(OR) Portland officer sues Glock for millions

[Master Blaster]

Its factory ammo, It was double charged on the factory highspeed automated equipment. Or maybe they used the wrong powder!!!!!

This does happen you know, and if that is the case, combined with slightly out of spec headspace, you get thet effect you see here.

It can also happen to a 1911. If you think that 1911s support the case head more than a glock, well I own both, and guess what a 1911 has the same unsupported area except its larger.

 

[buzz_knox]

Its factory ammo, It was double charged on the factory highspeed automated equipment. Or maybe they used the wrong powder!!!!!

This does happen you know, and if that is the case, combined with slightly out of spec headspace, you get thet effect you see here.

It can also happen to a 1911. If you think that 1911s support the case head more than a glock, well I own both, and guess what a 1911 has the same unsupported area except its larger.

I wonder if it was the same lot of ammo (probably) and the time difference between the two incidents.

 

[Baba Louie]

Back in '95, when I took my first CCW class, the instructor, a retired Marine Gunnery Sgt, LEO Trainer, Glock Armorer and general gun knowledgable kinda guy, warned us about the 21's "non-fully supported" barrel and told us to buy and install a Bar-Sto Fully Supported barrel if we were going to own, carry, & shoot a Model 21/30.

http://www.barsto.com/category_main.cfm?ID=GLOCK

Those barrels aren't cheap. What is your well being worth? $53,050,000 (less your attorney's cut of course) I guess. Hmmm. Spend $200+ or get hurt and try to convince a jury to award you $X.XX

Too bad for Glock and too bad for Officer F.Pirv. The Glock guys that taught my instructor at his Glock Armorer's School knew about this way back when. Hence his words of advice/warning. If there's any paper trail in-house, or they can find a disgruntled "Glock Ex-Employee" to testify in their behalf...


If you own a 21 or a 30, take the factory barrel out, place a dummy round in the chamber and see what hangs out or is left exposed. Then marry barrel into slide (you'll have to take dummy round and place it into slide first, sliding barrel onto round). It doesn't seem like enough of the case is left exposed once the slide locks up w/ the barrel, but a small area at the bottom of the case, right above the feedramp is there for all the world to see. A bad piece of brass, some aberrant powder charge, a questionable reload...

Probably be settled out of court, with private non-disclosable to the public results.

Does make me wonder tho'. I've shot thousands of rounds thru both the 30 and 21 with no KB... yet. Maybe I've been lucky. I know I do not shoot reloads or re-mfg rounds through them. Nor do I shoot +P.

 

[buzz_knox]

A lot of weapons have comparable levels of "non" support as the Glock. There's more going on than just that in the kBs.

 

[HankB]

Most people here grew up with the 1911 which is a spectacular firearm, every bit as reliable as a Glock. I'm not talking about the ancient ones, but modern 1911's.

I'm a fan of the 1911 design, but it's my observation that run of the mill, out of the box 1911s don't have anywhere near the reliability that Glocks do. (Not that Glocks are perfect . . . they're not, not even in 9mm.)

As to this incident, it sounds like it may be a legitimate case of a defective product, either the gun or the ammo, unless it can be shown that some unusual user action (poor maintenance?) is the cause. Guns ought not blow up.

I gather the injuries are minor, and not permanent . . . if that's the case, tens of thousands of dollars of compensation (plus reasonable legal fees) is appropriate. Tens of millions of dollars is absurd.

 

[ball3006]

Anything mechanical.............

WILL BREAK...........Mr. Murphy says so.......Just his time, I guess.......I have two Glocks and they have been 100 percent trouble free for 12 years.......many thousands of rounds through them......Was this ammo loaded by a remanufacturer by chance? chris3

 

[bowfin]

Give the officer a band-aid, kiss his owie slip him a grand, then give the Police Department a new handgun of their choice, and make the lawyer in this chamber and fire rounds through the defective pistol until he is no longer lstanding.

It was a defective handgun, not a Powerball ticket.

 

[engineer151515]

At least they are not suing Glock for the gun unintentionally firing (ie. someone having their finger on the trigger when they shouldn't).

