Running a Glock without the guide rod

**jsb889** · April 17th, 2009, 03:43 PM

Well, I was pissing around with my Glock 19 last night and decided to see if it would work without the guide rod. I remembered seeing a video where a Glock got so hot, the guide rod popped out, but it kept running. So, I grabbed my 15LB Wolf spring that I ordered forever ago for no apparent reason and tried to make it work.

Well, I had some trouble initially getting it in without any type of guide rod holding it in place, and bent it. I managed to get it in though, and once I did it once its pretty easy getting it together without a guide rod. Slide movement was altered quite a bit, seemed to get harder to pull back the further back it went, much moreso than the factory rod. It stopped rearward travel before the slide stop could get it. I loaded up a magazine and tried cycling some rounds through her. I found it would not cycle well if I moved the slide slowly, but if I moved it fast it would work fine. It was enough to make me want to test it

I grabbed an old recoil spring from a 40 cal S&W 4013TSW just for shits and giggles too, and went off to the range. I was pretty amazed they both ran in the gun perfectly fine. I only put 20 or so rounds through it, all I brought with me. I thought it would surely bind up on both by the time I got halfway through a magazine. I put about 14 rounds through the Wolf spring, the one that wouldn't allow full rearward travel, with no problems at all.

The S&W spring worked even better, allowing full rearward movement. I'm guessing that the reason the other spring wouldn't move back fully was due to the bend on about the 4th coil. Anyway, the S&W spring was a little bit weaker and it showed. If I pulled the slide back and gently let it go forward, I could cause the slide to not fully go into battery. Pretty much any movement made it go fully into battery, though.

Again, neither of those springs used a guide rod. Both gave under the standard power spring pressure. And, although I didn't put many rounds through them, no hiccups at all.

I gotta say, I was amazed. I thought I would share my amazement with you fellas