Winchester 9MM NATO 124 GRAIN Q4318

Clay1

Regular Member
I thought I had found my practice ammo for my G19.5, comped carry gun. I'm having a 2 to 4% failure to "Go Bang" rate. I've shot a couple of matches with this stuff. Runs the comp great, accuracy is acceptable, not super dirty but have two concerns after a 1000 rounds of this stuff:
Lots of brass in the striker channel
Cleaned that out and still have 2% failure to ignite.

Striker spring is factory
I do have a duty rated Overwatch Precision Tac trigger in it with a Ghost connector.

Would the connector contribute to lighter primmer strikes? Thinking that the NATO round has harder primers???

If it's not the gun, what other ammo would you run with the compensated gun? I still have another 2000 rounds of the Q4318. Note, it has made my failure / immediate action response quicker. Not a bad thing to train with, but absolutely not the ammo that I want to run at matches any longer.

So change something in the gun, or buy new ammo? Next thought process is Speer Lawman 124 grain, I can order a thousand rounds of that this weekend when I get time, but thought I would check out your thoughts on the gun set up first.

Full disclosure: G19.5, Zev Citadel slide, factory internals on the slide, RM06 on the top, X300U and I've already talked about the trigger.
 

Clay1

Regular Member
Ran to the range tonight before dinner, ran MSP 3 and 2 drill from concealment, reloads, and draws from appendix. 150 rounds though the gun and only ONE failure to "go bang". 4% would have been 6 rounds, so 1 out of 150 is still .6 percent. More than I still want at a match, but not so bad for training ammo tonight.
 
Have you consider a heavy striker spring? To my knowledge and experience shooting 124 NATO they are heavier primers and I put the "Defensive carry striker spring" from ghost and I saw a decrease in my already super low Failure to Bang (FTB) rate.
 

JLL2013

Regular Member
You should not need a heavy striker spring in a Glock to shoot 9mm "NATO" spec ammo. The stock internals are designed for that.
The issue is Winchester's ammo, not your Glock.
I shoot tens of thousands of rounds of Speer Lawman (124gr and 147gr) without any incidents yearly.
 

Clay1

Regular Member
In years past, for competition, I've shot 15000 rounds of Blazer in a season and had maybe two rounds not go bang. Jll2013, do you run a compensator on your gun with the Lawman 124gr?

I'm in a ammo pounding mode right now. The last few weeks have been 300 rounds plus a week. I'll keep the Winchester stuff and just say it's good for failure drills and buy some Lawman this morning for my matches. Last Tuesday night had 3 not ignite on one stage. NOT GOOD.
 
First you should narrow down whether it’s the gun or ammo.

Buy a similar loading from another manufacturer and run it through the gun as is and see what your failure is. The larger sample size the better, as I’m up to 1,000 rounds, not just 50, 100, 150, etc.

Second is replaced striker spring with a heavier one. Factory is 5.5#. Try a 6 or even 6.5#. Wolff and Ghost both offer them. A heavier one will make the trigger heavier too, and they don’t play well with lighter recoil springs.

I’m betting it’s the ammo and would start there, but it wouldn’t hurt to throw at least a new factory weight 5.5# striker spring in the gun for $3 worth of piece of mind.


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Greg "Sully" Sullivan

Established
Vendor
VIP
A stock factory Glock will handle this ammo just fine. For trouble shooting elimination purposes, start with a thorough Armorer level detailed break down and cleaning, making sure to remove the firing pin assembly and thoroughly clean the firing pin channel and make sure you clean back side of the breach face well to make sure there is no build up of fouling or gummy lubes/solvents that are a possible cause of the issue. On reassembly make sure there is no lube in the firing pin channel.

Then try putting all stock Glock factory parts back in and see how everything performs.

The aftermarket slide could also be part of the issue if it wasn't machined correctly, which would allow the firing pin to move through the firing pin channel correctly, or won't let it protrude enough to allow reliable primer strike depth. If you suspect it might be the slide, for process of elimination try putting all the internals into a factory G19 slide and see what results you get. If you further suspect it's the slide, then get into contact with the manufacturer (Zev) and put it back into their hands.


CY6
Greg Sullivan "Sully"
SLR15 Rifles
TheDefensiveEdge.com
(763) 712-0123
 

JLL2013

Regular Member
In years past, for competition, I've shot 15000 rounds of Blazer in a season and had maybe two rounds not go bang. Jll2013, do you run a compensator on your gun with the Lawman 124gr?

When I was running compensated Glocks (4 different pistols, all with KKM barrels and comps) I never had an issue with Lawman 124gr in any regard. I've also not had issues with Lawman 124gr having light strikes with three Glocks with aftermarket slides. That's for a total round count of 8000rds of 124gr Lawman and 1000rds of 124gr MEN.