Happened here in AL.
link http://www.wkrg.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WKRG/MGArticle/KRG_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031782175198

"The mother of a man who died last year after he was shot by a State Trooper is filing a lawsuit against the gun manufacturer.

Valerie Goodwin, the mother of Darrell Taylor, filed suit against Glock Incorporated. Her son was killed during a traffic stop on the Mobile Bay Causeway last April. A Baldwin County Grand Jury ruled the shooting was accidental.

A Glock Semi-Automatic handgun was used by State Trooper Angel Rodriguez. At least one gun shop owner says the Glock handgun is safe, but the lawsuit claims it takes very little pressure on the trigger to make the gun fire.

Bryan Cigeleske, Attorney for Goodwin says "There needs to be an awareness that the Glock Pistol is a dangerous weapon. As it's being marketed and distributed to police and law enforcement throughout this state and really the nation."






At least in the Portland case, something did mechanically fail..........

 

[TheEgg]

THE GASES ESCAPED BY BLOWING A HOLE THROUGH THE SIDE OF THE CASING TEARING AWAY THE BOTTOM HALF OF THE BARREL AT THE LOCKING LUGS, BENDING THEM DOWNWARD AT APPROXIMATELY 30 DEGREE ANGLE

.

I am a technical nit-wit when it comes to things like this, but that sure sounds like an ammunition related malfunction -- overcharged round, bbl obstruction, and so on. My reasoning follows -- tell me where I am wrong.

I come to this as follows -- assuming the bbl on this particular gun was not defective in any way, it was designed and manufactured to withstand at least 10% over the standard SAMMI pressure for the round. Thus, the bbl., under ANY circumstances should not be damaged by pressure up to that limit, not if the cartridge case was defective, the bbl was slightly out of battery, etc. (I am not saying anything about any other part of the gun being damaged -- sure, they could be damaged by a regular ole .45acp round because they are not designed to contain the pressure -- I am limiting my remarks to the bbl. only).

Thus, MORE energy than is available in a properly loaded round would be required to do the damage listed above. Where does that energy come from? Does it not HAVE to come from excess/wrong powder in the cartridge in question, or an obstruction?

Or have I just removed all doubts about my nit-wit status?

 

[Double Maduro]

Its factory ammo, It was double charged on the factory highspeed automated equipment. Or maybe they used the wrong powder!!!!!

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, BS. if it was the wrong powder, don't you think more than 2 rounds would be affected? If it was double loads, don't you think that someone would have noticed?

What about the one that blew up 2 years before, here in Portland?

I am truly tired of the Glock is good - Glock is bad debate. The fact is that there seems to be a problem with G21's. Everytime some one mentions this the Glock apologists say, "must be reloads" or "must be bad ammo". I call bs.

This is not the only time and place that a G21 has kaboomed.

The rounds in question were factory loads, no one else has reported problems from that lot of ammo. The ammo companies could not stay in business for long with a double charge rate of 2%. That's assuming that the rounds came from differant boxes and not the same one.

This is not a 2nd ammendmant issue, it is a product liability issue.

I don't have anything against Glock, except that I have never found one that fit my hands.

By the way, I believe that glock replaced the used Portland G21's with new 9mm's, can't recall the model, on a straight across trade. Makes me think that Glock knows there is a problem and doesn't want it to come out. Well this suit will let the issue hit the fan.

I think that if there is a problem, Glock will settle and settle fast, if not, they will want it to go to trial so they can prove there is no problem.

Now, everyone repeat after me;

Glock is good,
Glocks don't kaboom,
If Glocks do kaboom, (we know they don't, see above) it is reloads,
If Glocks kaboom and it is not reloads, it is double charged factory ammo,
If Glocks kaboom and it is not reloads or double charged factory ammo, it is because all guns kaboom once in a while, we only hear about it more with Glocks because there are so many more glocks out there than everything else combined, ( I personally think there are more 1911's out there than all other pistols combined, but I am probably wrong. There are certainly more 1911's than G21's, so why don't we hear about more 1911 kabooms?)

Those who believe that the G21 is as good as all other Glocks, will not change their minds. Neither will the people who believe the G21 is a piece of junk hand grenade in .45acp.

Now get over it.

