Glock .40 Kaboooms

[Island Beretta]

This has been beaten to death but let me see if I can help. The Glock chamber is cut low so a proportion of the necessary chamber support is not there. Other guns have unsupported chamber but the Glock is probably one of the less supported ones. Do a search for Stephen Camp in his XD range report and you'll see some pictures of the chamber showing the case head exposure.

A .40 S&W is a high-pressure round (hence no defn. of +P for it) and it's pressure curve is steep for case volume changes. This means that if you have a bullet setback the resulting reduction in case volume will cause a significant increase in pressure.

Glock was originally built as a military gun and worldwide the most popular handgun military rounds are the various types of 9mm. They (Glock) had chambered theirs in 2 types of 9mm: 9mmx19 and 9mmx 18. The .40 S&W was an opportunity seized by Glock in which they saw a hit with this round in the American market and they were not wrong. They even beat the developer of the .40 round to the market with a pistol.

Why hasn't Glock fixed this? Well the 9mm is the top seller worldwide.

IMO, the .40 will probably never qualify as a worldwide military round due to its basic design, as military ammo are made under various specs and stored under various conditions with weapons kept also in various state of cleanliness. To use a round that is so sensitive to spec changes in the field where you do not have absolute control over QC or the source of ammo would not be smart.

 

[hnm201]

The Glock chamber is cut low so a proportion of the necessary chamber support is not there. Other guns have unsupported chamber but the Glock is probably one of the less supported ones.

Why did Glock design the chamber this way? Because it makes feeding the chamber easier - assuming that said chamber is in a Glock handgun. Some people think that this is bad design. Personally I think that just like any good handgun design, the glock has its strengths and weaknesses. Personally I'd rather have the feeding reliability of the undersupported chamber and live with the risk that a case head failure might blow the mag out of the bottom of the gun and may or may not crack the chamber and split the barrel and while also enjoying the other benefits of toting a glock: light weight, durability of finish and frame, high capacity and superior (for me) ergonomics.

Why hasn't Glock fixed this?

I don't really know that it needs fixin. It's more likely that the ammo needs to be fixed. Glock does need to fix the problems with certain runs of G19's that have feeding problems that resulted from a change in their manufacturing process, just like they fixed the rail breakage issue.

Well the 9mm is the top seller worldwide.

I always assumed that this statement was true. However, the infamous former gun writer Dean "kB!" Speir, who has graced this board as of late, has said tha his source at Glock told him that .40 cal pistols accounted for 60% of the company's sales. It's in a thread on THR somewhere.

I am surprised that no one on the thread has yet called out Glock for it's patently false advertisement of "Perfection". Please. There never has been, nor shall there ever be, a perfect handgun or rifle. Perfect is the enemy of good, and imho, glocks are pretty good guns and they're so good that they are better than at least some, if not most, of the alternatives. Please make my Glock a .45 (preferred) or a 10mm or a 9mm. I am not a big fan of the .40 or the .357 sig.

 

[popeye]

I just went through the frame rail deal. Bought a new model 19 last week. Got it home and thought about frame recall. Sure enough Ser.# EPEXXXX. Called Glock next day my NEW gun fell under frame recall. They told me they had frames in stock, send gun in. Called dealer I bought gun from and told him the story. He had no clue about frame failures. He swapped my gun for a new one. Sent e-mails and called dealers in my area about it. This frame thing has been around since Nov. 2002! Call Glock if your unsure, it effects most models. Not all E series, and some F's, etc..

http://www.glocktalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=237800

 

[jc2]

I think the 60% was the current US sales figure (or maybe even just US LE figure)--I do not believe a total world-wide sales.

 

[JohnKSa]

Currently Beretta reps state that Glock has 60+% of the U.S. LEO market.

Combine that with Speir's claim that 60% of Glocks sold are .40s and you have a LOT of Glock .40s out there.

**Two out of three LEOs in the nation is carring a Glock--and more than half of those are .40s**

 

[Phantom Warrior]

A minor aside...

They (Glock) had chambered theirs in 2 types of 9mm: 9mmx19 and 9mmx 18.

It's actually 9mmx17 or .380ACP...

 

[mec]

"Glock 40 KB's is an AMMUNITION issue, plain and simple. Dean Spier is on a personal crusade to convince people the 40 isn't safe"

These things happen with factory loads too. Our police department has been tracking Glock blow ups and finds them regularly in Texas alone. The training officer interviews his counterparts in the departments involved and verifies the events.

Until I learned about this from one of our detectives, I was tempted to attribute the reports to one of the aspects of Speir's quest for statlier mansions of unpleasantness.
While we were discussing this, the detective was ringing out his Glock 9mm- one of the little ones - I don't know the number. I remarked that KBs always seem to happen with the 40 or .357 Sig and never with the 9mm. He said " yeh."

A few minutes later, he came over and said " remember what we were talking about?" Then showed me a case from the factory WW whitebox ball he had been shooting . It was buldged just ahead of the case head and had a small crack. Jammed the gun. At least it didn't deconstitute itself like some of them.

 

[greg531mi]

Do you have a link to Dean's site?

Thanks.........

 

[jc2]

See post #22 (the first page). The first link is to Dean Speir's site.