of FMJs and about 90 rounds of JHPs through it without cleaning and addtional lube.

quote:

Originally posted by gjgalligan:

Do Glocks tend to need to be wet or dry in lube?

Drier but not totally dry. A few drops in some key spots and it's good.

Minimally lubed works fine here.

Urban legend is that Glocks in general are more sensitive to limp-wristing than, say, SIGs. I don't know how true the legend is, except that it was the cause of better than 90% of the malfunctions I saw when we first transitioned in my office.

I have a lot of Glocks including several 42's. I have never had an issue with limp wristing though others have, and the little ones (mainly the 42) seem to be most susceptible to it. Gotta keep that hand on there tight. See if the mags have a 03 on the back of them towards the bottom. If they do then they are the latest gen and all the changes internally should have been made as well. Slide stop has gone though some revisions as did the frame. All that said though many have older gens and they have been fine. Just more of a crap shoot unless you have a newer one it seems. Good luck as I love my 42's and find them extremely shootable and accurate, which is why I pocket carry mine a lot. More confident with it than my LCP.

Put me in the camp that says to call Glock and see what they say. Mine also has the reset problem a previous member mentioned, I just haven't sent it back yet. Life got in the way and I forgot about it. But there were some teething issues with the first few revisions of the 42 that made it to market that Glock has fixes for now, so definitely give them a call as part of this.

my 42 runs flawless when i shoot it, however when my wife attempts to shoot it there is nothing but problems. Limpwristing at its best.

Going to go with improper grip as well, based on my tiny sample of 4 people & 1 G19.
Owner & her husband had at least 1-2 stovepipes per magazine. No feed issues with me or my wife shooting (I may not be able to accurately hit the target with it, but it fed fine through 4-5 magazines).

I have quite a bit of experience with the G42, I had one of the first batch and they did have issues feeding certain ammo and sold that one. I have bought two in the last couple of years and both have been 100 % reliable other than operator induce malfunctions, if you don't hold on to the G42 firmly it does cause ftf, I also notice that women in particular make them malfunction more frequently (personally have seen this in more than one occasion. I personally believe that the current production G42's are reliable (I carry one as a back up) but if you are I doubt I would give Glock a call and ask for help.

Got my G42 back from the update program. They replaced:

Connector

Trigger housing with ejector

Slide stop lever with spring

Trigger with trigger bar

Extra dep plunger .380 slim assembly

And the magazines I sent in.

I had to pay shipping to send the pistol in, since it was over a year old, which disappoints me, since the issues were obviously due to defects in the design of the pistol.