Glock 26 FTE problem

[sidekick1]

I have a G26 which has performed flawlessly since purchase for some 4-5000 rounds. Not one issue. Now more often than not after firing, the casing seems only to extract about half the casing length from the chamber. It stops there, being held in that position I suspect, by the magazine spring forcing the next round up against it.
Also I am finding that on the last round, the slide is sometimes not locking back as is normal when the magazine is empty. I do not know if this is a related issue.
Anyone have any thoughts? I have tried several magazines as well as some G17 mags and have no reason to believe the issue lies with a magazine, nor can I see anything unusual with the extractor but I am at a loss to come up with any obvious explanation. I will say that when the extractor/ejector system works, the casing is thrown in approximately the 3 o'clock position which I believe is normal. It has never come back towards me. A local gunsmith took an oversize brass brush in his electric drill and reamed the chamber, but I didn't expect that to make a difference. I keep a clean gun. He also suggested the problem may be a weak Recoil spring but I think this flies in the face of science.
I would appreciate any advice if someone has had a similar issue.

 

[gunzik]

Wow, you're certainly USING that little pistol! I love shooting my Glocks and don't have 4000 rounds through all of them combined.

Changing the recoil spring is cheap and simple to test. Worst case, you will have a spare.

The wire brush to the chamber story is a bit disheartening. This is not something I would do or allow. It is destructive, without question. The barrel may be toast anyway, it could be there was no real harm done.

I take it you're using an aftermarket barrel, and that someone has taken the time and trouble to measure the chamber properly (what do the empties look like?). Before your barrel actually splits and/or blows up, one of the things that will happen is that it will start to swell at the impending point of failure. Your pistol will start jamming. 4000 or 5000 rounds is a lot for some of the aftermarket barrels, especially EFK and Lone Wolf's earlier efforts. These were (and probably still are) made in Asia and sometimes the metallurgy wasn't the greatest. I would strongly urge you to stop shooting that barrel until you have established it is OK, the critical dimensions are not changing, and that changing the barrel doesn't suddenly solve the problem.

I have several spare barrels. We could certainly try one, after a careful examination of the rest of your pistol.

You have eliminated the magazine, which is the number one point of failure. Is the ejector (you know, that part that sticks up when you take off the pistol's upper) still intact? If the ejector is loose, damaged, or missing, your pistol will still work some of the time. The empty and full rounds will collide. Some small pistols actually use the magazine and loaded rounds as their ejector. The empties are supposed to hit the ejector and be guided to exit the ejector port. The ejector is another relatively cheap part to replace, though it means exchanging the trigger housing that holds it.

If the ejector is healthy, and the recoil spring isn't the issue, and the barrel is fine, it would be time to start swapping major parts and assemblies to "troubleshoot". There are really not that many more parts. Wear and tear on the locking block is possible, and the tilt and travel of the G26 barrel is a bit more extreme than most Glocks due to the small size and short recoil, so I'd guess that the locking block will wear faster. Again, a non-factory barrel will have a different hardness than that designed by Glock, so you may have worn barrel lugs (if the barrel is softer) or worn locking block, if the barrel is harder than that part.

Normally we would blame the shooter or the ammo at this point. From your thoughtful post, and the 4000+ rounds you (?) have fired, I'm guessing it isn't the shooter. You are clearly also smart enough to have ruled out a change in ammo.

PM me, I'm in Calgary too, I can bring a healthy Glock 26 to switch parts from, until we identify the problem. Let me know which barrel you have and I will bring a new(er) one of those, and some decent calipers, to compare measurements.

 

[Longshot]

Did you change ammo recently?