All Glocks Face Immediate Recall! Just Kidding. Something's up with Gen 4 Though

All Gen 4 Glock models, with exception of the G26 and G27, the Glocks with the new recoil spring assembly, are currently subject to “voluntary exchange” for new recoil springs.  This has been a long time coming, depending on who you ask.  Sort of Glock’s dark secret.

“[We] will begin voluntarily exchanging the recoil spring assembly (RSA) on its new Gen4 pistols shipped since 2009 GLOCK’s product development team has modified various elements of the RSA to ensure each pistol’s performance meets the company’s demanding standards. With several variations of the RSA in the market today, GLOCK’s goal with this voluntary exchange is to standardize the RSA to gain the best possible performance in each pistol.

“The new RSA’s all have unique markings on the base of the part.”

That “dark secret” being that the Gen 4 Glocks aren’t all as reliable as the Gen 3.  A surprising number of reports of failures to feed, usually following a failure to extract.  Naturally the go-to response for a Glock failure is “what did you do to it?”  But the unusually high volume of Gen 4 complaints were indicative of a fundamental problem.

And while not technically a recall, this will confirm people’s suspicions that the Gen 4 was not correctly sprung.  Hopefully, the new recoil springs will have some kind of reciprocal effect with reports of extractor problems, too.  As such, Glock has made available a chart along with this pseudorecall, so people can examine it and determine if their Gen 4s have the wrong recoil spring assemblies.

This spring recall being such a rarity for Glock, it, by contrast, will clutter Glock’s reputation for a long time to come.  “Remember that time when Glock shipped Gen 4 with bad springs?” will join “Remember that time when Glock introduced .40 S&W pistols with unsupported case heads?” on their very short list of technical flaws.

(Seriously, it’s OK to not want to own a Glock, but stick with the tried-and-true nits for picking: it’s ugly, it doesn’t point well for you, it’s ugly, you don’t like the trigger, it’s ugly, you prefer steel-framed pistols, it’s ugly, etc.)

So do you have a Gen 4 Glock, and how’s your experience been so far?  Flawless from the get-go, or the exact sort of issues you’d expect from a mismatched recoil spring?