Glock KB's, I'm concerned

[OneShot]

First off, lets make this perfectly clear, I AM NOT BASHING GLOCKS in this thread. I am simply concerned, as my XD seems to be very similar in construction to a Glock.

I heard of a site called www.glocksucks.com I went there and was shocked at the pictures that I saw. Are these types of failures common? Do you have to worry about them with other types of pistols such as the XD?

I had never seen pics like that of a handgun, and it kind of made me really think about what could happen while shooting.

I apoligize if this is a re post. I did a search on it here and came up empty.--OneShot

 

[OneShot]

Here's a pic of what I'm describing

 

[HIPOWER]

I believe the Glock KB problem is a bit overdone. Any gun can KB if the ammo is out of spec or loaded to higher pressures. Just so happens that there are a lot of Glocks out there and so they have their proportional share of KB instances when poor quality ammo is used. Stick to good factory loaded ammo as per Glock's instructions and you should be just fine. There are many thousands of Glocks out there performing just fine. Mine never miss a beat.

 

[Coronach]

Yeah, there's a nice, even-handed discussion of the topic.

Mike

 

[OneShot]

Whoa! a little Glock defensive there. Remember I'm just using Glocks as an example of what I am worried about.

Is this occurance common in most pistols of this type?

What other examples are there of this type of partially unsupported cases? In other words what other types of guns are set up like the above mentioned Glocks?

I'm new to these types of pistols and am just concerned--OneShot

 

[9x19]

OneSHot,

The FBI conducted their own series of tests on the Glock .40s including:

"One of the three guns was cleaned, lubed and loaded then put in a box containing half play sand and half road sand, and covered up. It was removed shaken out and fired until empty. The last abuse test had a bullet lodged in the barrel, one inch in front of the chamber. Then one round of service ammunition was fired with the obstruction in place. The pistol could not rupture or fragment the frame slide or barrel. As an added test five more rounds were fired after the first round cleared the barrel obstruction."

They do happen, seemingly more often with the .40 cartridge, but they have been reported in all makes of pistols.

 

[arinvolvo]

Also, oneshot, methinks that the XDs chamber design is fully supported, unlike the glocks that have KB! on that website.

Dont mess with reloads, use factory ammo....and dont worry so much...have fun shooting. You ponder this too much, you are going to end up with one nasty flinch when you pull the trigger...and that aint good for accuracy

 

[Shake]

I wouldn't be overly concerned about it. I place the GLOCK kb! issue in the same pile as the "SIGs rust within seconds of removing the shrink wrap", "1911s require $1000 worth of smithing to make them reliable", "H&K's firing pins break after 3,457 rounds", and "Berettas locking blocks break on round number 5,001"

I'm not saying it can't happen, because it does. It isn't the norm by a long shot, and if you take good care of your handgun and use good quality ammo, you will likely never have a problem.

Most auto pistols can kb!, but don't. If you look hard enough you can find examples of most autos that have kbed!. Again, the liklihood of it happening to you if you are careful is extremely small.

Shake

 

[gudel]

ha!

poor Glockers. for the price they're asking, i don't expect the gun to blow up on me.

don't you guys get free upgrade?

 

[mete]

You should understand why they go kboom. Using lead bullets and not cleaning often and thoroughly. Reloading cases too often, count the number of times cases are reloaded , inspect cases carefully including cutting open a case to see thinning. Not taking care to have proper LOA. The case must tightly grip the bullet to prevent setback . In the 40 if the bullet is .1 " furtther back than it should be the pressure will DOUBLE. If you add these three problems together , yes it will go kboom.

 

[Sarge111]

Your question regarding KaBooms was...

"Is this occurance common in most pistols of this type?"

The answer is NO. The Glock, in .40 caliber and up, does this with greater frequency than any other pistol I know of- and it's not just limited to lead bullets, or reloads. I'm not basing this on internet "wisdom". I'm basing it on 10 years as a police firearms instructor, who stayed in touch with a lot of other instructors; and a 10 years in LE before that. I personally know of three, and have seen NCIC teletypes on dozens more- this was back during the early 90's when the .40's were becoming popular. Many of these were with jacketed factory ammo, which displayed no problem in other guns.

Glock needs to address this, and fix it. I personally think it is the 'unsupported chamber' issue, but I also am told of instances where the back of the slide jumps the guide-rails. Neither of these things is something I want to worry about on a carry gun.

In the Glocks defense, they often work well for thousands of rounds with no problems, and they certainly shoot well enough for the intended use. The odds of a major problem are just a little too high for me to buy one, at present.

When Springfield brought out the XD I contacted them on the issue of using lead, and whether their gun had a supported chamber. They say it does, and while they don't recommend lead or reloads, they'll tell you that it won't hurt their gun. I am waiting for the sub-compact .45 to come out, and then I'll probably try one. They are ugly as homemade sin, but all it has to do is work every time and shoot well to make me happy.

