A Glock Kaboom, for your macabre perusal!

[P95Carry]

I have been meaning to borrow this and take pics of it for ages. It belongs to a buddy who is president of my IDPA club. It happened in 2003 and was due to a squib not being detected during a frenzied course of fire. Glock 22 in .40 S&W cal ... and you'll see this is a KKM barrel - which he had bought so as to use his lead bullet reloads. No crit' of the barrel - nothing would have handled this I expect.

It was assumed to be just an FTF or similar and - with a rapid slide rack, another round was loaded and fired!! The two bullets had an argument and pressures became, shall we say - excessive!! The mag was forcibly ejected from the grip - but the slide stayed put!! It had to be cut off tho to get at this barrel. The frame is intact and Bill's hand suffered very little - quite remarkable.... in fact no injuries to him or those nearby - just an addition to the laundry inventory!

I had not seen quite such a burst and so thought it well useful to get pics and show them, at last.



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[dmallind]

Wouldn't this be a KKM kaboom?


Besides - he really needs to clean that barrel out - bit too heavy on the residue there. That should help the problem!

 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

What's the difference between a "KKM" barrel and a standard Glock barrel?

 

[Rockstar]

Now that's a genuine KB!

 

[P95Carry]

DMallind ... technically yeah - I guess. But it was used inside Glock so - thus the title.

It is not of course anything unflattering to the gun itself, original barrel or after market - the gun held together remarkably and so this is in no way a crit' of either the gun or the barrel. Both are excellent - under ''normal'' conditions

HTG ... the Glock barrel is the polygonal - not recommended for lead. The KKM is std rifling.

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Edit to add - I quite forgot in first post to say - this barrel looks pretty darned mucky - but it has since the incident been floating around the guy's gun room .... and so has gathered crud and some corrosion!!

 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

KKM is an aftermarket barrel?

 

[dmallind]

yep it is

www.kkmprecision.com

 

[Chuck Perry]

Great pics, thanks. The force required to do that is impressive, isn't it?

 

[45R]

Thats gonna leave a mark..........................

 

[Coronach]

Holy crapola.

Well, you cannot diss Glock or KKM on this one. Wow. That musta been a real eye-opener.

Mike

 

[George Hill]

Can't really diss either Glock or KKM on this one.
ANY gun would KB with squib and then fire another one after it.

 

[P95Carry]

Let me reiterate so as no one thinks bad of either barrel or gun - this is most certainly a catastrophic failure, which is nothing to do with the component's being faulty.

For sure - this sorta over-pressure is gonna blow up most gun/barrel combo's.!!

 

[357SIG]

Well, almost any gun would kB! with a round following a squib, with the exception being the HK USP, which was tested in this manner.

In all seriousness, Even beefed-up pistols such as the USP are subject to this type of failure from time-to-time. The only thing that could prevent a situation like this is to pay attention to the rounds when shooting.

 

[FPrice]

P95Carry...

[/QUOTE]DMallind ... technically yeah - I guess. But it was used inside Glock so - thus the title.

It is not of course anything unflattering to the gun itself,

The article may not be unflattering to the gun but the title sure is. It leads one to believe that this is another in a series of Glock "incidents" wherein the design of the gun is suspect in many people's minds. But when you get into the actual incident it was actually a problem that has happened to just about every other gun or gun design one time or another. If it was just about any other pistol it would not be a big issue. But the term "Glock Kaboom" relates to a phenomena which, real or not real, has a meaning all it's own.

BTW, I am dealing with Federal Cartridge right now over a casehead separation which just occured. In my Glock 23. "Glock Kaboom" or cartridge failure is yet to be determined. When it is, I will be relating the findings in a thread i had already started over in the Gunsmithing section.