DM

 

[Double Maduro]

Egg,

come to this as follows -- assuming the bbl on this particular gun was not defective in any way, it was designed and manufactured to withstand at least 10% over the standard SAMMI pressure for the round.

Good theory, except it was 3 G21's that kaboomed in Portland, 2 within a few days of each other and one about 2 years earlier.

Ammo manufacturers could not stay in bussiness with an over-charge rate that high. They would have been sued out of existance years ago.

I think the reason the ammo manufacturer, Federal, was sued along with Glock, is to make the 2 of them fight it out in court and finally put to rest the bad gun-bad ammo question.

We'll have to wait and see who blinks first.

DM

 

[buzz_knox]

Egg,

I think the reason the ammo manufacturer, Federal, was sued along with Glock, is to make the 2 of them fight it out in court and finally put to rest the bad gun-bad ammo question.

We'll have to wait and see who blinks first.

DM

A careful attorney sues everyone with the slightest possibility of being found liable to insure that 1) the named defendant can't effectively say "the other guy did it" and reduce/eliminate it's own culpability, and 2) if the evidence shows the other guy actually did do it, and the attorney didn't sue them, the attorney's malpractice carrier will be most uphappy.

 

[Double Maduro]

Bryan Cigeleske, Attorney for Goodwin says "There needs to be an awareness that the Glock Pistol is a dangerous weapon. As it's being marketed and distributed to police and law enforcement throughout this state and really the nation."

Dangerous weapon, well, duuuuh.

If it wasn't the police wouldn't have much use for it now would they?

DM

 

[TheEgg]

Good theory, except it was 3 G21's that kaboomed in Portland, 2 within a few days of each other and one about 2 years earlier.

Ammo manufacturers could not stay in bussiness with an over-charge rate that high. They would have been sued out of existance years ago.

I really don't think it is possible, one way or another, to come to much of a conclusion about an 'over-charge' rate from the very limited information we have.

On the other hand, 2 within a few days of each other makes me think about a 'bad lot' due to some problem at the factory. PD's would purchase large quantities of ammunition at one time, thus perhaps getting box after box of ammo produced in close sequence to each other. Thus, if there were a problem on the line for only a few minutes, you might get some bad rounds in your lot, but no one else would, assuming that the problem was corrected somehow.

The other one from 2 years ago sounds like maybe a statistical outlier -- can't say much about that. Could have even been a defective bbl.

Remember, I am making the assumption in my argument that the bbl's in question are NOT defective in some way -- that may not be true.

BTW -- I have no emotional baggage regarding Glocks -- I have been satisfied with the ones I own, but I really prefer to get weepy-eyed over my 1911's.

 

[Double Maduro]

BTW -- I have no emotional baggage regarding Glocks -- I have been satisfied with the ones I own, but I really prefer to get weepy-eyed over my 1911's.

Me too, if I ever found a glock that fit my hands I would probably buy it.

I retired my 1911 a couple of years ago, well she is 92 years old.


A friend of mine just bought a Springfield 1911, I think it is one of the loaded ones, nice handgun.

The day she got it we took it out to the "dump", this is a place just outside Portland, the range she belongs to was closed that day.

She shot it a bit and I asked her how she liked it, she said she really liked it but would have to get used to it. When she asked if I would like to try it I said sure. In the next 7 seconds I put 7 holes, actually as it turned out it was only one hole about the size of a silver dollar, one of the real ones, in the paper, right where I wanted it, at about 30 feet. She asked if I liked it, and I said let's go look at the target. When I showed her the one big hole, I said, "it'll do". She asked, "how do you do that with a new gun" I said, "it's a 1911, they are all the same, and I like them."

A 1911 was the first handgun I ever shot, I think I was about 7 or 8, and I have yet to find one that won't point for me. It's almost like JMB had me in mind when he designed the first one.

This Springer truly is one sweet shooting 1911. Now I just have to talk her into swapping for my Makarov.

DM

 

[buzz_knox]

This Springer truly is one sweet shooting 1911. Now I just have to talk her into swapping for my Makarov.

DM

That would be evil. Pure evil. I thought she was your friend!

 

[cxm]

Austria Uses...

Austria has not used marks (ReichMarks) since 1945 or so...

Austria does use Shillings...

