Glock 21 blows up in Deputy's hand

[doc03]

Story and video:
http://www.wtov9.com/news/21866969/detail.html

[Arctic Dave]

1. Factory hot load?

[1]

2. totally on the ammo. reloads. i will never shoot them again...

i was at a range shooting 9mm reloads, a case failure near the rim caused a cartridge to jet sideways in the chamber. the blowdown burned all of the hair off my hand and blew the floorplate off the magazine dumping a full mag of ammo on the table. with a scary, unexpected big bang.

i think i had to change my shorts.

i tossed that ammo and never shot reloads again...

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

3. Did you load them?

[1]

6. nope. bought them. totally my fault. but i will never shoot reloads again. too scary...

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

8. You won't shoot your own reloads?

[1]

10. i don't have the gear to reload. but dave, have you ever shit yourself when your pistol explodes...

in your hand?

i sure reloads are fine. i'm sure factory can do bad as well. (and i don't shoot +.)

i'm just saying, i go with what i know...

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

14. I have had one explode on me. Blew the welds of a 1911 mag and a nice piece of brass in my nose.

Firing pin stuck and hit the primer when it was about 1/2 way in the chamber. Got the bleeding to stop when I dug the brass out of my nose and had 1st degree powder burns all over my face. Other than that I was unharmed. Happened to fast to be scary.

[1]

16. when i was a kid, i was standing beside a bud shooting a breakfront .38...

the cartridge blew up and totally screwed up my new glasses (lucky i was wearing glasses.)

i had to dig out a chunk of metal from between my eyebrows. that was cool at 16...

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

17. I was fortunate to be wearing safety glasses during my incident it was 16 years ago.

[1]

19. where i grew up, we just went shooting all of the time. i had my own guns from like 15...

i loved my .22. plinking. got my first shotgun at 16.

i used to love hunting. because i was never any good at it. just my buds and me, blowing up shit. and yes, drinking beers. it was just hanging out and shooting.

i got better. and then i didn't actually like hitting a target anymore. it wasn't in me. i turned to fishing. seemed more sporting to me.

i have no problem with those that do hunt. growing up in michigan, it is necessary to prevent those wonderful creatures from starving to death. controlling the population. and i'll eat all of the corn-fed venison my brother shows up with every year (he is a f'king hunter! yum.)

now i own only pistols. and i would not hesitate to use one. i like my duck and deer buds, not sure about most humans.

i hope that doesn't sound too cold...

[doc03]

4. From what the chief said it sounds like it was factory

ammo. He said he contacted the pistol and ammo manufacturers and the distributor.

[benEzra]

21. Shooting cast lead reloads without sufficient cleaning can cause the gun to kB later with JHP's...

Glock sharply warns against using cast lead reloads because if you fire a lot of cast lead bullets through the bore without suitable cleaning, and then fire a jacketed bullet, the less deformable jacketed bullet will run into huge resistance from the lead clogging up the rifling grooves, potentially leading to overpressure situations. Some suggest that lead buildup ahead of the chamber may also result in a firing-out-of-battery condition. So the gun's diet before the incident may also be relevant, and I suspect that the gun in question has a history of shooting cast reloads.

For example:

http://shootersforum.com/showthread.htm?t=46430

Have personally witnessed several .40 cal Glocks come apart at our local gunrange (I'm a range officer) from folks reloading cast bullets in the original factory barrel.

Don't own any form of tupperware handgun, but if I did, only jacketed bullets would be used.

and a discussion of the issue at Wikipedia:

Lead bullets and polygonal rifling

The manufacturer Glock advises against using lead bullets (meaning bullets not covered by a copper jacket) in their polygonally rifled barrels, which has led to a widespread belief that polygonal rifling is not compatible with lead bullets. Firearms expert and barrel maker, the late Gale McMillan, has also commented that lead bullets and polygonal rifling are not a good mix. Some have made a point of the fact that neither H&K nor Kahr explicitly recommend against lead bullets in their polygonal rifled barrels, and feel that it is probable that there is an additional factor involved in Glock's warning. However, Kahr's FAQ does include a warning that lead bullets can cause additional fouling]<1> and recommends special attention to cleaning after using them. In addition, while H&K doesn't warn against the use of lead, at least one well-documented catastrophic incident in an H&K pistol<2> appears to be related to this issue. Furthermore, Dave Spaulding, well-known gun writer, reported in the February/March 2008 issue of Handguns Magazine that when he queried H&K about their polygonally rifled barrels that they commented: "It has been their experience that polygonal rifling will foul with lead at a greater rate than will conventional rifling."

One suggestion of what the "additional factor involved in Glock's warning" might be is that Glock barrels have a fairly sharp transition between the chamber and the rifling, and this area is prone to lead buildup if lead bullets are used. This buildup may result in failures to fully return to battery, allowing the gun to fire with the case not fully supported by the chamber, leading to a potentially dangerous case failure. However, since this sharp transition is found on most autopistols this speculation is of limited value. The sharp transition or "lip" at the front of the chamber is required to "headspace" the cartridge in most autopistols.

