Was able to finally shot the glock 19 gen4 ipicked up a few months back. Great time, handles beautifully.

 

Now my questions. It took a good amount of force to place the mag into the gun. Is that normal? Also, if the slide was back when I loaded the mag, it (the slide)would release and slide forward chambering a round. Is this normal??This gun had 0 rounds through it before me, so I dont know if that is partof the issue. Im a newbie to pistols, but I feel that this should not be happening?

You must have hit the slide release with your thumb when you were slapping the mag home. It is easy enough to happen. Because I have a high grip when I first got my 19, I actually hit the slide release on a last shot a couple of times causing the slide to not lock open on the last round. It happened 2 or 3 times before I realized my mistake.

Edit that I just saw that you said you are shooting left handed. It must be that act and angle of slamming the mag in like the others have stated. Have you tried the other mag yet?

I finally tried this last night....

 

...you've really got to rap on it HARD to get the slide to come forward, at least on mine...and you have to hit it at such an angle it's completely impractical.

It is much easier to do with the full size guns. The lighter the slide the harder you have to hit it for inertia to take over. With a G22/17 or G35/34 it is pretty easy to "auto-forward".