FWIW

Chuck

He shouldn't get one thin Austrian Deutchmark unless there was something clearly defective with either the gun or ammo and even then his demands are ridiculus.
There's a calculated risk everytime you pick up a firearm and shoot it. That's why we stress the importance of wearing eye and ear protection.

 

[ducati]

I am glad he is suing Glock, and I bet Glock is too. The reason Glock wanted to inspect the 2 firearms, but the PPD would not send them back to Glock.
Glock even offered to fly a rep from the Portland PD with the firearms and let them watch the inspection and would be able to return the damaged Glocks with them.
The suit should allow Glock to inspect the weapons to see if it was a firearm problem or ammo problem.
Our local PD had 3 HK USP .45 cals blow up in 1 day. Guess what? ammo problem.

 

[Double Maduro]

Buzz,

That would be evil. Pure evil. I thought she was your friend!
Today 10:47 AM

She is. She has only been shooting for a few months, and really wanted an Ed Brown Kobra, but didn't want to wait for 6 months or more, I suggested the Springfield and she is very happy with it.

I have told her that when she gets the Ed Brown, that she should talk to me about the springer.

DM

 

[Double Maduro]

I am glad he is suing Glock, and I bet Glock is too. The reason Glock wanted to inspect the 2 firearms, but the PPD would not send them back to Glock.
Glock even offered to fly a rep from the Portland PD with the firearms and let them watch the inspection and would be able to return the damaged Glocks with them.
The suit should allow Glock to inspect the weapons to see if it was a firearm problem or ammo problem.
Our local PD had 3 HK USP .45 cals blow up in 1 day. Guess what? ammo problem.

Actually, the Portland Police Bureau has a good relationship with glock and has been quite interrested in what went wrong.

Glock must not be too upset with the PPB, they swapped the guns out at no charge. Now would they have done that if they didn't think there was a problem?

DM

 

[MechAg94]

Actually, the Portland Police Bureau has a good relationship with glock and has been quite interrested in what went wrong.

Glock must not be too upset with the PPB, they swapped the guns out at no charge. Now would they have done that if they didn't think there was a problem?

DM

Yes. If they want to keep their big customers happy, they will throw in some extra warranty coverage.

Don't just assume this is a Glock problem just because you don't like them or you perceive an pre-existing problem.

This thread sounds like one of the cop bashing threads but with Glock instead of a LEO. Everyone is jumping to conclusions based on the facts they think they know.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Maybe a squib? No. As noted, it was a “breech/cartridge feed ramp fractured."

Doesn't preclude a squib -- one that left a bullet stuck in the barrel, with the next shot being the one that did the damage.

 

[SLCDave]

Not only does he have a Glock blow up in his face, but now he has to carry a 9mm...

Some guys just can't win...

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Not only does he have a Glock blow up in his face, but now he has to carry a 9mm...

Some guys just can't win...

Next time it happens he'll have to wear lace on his shorts.

 

[Double Maduro]

Don't just assume this is a Glock problem just because you don't like them or you perceive an pre-existing problem.

This thread sounds like one of the cop bashing threads but with Glock instead of a LEO. Everyone is jumping to conclusions based on the facts they think they know.

I would like you to go back and read my posts on this thread, and then do a search for all of my posts. Show me one where I have bashed LEO's. Hell, show me one where I have bashed Glock.

I am an independant computer consultant, I go through this all the time. Client calls and says the system isn't working right. I call the hardware people and they say it is the software. I call the software people and they say it is the hardware. However, when I get the hardware people and the software people on a conferrence call with the client and say "Prove your position", things get done and problems get solved rather than each side blaming the other.

I am hoping this does go to trial, then Glock and Federal will have to prove that it wasn't their fault and we will know, once and for freaking all if there is a problem with Glock.

I believe that Glock will settle though, if there have been recalls, I believe Glock prefers to call them "upgrades", Glock probably doesn't want anyone to know how many. Same with denied problems.

By the way, nice attempt at misdirection there, equating LEO bashing with Glock bashing. Any facts I have stated have come from the Portland Oregonian, yeah I know, but it's the paper of record.

I do find it strange that there are so many threads about glock kb's though and so many people willing to believe that they are all made up or are the fault of amunition.


DM