Another possible explanation is that there are different "species" of polygonal rifle and perhaps Glock's peculiar style of polygonal rifling may be more prone to leading than the particular styles employed in the H&K and Kahr barrels.

Leading is the buildup of lead in the bore that happens in nearly all firearms firing high velocity lead bullets. This lead buildup must be cleaned out regularly, or the barrel will gradually become constricted resulting in higher than normal discharge pressures. In the extreme case, increased discharge pressures can result in a catastrophic incident.

[sasquatch]

5. Damn, I've fired one of those and when I get a handgun that's what I'm going to buy

[1]

7. there is nothing wrong with a glock 21. the finest pistol i own. i love it...

[doc03]

9. There have been some

problems with them especially with reloads also some with factory ammo.

This one was with factory ammo: http://www.thegunzone.com/glock/glock-kb2.html

[1]

12. the glock to me is a wonderful weapon. i don't like hammers and external safeties...

when i put my finger on the trigger, that's all the safety i need ever worry about.

the glock internal safeties take care of the things i don't need to worry about.

my glocks have never accidentally discharged. i'm not sure it is possible.

when i put my finger on the trigger that is all the safety i need. y'all can cock your hammers and press the red buttons if that's what you need. cool.

the trigger is what i focus on...

[doc03]

13. What does the safety or the lack of one have to do with

the gun exploding?

[1]

15. oh, absolutely nothing. the thread sort of veered into glocks. i was just gushing about my love...

sorry.

[Howzit]

20. That article claims the gun fired out of battery. This would result in a blown cartridge case, yet

the barrel of that gun is split at the chamber. Such damage is caused by a barrel defect or extreme over pressure. The latter can be caused by defective ammo, or allegedly, extreme leading of the barrel.

Something is fishy here.

http://www.thegunzone.com/glock/glock-kb2.html

[Pavulon]

27. Shitty reloads are the devil. NEVER EVER fire a round you did not load or buy

from a real manufacturer. All firearm manuals explicitly say "do not fire reloaded or remanufactured ammo".

Glock addressed their unsupported barrel design in 40cal years ago.

It is very easy to double or triple charge a pistol cartridge and end up with a grenade in your hand.

[Israfel4]

11. Under supported chamber strikes again perhaps??? n/t

[benEzra]

22. The relieved chamber doesn't cause firing out of battery, though.

A history of shooting cast lead reloads for practice can reportedly cause firing-out-of-battery situations, if you get lots of lead fouling where the case is supposed to headspace. It seems peculiar to the .40 S&W models, perhaps because .40 S&W is a rather high-pressure load.

A lot of people who shoot cast lead reloads in Glock .40's suggest that you use an aftermarket, non-polygonal-rifled barrel for the exposed-lead ammo, and use the factory barrel only with jacketed bullets.

[Historic NY]

18. I had a Glock 22 that had a "Phase 3" failure on the range...I was

lucky the next round could not go in battery. The weapon had to be field stripped and the shell casing pounded out of the barrel. We believe it was faulty reloaded ammo which many dept's. buy for practice because its cheaper. The end result of this failure was th dept issued new service ammon every range visit and you used the old duty stuff for practice. If this happened on the street the result could have been fatal.

[AtheistCrusader]

29. That's what backup guns are for.

Shit can and does happen.

[benEzra]

23. Read some discussion on a gun board this morning...

and it was pointed out that this was a .45 (relatively low-pressure round), not a high-pressure .40, making a simple unsupported-case-blows-out cause unlikely, and if the gun was indeed new then my cast-lead-buildup theory is out the window also.

Favored theories at this point was that it was either the 2nd shot behind a squib, a round that had been chambered and unchambered many times (leading to severe bullet setback and resulting overpressure), or an overcharged load (the department said it was "factory ammunition", but didn't say if it wasn't bottom-of-the-market LEO-only factory reloads or name brand).

Oh, and this is totally a joke, because I like Glocks, but if you believe everything you read on the Internet, you might think this was an accurate description:

[eqfan592]

24. LOL! That gave me a laugh this morning. Thanks :) (nt)

[cowcommander]

25. lol'd

The exploding Glock thing has become a bit of an internet meme these days. :-)

[Pavulon]

26. I have a glock with over 20k rounds

over ten years. Bought it right out of the service. Now that I am married and employed I have bought high dollar 1911's, sigs, hk, and others. They all do good stuff but none really do it three times better than a glock 17.

Glock makes a fine weapon. They had one serious issue which they addressed years ago.

[AtheistCrusader]

28. How often do Springfield's kB! these days?

I've never once seen one, but have heard of plenty of Glocks.. Maybe a market share sort of thing? Happens to both, but maybe so many Glocks in circulation, you're more likely to hear about a glock going kB! than a springfield?