OldePhart
Blackhawk
What the old guy was really doing was being a smart-@$$, something those who know him well know he is regularly afflicted with...but some folks don't have much sense of humor when others start having a bit of fun at the expense of their idols.
@mn_doggie (correction, meant Mountain Walker) pretty much has the right of it, though. And if you don't think the LC9s was reengineered from the LC9 you haven't looked closely at some of the parts (having a friend who has an LC9, and formerly having had an LC9s, I've been inside both of them). In fact, some of the teething issues in extraction on the LC9s really seem to be from taking an extractor mechanism that worked well in the LC9s (correction, I meant LC9) where I think much of the reason it worked reliably was the presence of the loaded chamber indicator on top holding the shell so it was less likely to slip the extractor. They used the same extraction mechanism on the LC9s but removed that ugly loaded chamber indicator, removing much of the case stabilization during extraction. That's the kind of thing that tends to happen when you say "redesign this hammer-fired pistol to be striker-fired" instead of "design a striker-fired pistol."
I'm an engineer (albeit software) so I'm very familiar with the typical difference in mindset between "refactor this into something else" and "build me something new." That difference follows even into preproduction testing where "something new" gets a more rigorous shakeout before going into production than something that is "just a change". In this case "extraction is reliable in the LC9, the LC9s uses the same extractor, ergo the LC9s will have reliable extraction." Apparently, the design team didn't recognize the significance of the loaded chamber indicator in stabilizing the shell being extracted...and since they overlooked that it's a dead certainty that they didn't factor what differences in slide weight might do to the extraction timing and so on. Being "just an improvement" the design didn't get that shake'n'bake treatment that it should have.
Don't get me wrong...I really liked the LC9s...I might even buy another one in a few years if I'm satisfied that they've worked through all of the issues. Well, actually, that's less likely with Glock finally introducing a single-stack 9mm, but we'll see.
@mn_doggie (correction, meant Mountain Walker) pretty much has the right of it, though. And if you don't think the LC9s was reengineered from the LC9 you haven't looked closely at some of the parts (having a friend who has an LC9, and formerly having had an LC9s, I've been inside both of them). In fact, some of the teething issues in extraction on the LC9s really seem to be from taking an extractor mechanism that worked well in the LC9s (correction, I meant LC9) where I think much of the reason it worked reliably was the presence of the loaded chamber indicator on top holding the shell so it was less likely to slip the extractor. They used the same extraction mechanism on the LC9s but removed that ugly loaded chamber indicator, removing much of the case stabilization during extraction. That's the kind of thing that tends to happen when you say "redesign this hammer-fired pistol to be striker-fired" instead of "design a striker-fired pistol."
I'm an engineer (albeit software) so I'm very familiar with the typical difference in mindset between "refactor this into something else" and "build me something new." That difference follows even into preproduction testing where "something new" gets a more rigorous shakeout before going into production than something that is "just a change". In this case "extraction is reliable in the LC9, the LC9s uses the same extractor, ergo the LC9s will have reliable extraction." Apparently, the design team didn't recognize the significance of the loaded chamber indicator in stabilizing the shell being extracted...and since they overlooked that it's a dead certainty that they didn't factor what differences in slide weight might do to the extraction timing and so on. Being "just an improvement" the design didn't get that shake'n'bake treatment that it should have.
Don't get me wrong...I really liked the LC9s...I might even buy another one in a few years if I'm satisfied that they've worked through all of the issues. Well, actually, that's less likely with Glock finally introducing a single-stack 9mm, but we'll see.