Well, that and not blow up. Take care-

 

[OneShot]

Thanks for some answers guys.

You would think that Glock would recall the models with this problem and correct it. I doubt I will be buying one soon.--OneShot

 

[Sean Smith]

Except that it isn't entirely a gun design issue. The .40 S&W cartridge itself has a smaller margin of safety compared to some others.

The .40 S&W is a 10mm derivative. But it isn't just a shorter 10mm case; it also has thinner case walls and "web" area on the brass. But the operating pressures aren't much lower than 10mm. This may seem wierd, but the main performance advantage of 10mm comes from the extra case capacity, which lets you pack lots of slow-burning powder to get higher velocities at (fairly) low peak pressures. 10mm peak pressures are only ~10% higher than .40 S&W... but the 10mm case is clearly alot more than 10% stronger than .40 S&W.

Case support is relative, not absolute. There is a trade-off between lots of case support and a tight chamber on one hand (which give you a bigger margin of safety against case failures), and feed reliability on the other. If you want a gun that will feed any cartridge, anywhere near spec, anytime, even if dirty, you have to give up some case support and make your chamber a bit looser. Basically, you have to make a compromise at some point, and Glocks lean towards absolute feed reliability, as opposed to absolute case support. If you like Glocks, but feel differently about that point, get an aftermarket barrel from somebody like KKM and "fix" the problem. But there is no free ride.

None of which really matters if you stick to quality ammo made to operate within normal pressure limits, or don't get stupid with your reloading. Almost all of the documented cases of .40 S&W guns blowing up (Glock or otherwise) have been a result of idiotic reloading, not mechanical defects in the gun.

None of which is to say that .40 S&W is a bad cartridge. Being stupid is always dangerous, and is just a bit more so with a cartridge that has less margin of safety designed into it than some others. Of course, the same could be said for .38 Super, and you don't read alot of hand-wringing about that anymore.

Observation: One of the "scary" pics on Glocksucks.com is of an AFTERMARKET (not Glock) barrel that split like a bananna.

[Full disclosure: I used to (but don't anymore) own .40 S&W Glocks. I'm not a particular fan, or hater, of Glock, or the .40 S&W cartridge, or Glocks chambered in the .40 S&W cartridge, or... well, you get the idea. ]

 

[Coronach]

Also, lets look at the statistics involved. Glock has a massive portion of the LE market, particularly the .40S&W LE market. This is a market where guns are shot often, and under controlled conditions where kBs will be reported and recorded. This alone will result in a disproportionate percentage of reported Glock kBs.

I'm neither a glock supporter nor basher. I own precisely one Glock, and admit that it is a good gun, but certainly not my favorite. But I know a potential abuse of statistics when I see one.

Mike

 

[Mike Irwin]

I've witnessed (actually saw 3) KBs, and have seen the immediate aftermath of about 10 more from working on a range/in a gun shop.

All of these happened with EARLY .40 S&Ws chambered Glocks.

All but I believe 1 or 2 happened with RELOADED ammunition.

Early Glock .40s had more unsupported chamber, early brass runs were not as robust as they are now, and combined with the stress on the cases from the unsupported chamber and hot reloads, it's not surprising that the cases occasionally popped.

Since about 1994/95, however, Glock redid their barrels and the ammo companies redid their brass.

Since then KBs are, as best I can determine, pretty much unknown.

I'm not a big fan of Glocks.

Conversely, I'm not a big detractor of them, either.

I've never been very enamored of them simply because they tend not to fit my hand. That seems to have changed with the grip reshaping in the 3rd generation, to the point where I'm seriously considering getting a 10mm or .45 Glock.

 

[Handy]

Can someone post side by side pictures of the old Glock .40 chambers and the new .40 chambers Mike is talking about?



I'm really unsure, especially with this kind of thing, why .40 is so popular among sport shooters. Cops, I understand. Cost and target accuracy isn't as much an issue. But a private person looking for a nice shooting gun and paying for their ammo would have more luck with either 9, .45 or .38 Super for most every application.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"I'm really unsure, especially with this kind of thing, why .40 is so popular among sport shooters."

Why?

Because it was billed in the firearms press as the second coming of Christ or John Moses Browning, whichever one you worship.

I started with American Rifleman magazine not long after guns chambered in .40 started hitting the market in substantial numbers.

It was tough to keep them on the shelves.

The frenzy that was generated was much like that generated by the "Wonder9 Revolution" in the early 1980s.

Everyone and their uncle NEEDED a high-capacity, preferably double-action, 9mm semi-auto.

Companies couldn't bring out new models quickly enough.

Colt got caught flat footed and tried to remedy the situation with the abortion known as the AA2000.

Glock suddenly appeared on the market and in a matter of about a year had scored an impressive number of police contracts.

Then the FBI Fiasco in Miami happened.

The "failure" of the 9mm (that's how it was largely billed by association, a package failure of the round and the gun and not tactics) followed by the FBI research into a new round got the public REALLY keyed up and wondering if their new Wonder 9, for which they had paid a king's ransom, was worthless.

