Was going to do a 25k round update, but I had to do some work to it so I figured this is as good a time as any. It's taken me a lot longer to reach 25k than expected, but I've been shooting less and spending more time with the new bolt gun which really cuts into the practice time with handguns.
Anyway, my gen4 G34 is at 24,673 rounds and I wore another part out. On Sunday I got 3 FTFs, all hit the primer but wouldn't touch them off. 1-2 per case of the steel ammo isn't unusual, but 3 in a row plus 1 at the match on Monday with a different type of ammo really told me that it was time to refresh the striker spring, especially since I did a really solid cleaning before the match so if it was the buildup of crud in the striker channel that was causing issues it would clear it up.
The last one lasted 15k, this one only 10k, but I did a whole host of dryfire stuff on this spring so who knows how many times that striker has really been cycled in between the 10k live rounds?
Old vs. new spring:
The inside looks fine, some wear on the slide finish but otherwise nothing strange. I gave the frame a soap and water bath, and while someone pointed out that this isn't actually "clean" it's as clean as the gun has been in a long long time.
Total parts replaced in the 25k include:
- striker spring (2x)
- striker "cups" as a precaution
- trigger spring as a precaution
- extractor spring (was getting funky ejection, this cleared it up)
- recoil spring assembly (2x)
- slide release
Still using the same 10 mags the whole time, they're getting dissembled and cleaned up every 5k, new springs every 10k (they start binding with the steel around that time) and new followers at 20k (were chewed up pretty bad). These also get used in other guns, so the round count on the mags is higher than on the G34 itself.
Approximate breakdown of the ammo:
22,500 - Wolf or Tula steel case
2000 - CCI Blazer alumimum
500 - CCI blazer brass, Fiocchi, random 147gr reloads, CCI lawman 147gr subsonic
So the 'steel wreks yer guns!" crowd is almost right. Steel ammo is really hard on magazines but so far hasn't broken anything on the gun itself that I can relate back to ammo, other than just going through a lot of it. I really thought the extractor itself would have broken by now, but so far so good. Maybe it's because I already have the replacement part on hand that the existing one just doesn't feel the need to break on me.
Anyway, my gen4 G34 is at 24,673 rounds and I wore another part out. On Sunday I got 3 FTFs, all hit the primer but wouldn't touch them off. 1-2 per case of the steel ammo isn't unusual, but 3 in a row plus 1 at the match on Monday with a different type of ammo really told me that it was time to refresh the striker spring, especially since I did a really solid cleaning before the match so if it was the buildup of crud in the striker channel that was causing issues it would clear it up.
The last one lasted 15k, this one only 10k, but I did a whole host of dryfire stuff on this spring so who knows how many times that striker has really been cycled in between the 10k live rounds?
Old vs. new spring:
The inside looks fine, some wear on the slide finish but otherwise nothing strange. I gave the frame a soap and water bath, and while someone pointed out that this isn't actually "clean" it's as clean as the gun has been in a long long time.
Total parts replaced in the 25k include:
- striker spring (2x)
- striker "cups" as a precaution
- trigger spring as a precaution
- extractor spring (was getting funky ejection, this cleared it up)
- recoil spring assembly (2x)
- slide release
Still using the same 10 mags the whole time, they're getting dissembled and cleaned up every 5k, new springs every 10k (they start binding with the steel around that time) and new followers at 20k (were chewed up pretty bad). These also get used in other guns, so the round count on the mags is higher than on the G34 itself.
Approximate breakdown of the ammo:
22,500 - Wolf or Tula steel case
2000 - CCI Blazer alumimum
500 - CCI blazer brass, Fiocchi, random 147gr reloads, CCI lawman 147gr subsonic
So the 'steel wreks yer guns!" crowd is almost right. Steel ammo is really hard on magazines but so far hasn't broken anything on the gun itself that I can relate back to ammo, other than just going through a lot of it. I really thought the extractor itself would have broken by now, but so far so good. Maybe it's because I already have the replacement part on hand that the existing one just doesn't feel the need to break on me.
