# problem with new 10 shot magazine for glock 17



## pete77 (Dec 20, 2015)

I just purchased a new glock 17 gen4. The dealer ordered 3 10 shot magazines for it to replace the 17s magazines he had with the gun he had in stock (live in NYS). When loaded to capacity, I can not get the magazine into the pistol without removing one bullet. The slide is closed. Is this normal for this model?

Thanks for any feedback


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## JettaRed (Mar 14, 2014)

Are you putting only 10 rounds in?


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## pete77 (Dec 20, 2015)

yes, in New York we are limited by law to 10 rd magazines.


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## SouthernBoy (Jun 27, 2007)

I thought the limit was seven rounds. When did that change to ten rounds?


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## pete77 (Dec 20, 2015)

As I understand it, that part of the safe act was contested and never went through.


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## pic (Nov 14, 2009)

SouthernBoy said:


> I thought the limit was seven rounds. When did that change to ten rounds?


Post#6

http://www.handgunforum.net/general-discussion/51579-they-need-know-who-their-bosses.html


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## DJ Niner (Oct 3, 2006)

pete77, the mags are very tight when new, they may need to be left loaded for a while to "loosen up" a bit.

For a normal-capacity mag, it makes no difference if you can stuff another one or two rounds into it once it gets worn/loose. But the max-capacty-10-shot mags were mandated by law to ONLY allow ten rounds, even after they had been used hundreds of times. For that reason, they are _extra_ tight when new, and even after loosening-up a bit, they will still be tighter than a comparable age full-cap mag.

I'd also recommend initially loading with the slide locked to the rear, at least until the mags loosen-up, to prevent excess strain on the magazine catch.


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## pete77 (Dec 20, 2015)

Thanks DJ, you're right, the magazines are VERY tight. Need to use the "speed loader" to get them loaded. All three are loaded with 9 shots right now and I'm hoping that loosens the springs somewhat. I just couldn't understand what spring tension had to do with the actual fitting of the magazine into the gun body.


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## SouthernBoy (Jun 27, 2007)

pete77 said:


> Thanks DJ, you're right, the magazines are VERY tight. Need to use the "speed loader" to get them loaded. All three are loaded with 9 shots right now and I'm hoping that loosens the springs somewhat. I just couldn't understand what spring tension had to do with the actual fitting of the magazine into the gun body.


It's simple. The top round is under so much spring pressure that when it contacts the center guide ramp in the slide, it is difficult for it to be pushed down a little. That center guide ramp puts a little pressure on the top round in order to force it to have as much of a straight path into the barrel's chamber. When using a new magazine, the top round can be very hard to press down by that ramp.

As was mentioned, load all of your magazines to full capacity. Then every few days unload and load them back up. Do this for a month or two and your mag springs will loosen up nicely.

As for inserting a fully loaded new magazine into your gun, first lock the slide open and then insert the magazine. Now release the slide (you can "ride the slide" on your Glock without doing any damage to the extractor) to chamber the top round.


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## win231 (Aug 5, 2015)

I experience the same thing with 10-round Glock mags. I only load nine. Even when I force the 10th round in, it's very difficult to push it out & I'd rather not risk a malfunction. Also, if you remove the slide & insert a fully-loaded 10 round mag, you'll see that the top round sits too high & bends the ejector.


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## pic (Nov 14, 2009)

Ten rounds in my Nys GLOCK , no problem here. 10+1

Giving or tapping the mag into the lock position with a little persuasion should work..

If the gun can't perform up to it's standard. I would return it.


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## DJ Niner (Oct 3, 2006)

pic said:


> Ten rounds in my Nys GLOCK , no problem here. 10+1
> 
> Giving or tapping the mag into the lock position with a little persuasion should work..
> 
> If the gun can't perform up to it's standard. I would return it.


Pic, normally I would agree with you on that last line, but in this case, the 10-shot magazines were not designed by the maker from the ground-up along with the rest of the system; they were a PC add-on forced upon the makers and users that had to be made to work with all guns of that model, even ones made years earlier (or even decades, if you talk about manufacturers older than Glock). Additionally, if a 10-shot limited mag EVER allowed another round to be jammed into it, someone could go to jail, so the makers made them to absolute minimum tolerances where it came to the size of the ammo stack they would accept. The makers had to take perfectly good and reliable magazines, and then modify the mag bodies, cartridge followers, even the mag springs (!) to make sure the mags were not easy to convert to a higher capacity. This was the first time that legal requirements of this type were ever dumped onto gun makers, and I personally can't believe it had no effect on the reliability of the firearms in some cases where the tolerances of the pistols and the 10-shot mags were at odds with one another. Not all 10-shot pistols and mags fall into this category (many of our current smaller 10-shot-capacity pistols were designed as a result of the AWB/mag-ban, and for those, the makers did a better job of making sure everything worked well together as it should), but the 10-shot mags for normally higher-capacity pistols do.

Virtually all of my 10-shot Glock mags were made during the Assault Weapon Ban, and most of them work fine with 10 rounds (I kept and used them as competition mags for limited-class matches so I didn't have to drop my good hi-cap mags in the mud/snow at some outdoor matches). But even today, I still have a few that simply will not accept the 10th round without a bit of a battle, even though they are 10-15 years old and very much "used" at this point. I've also seen/heard of a few 10-shot AWB pistol mags (Glocks, and other makers) owned by other shooters in full-cap mag-ban states (not much reason for free-state users to use JHPs in 10-shot mags) that would not reliably feed certain JHP loads, even though that load fed fine in that pistol through full-capacity mags, old and new. Based on this, I must conclude that _some_ 10-shot mags are simply less reliable than their full-cap counterparts, and that really sux for folks who live in states that still mandate use of the 10-shot mags.