The gun rags started covering the FBI testing, interest in the 10mm started to grow again, and then S&W introduced the .40. By that time the public had been pretty thoroughly primed, and it didn't take too many articles on the advantages of the .40 over the 9 and 10mm/.45 to start a new feeding frenzy.

MORE POWER IN A 9MM-SIZED GUN!

ALMOST AS POWERFUL AS THE .45!

MORE POWER THAN 9MM, MORE ROUNDS THAN 45!

All of those were either headlines or tag lines on articles that ran in the pablum gun press at the time.

With that sort of hype, the .40 S&W couldn't fail, whereas a very similar round that came out some months before, the .41 Action Express, didn't get the press and simply couldn't suceed.

 

[Handy]

I'm familiar with the history, Mike.

I suppose I was just wondering aloud how 15 years hasn't exposed this hum drum cartridge as more of an expensive pain than a do-all solution to informed shooters. One could say that of any caliber, but .40 gets alot of (deserved) criticism, yet still sells very well to those who don't need that particular blend of capacity and power, especially to the detriment of other factors.

 

[Dobe]

Why?

Because, some people believe that if LEO's use the .40, it must be good, or else they wouldn't use it. And the FBI always leads the pack.

 

[Sean Smith]

Dunno.

One quasi-insight, though, is that .40 S&W is popular with IPSC-esque sport shooters for several reasons...

1. They generally handload it, so they can load it to 10mm-esque overall length and get the feed reliability (long oal = better for a 1911-derivative) and case capacity benefits of 10mm with much cheaper brass.

2. "Major" power factor ain't that major, thus they aren't pushing the envelope with load development in terms of pressure/power levels.

3. They are all using ramped-barrel guns with lots of case support and tight chambers, partly to compensate for the .40 S&W weak case, and partly just because match barrels tend to come that way out of the box. Thus, they by default negate the cartridge's main problem.

4. High pressures are a good thing if you are using ports and compensators.

Sorry for the off-topic rambling... back to your regularly scheduled Glock argument already in progress...

 

[Correia]

Sean has a point from the competitive point of view. You can stuff 18 or 20 .40 rounds into an SVI or STI. And 9mm wouldn't make major. Brass was super common, and much cheaper than 9x21 or 10mm.

However now IPSC changed major so that 9mm can make it. I have no idea how that will change anything as I don't really shoot IPSC much.

 

[Jim Watson]

IPSC/USPSA approved 9mm Major for Open only.
Limited guns still require .40 minimum caliber.

 

[9x19]

Mike,

I remember Wiley Clapps article on the S&W 4006 (also bought one of the advanced dealer samples when they first came out ~ horribly inaccurate back then). He all but declared the 9mm "silliness" at an end with the .40s introduction.

The round did prove popular but I doubt .40 sales have ever exceeded those of the 9mm in the same year.

 

[cratz2]

I own a Glock 23 and shoot it without fear. It just seemed like the right Glock to get at the time. I would like to get a G29 someday but this was for my wife to have as a 'no external safety house gun'... I bought the Glock and a SIG Pro. Sold the SIG.

And before you go saying I'm a Glock-defender, I am a die hard 1911 guy. I think the Hi Power and the CZ75 are good designs but not up to the 1911.

I have no doubt that ka booms happen, seems like mostly with 40S&W guns as well. But you've got to consider how many of them there are out there... to not do so is foolish. I mean, how many agencies issue or have issued the G22 or G23? Bunches. I am told that right now, Glock has 70,000 of the new G37s - intended only for the US - built, waiting to ship out. This is for a gun that isn't expected to be an overnight sensation. The G22 and G23 have been two of the best selling Glocks since the were released. That's a bunch of guns. So if there are 10 major failures a year, I guess that's pretty bad but it's a very small sampling of the entire set that is out there. Only gun I've seen have a problem was a 1911 in fact. Split the case, broke the front of the extractor, and charred the inside of the slide. It was repaired and cleaned up a but and still works fine, but it was a major failure. I'm not gonna run around screaming because it happened though.

Call me niave but I believe if you buy a current G23, and load it with commercial ammo from known good companies, you won't have a bit of trouble. Get a first year G23 and use your your buddy, Bubba's lead reloads and you might have an issue after a few thousand rounds.

 

[tiberius]

Dont mess with reloads, use factory ammo

I don't believe that the above is an acceptible attitude. If a particular weapon needs special attention in regards to handloaded ammunition, that's fine, but if it cannot be hand loaded for then it is junk. It seems that the truth is that you just need to pay particular attention the quality of your brass and keep the loads mild with this particular weapon. This shoyuld not present a problem.

There is absolutely no reason to create hot loads for .40 S&W anyway.....That's what 10mm is for. .40 S&W was specifically designed for those who found 10mm to be too robust, so its probably not a good idea to try and turn it back into 10mm