armarsh
Member
My first thought was a plated bullet that did not get sized in the manufacturing process, making it several thousandths larger than normal.
Another Glock "KB" This time in 9mm
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My first thought was a plated bullet that did not get sized in the manufacturing process, making it several thousandths larger than normal.
Lost Sheep
Member
Polygonal rifling?
I always heard that the cause of the so-called "Glock Ka-Boom" was that polygonal rifling tends to lead up (with cast lead bullets, of course) more than conventional rifling. This is not a problem if your lead bullets are hard enough.
Firing a jacketed or plated bullet down a leaded polygonal barrel can generate excessive pressure due to increased drag of the jacketed bullet trying to drag all that lead along.
Cleaning all the lead out cures the problem, but it is sometimes hard to see if you have gotten all the lead out of a barrel with this type of rifling.
This is supposedly prevented by aftermarket barrels with standard cut or button rifling.
This is supposedly not limited to Glocks, but they have gotten talked about more that the other gunmakers polygonal barrels.
Has the information I have been debunked?
Lost Sheep
I always heard that the cause of the so-called "Glock Ka-Boom" was that polygonal rifling tends to lead up (with cast lead bullets, of course) more than conventional rifling. This is not a problem if your lead bullets are hard enough.
Firing a jacketed or plated bullet down a leaded polygonal barrel can generate excessive pressure due to increased drag of the jacketed bullet trying to drag all that lead along.
Cleaning all the lead out cures the problem, but it is sometimes hard to see if you have gotten all the lead out of a barrel with this type of rifling.
This is supposedly prevented by aftermarket barrels with standard cut or button rifling.
This is supposedly not limited to Glocks, but they have gotten talked about more that the other gunmakers polygonal barrels.
Has the information I have been debunked?
Lost Sheep
The Glock kB! issue has several contributing factors--there is not one single cause. The lead bullet/polygonal rifling issue is one, there are several others.
The problem with the nearly all of the contributing factors is that they're not "reliable" and that makes it hard for people to buy in. People want things to be black and white. They want an expert to tell them that if they shoot some specific number of bullets of a certain hardness down the bore that it will blow up the gun but if they limit themselves to some carefully defined number of bullets less than the dangerous amount that they will be safe.
It turns out that it's not anywhere near that simple. Small variances from one gun to another mean that one gun may tolerate a lot of relatively soft bullets while another apparently identical gun may start to have trouble with a much lower number of quite hard bullets.
Some other contributing factors of note (I'm not claiming this is a complete list):
Early in the .40S&W's career there was a batch of weak cases from a major manufacturer that resulted in a number of kB!s. That has been solved.
Case support issues--largely eliminated with the newer Glocks.
Bad ammunition, especially reloads. The shooter is understandably loathe to blame himself and tries to blame the gun. The only kB! I've been personally involved in was something of a mystery until the guy who kB!ed the gun left the scene and his friend told everyone that this was the shooter's first time reloading. This really has nothing to do with the gun, of course.
Out of battery firing. The Glock design, especially when badly worn and poorly maintained can develop the ability to fire out of battery. There are other limiting factors in the design that prevent this from being a major danger (as in the gun blows itself to pieces), but it can result in case failures. The typical result is a stinging hand for the shooter, the mag is ejected from the gun and sometimes the extractor goes on holiday.
The problem with the nearly all of the contributing factors is that they're not "reliable" and that makes it hard for people to buy in. People want things to be black and white. They want an expert to tell them that if they shoot some specific number of bullets of a certain hardness down the bore that it will blow up the gun but if they limit themselves to some carefully defined number of bullets less than the dangerous amount that they will be safe.
It turns out that it's not anywhere near that simple. Small variances from one gun to another mean that one gun may tolerate a lot of relatively soft bullets while another apparently identical gun may start to have trouble with a much lower number of quite hard bullets.
Some other contributing factors of note (I'm not claiming this is a complete list):
Early in the .40S&W's career there was a batch of weak cases from a major manufacturer that resulted in a number of kB!s. That has been solved.
Case support issues--largely eliminated with the newer Glocks.
Bad ammunition, especially reloads. The shooter is understandably loathe to blame himself and tries to blame the gun. The only kB! I've been personally involved in was something of a mystery until the guy who kB!ed the gun left the scene and his friend told everyone that this was the shooter's first time reloading. This really has nothing to do with the gun, of course.
Out of battery firing. The Glock design, especially when badly worn and poorly maintained can develop the ability to fire out of battery. There are other limiting factors in the design that prevent this from being a major danger (as in the gun blows itself to pieces), but it can result in case failures. The typical result is a stinging hand for the shooter, the mag is ejected from the gun and sometimes the extractor goes on holiday.
F-111 John
Member
The bulge is a ring all around the case, so it must have been an out of battery firing.
The question is why the Glock fired while that far out of battery.
The question is why the Glock fired while that far out of battery.
Nom de Forum
Member
F-111 John
Member
Except for the part that blew out as shown in the pictures of post 38 and at the OP's original website posting.
Nom de Forum
Member
Sorry, I did not recognize that this was the same case. I don't think there is enough information to answer the question of why the KaBoom.
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