I'm essentially shooting my Chambers Custom Night Fighter exclusively now (as far as 9mm pistols goes). No issues with 5000rds of 124gr Lawman and 1500rds of 147gr Lawman.
 

Clay1

Regular Member
Just checked S&G and Lawman 124 is Out of Stock, found another place with good pricing, but $43 to ship a case - ridiculous. Thanks
 
Just checked S&G and Lawman 124 is Out of Stock, found another place with good pricing, but $43 to ship a case - ridiculous. Thanks

Try targetsportsusa.com

Also I found the Federal American Eagle to of better quality than the Speer lawman


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tug

Newbie
Since I don't have hands on your gun, I can only speak from my experience.

I have seen the exact issue with other G19s using Q4318. Failure to fire due to insufficient depth denting the primer, and brass case shavings on the slide internals. It is not an ammunition issue, or a gun issue. It is an incompatibility issue.

A stock factory Glock may, or may not, handle this ammo just fine. We could talk about individual Glocks and still have a very small sample size. Is a stock Glock a good place to start the conversation? Sure it is. I am looking at a stack of them right now. And I am a certified Glock armorer. But a better place to start the conversation is an ammunition seller who has 1000's of customers and has sold 10s of millions of 9mm rounds.

This is from the owner of one of the largest online sites. "The mil-spec primer used in Q4318 is a little bit harder and striker fired guns have problems with that some times."

I like the Q4318 for my MP5. It is also useful in a HK USP. But I do not use it in any of my Glocks, stock or otherwise.

A training load similar to Speer 53617 (gold dot 124 +p) is Speer 53651. That is what I use, and why.
 

paxcolt

Newbie
I've experienced the same problems (primer strikes that FTF, failures to extract empty cases) with this ammo in my full-size M&P 9 with a non-compensated KKM barrel and OEM striker assembly.
 

BooneGA

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
WARLORD
Since I don't have hands on your gun, I can only speak from my experience.

I have seen the exact issue with other G19s using Q4318. Failure to fire due to insufficient depth denting the primer, and brass case shavings on the slide internals. It is not an ammunition issue, or a gun issue. It is an incompatibility issue.

A stock factory Glock may, or may not, handle this ammo just fine. We could talk about individual Glocks and still have a very small sample size. Is a stock Glock a good place to start the conversation? Sure it is. I am looking at a stack of them right now. And I am a certified Glock armorer. But a better place to start the conversation is an ammunition seller who has 1000's of customers and has sold 10s of millions of 9mm rounds.

This is from the owner of one of the largest online sites. "The mil-spec primer used in Q4318 is a little bit harder and striker fired guns have problems with that some times."

I like the Q4318 for my MP5. It is also useful in a HK USP. But I do not use it in any of my Glocks, stock or otherwise.

A training load similar to Speer 53617 (gold dot 124 +p) is Speer 53651. That is what I use, and why.

I understand the point you're making - is the Q4318 the exact same load as the 124 NATO issued round (m882 I think)? Because SOCOM (and USASOC specifically) have been shooting a shit ton of the stuff through Glocks for years without failures at the rates descried. I cant imagine they would use harder primers for civilian stuff.

Rick
 

tug

Newbie
I understand the point you're making - is the Q4318 the exact same load as the 124 NATO issued round (m882 I think)? Because SOCOM (and USASOC specifically) have been shooting a shit ton of the stuff through Glocks for years without failures at the rates descried. I cant imagine they would use harder primers for civilian stuff.

Rick
Don't know for sure but I believe it is. It is a worthy point to drill down.
 

ggammell

Does not pass up an opportunity to criticize P&S.
Glock Talk and Pistol Forum have several threads on this. It almost makes me wonder if there’s an undocumented out of contract spec issue that’s pushing these to open market and DoD gets the good stuff.
 

pilgrim

Newbie
Well I’m glad I found this thread, after, I just bought a case of Q4318. I had some of it that was about 10 years old that shot great. I wanted something else I thought was maybe a little hotter and a little better than the Blazer brass I normally use.

Haven’t noticed any reliability issues with it in the Glock’s yet, although only a limited amount has been tried, but I have noticed a dramatic point of impact shift with an M18 compared to Blazer brass.

Looks like I will save this ammo for the P07. It doesn’t care what it gets fed. Reluctant now to continue using it in the STI.
 

pilgrim

Newbie
Or you could sell it for 150% of what you paid right now...

Was loading the ‘questionable’ Q4318 into Sig/CZ mags just before reading this... Considering putting it back into the box and marking $20 each on it!

I still have 400 rds. of the 4318 from over 10 years ago. It Is visibly different.
 

pilgrim

Newbie
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MojoNixon

Established
I’ve got nearly 3K rounds of Q4318 thru my comped G19 (TBRC comp/SilencerCo barrel) with zero malfunctions of any kind. A fairly moderate round count for me over a year and a half but somewhat insignificant in the larger picture.
 
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