I also should say that I have never felt a need to "top off" my carry gun magazine (loaded the chamber, then removed the mag and added another round to bring the mag back to full capacity). Having carried a 6-shot revolver for Uncle Sam for a decade, moving up to a 15- to 17-shot autoloading pistol made it seem like I had plenty of ammo on-tap, and as the old saying goes, "If you can't/don't solve your defensive problem with the first 14 to 16 shots, what makes you think that one more shot will make any difference?" My training pushes me not to let my pistol get that low on ammo in the first place, so I would probably do a tac-reload before emptying the mag in either case anyway. Based on that, I consider it pretty much a moot point.

Along the same lines, even though my full-capacity mags work just fine when fully loaded and properly inserted with the slide closed, more than once during a defensive-type shooting competition I have failed to seat a fully-loaded full-cap mag firmly enough to lock them in place during a chamber-loaded tac reload, and caused myself a stoppage. This is really a person-problem, not a pistol problem, but having done it a couple of times under fairly low local-competition-level stress (despite training to fix the problem), and seeing others do it as well, I began to wonder what might happen in a real/high-stress situation. Although I would not necessarily recommend it for anyone else, for myself, I now carry my spare mags downloaded by one shot, so I am more likely to get them locked in place under any/all situations. Again, for me, giving up one shot in a mag of 15 or 17 is just not that big of a deal, especially if it boosts my overall confidence in my pistol's (and my own) performance under stress. For a person carrying a 5-, 6-, or 7-shot pistol, one round is a significant portion of the overall mag capacity, and I would feel differently about losing one round in a pistol of that size. But in the bigger hi-cap pistols, initially loading with just one full mag's worth of ammo, not topping-off, and downloading my spare full-cap/hi-cap mags by one round to boost reliability in my pistol/person defensive combo, works for me.

YMMV, and again, I am not advocating this for others, just letting folks know how I got to this point, for me. Ya gotta do what works for you, what you think is "best" for you, based on inputs, info AND experience. Even if other people think it's stupid/dumb/moronic/retarded/etc (and yes, I've been called that and worse for doing it).


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## pete77 (Dec 20, 2015)

Thanks for putting things into perspective DJ, you raise some good points. I have been loading and unloading the magazines for the last couple of days and the tension on the springs have decreased drastically. It is still 6 below where I live but it suppose to warm up in the high 20's this afternoon so I just might get out and do some shooting with my new Glock. Let you know how it performs.


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## SouthernBoy (Jun 27, 2007)

win231 said:


> I experience the same thing with 10-round Glock mags. I only load nine. Even when I force the 10th round in, it's very difficult to push it out & I'd rather not risk a malfunction. Also, if you remove the slide & insert a fully-loaded 10 round mag, you'll see that the top round sits too high & *bends the ejector.*


This shouldn't happen. I just now checked my carry gen3 G19, which always has a full magazine and one in the chamber, to see if it does what you have described here and it does not. I would question if your ejector has suffered some damage, i.e. being bent. You might wish to confirm this.


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## win231 (Aug 5, 2015)

SouthernBoy said:


> This shouldn't happen. I just now checked my carry gen3 G19, which always has a full magazine and one in the chamber, to see if it does what you have described here and it does not. I would question if your ejector has suffered some damage, i.e. being bent. You might wish to confirm this.


It occurs with two of my Glock 21's. When I had trouble seating the mag with 10 rounds the first time, I wanted to see what was causing it. I took the slide off & slowly inserted the mag & that's when I saw the top round contact the ejector before the magazine locked in. Pushing the mag in further moved the ejector & I gave up before anything broke. I could see the top (10th) round sitting too high in the magazine; obviously there isn't enough room for the 10th round; at least in my magazines. The gun has 1,100 rounds through it & has never malfunctioned.


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## SouthernBoy (Jun 27, 2007)

win231 said:


> It occurs with two of my Glock 21's. When I had trouble seating the mag with 10 rounds the first time, I wanted to see what was causing it. I took the slide off & slowly inserted the mag & that's when I saw the top round contact the ejector before the magazine locked in. Pushing the mag in further moved the ejector & I gave up before anything broke. I could see the top (10th) round sitting too high in the magazine; obviously there isn't enough room for the 10th round; at least in my magazines. The gun has 1,100 rounds through it & has never malfunctioned.


I should have said that my Glock magazines are of normal designed capacity, not ten rounders. I'm going with DJ Niner's explanation in his post #13.


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## denner (Jun 3, 2011)

Thank your progressive Nazi's.


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## denner (Jun 3, 2011)

pete77 said:


> I just purchased a new glock 17 gen4. The dealer ordered 3 10 shot magazines for it to replace the 17s magazines he had with the gun he had in stock (live in NYS). When loaded to capacity, I can not get the magazine into the pistol without removing one bullet. The slide is closed. Is this normal for this model?
> 
> Thanks for any feedback


It will work in a little, but essentially, if I'm not mistaken that 10 round G-17 magazine has thicker walls and is practically designed as a single stack magazine?

The pistol was designed around a double stack standard 17 round magazine. Best bet is to load one round down regardless, as DJ suggested. He knows his Glocks.


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