(OR) Portland officer sues Glock for millions

[Vern Humphrey]

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.

Not if the lawyers have their way -- after all, a civil trial isn't about truth, it's about money.

Case in point, the Dalkon Shield. The company was bankrupted, American women who could not tolerate the Pill were deprived for a generation of a safe, effective birth control method -- and when the smoke cleared, even Bill Clinton's Surgeon General (no conservative, he) admitted the data showed there was no risk to using the Dalkon Shield.

 

[Graystar]

Alot of them have trouble with the grip angle of the Glock...I'm not talking about the ancient ones, but modern 1911's. The grip angle is quite different.

That's odd...when I compare the backstrap angle between the Glock and my 1911, they're nearly identical. Also, both firearms point nearly exactly the same way in my hand, which is what I'd expect.

I guess experiences will vary.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

That's odd...when I compare the backstrap angle between the Glock and my 1911, they're nearly identical. Also, both firearms point nearly exactly the same way in my hand, which is what I'd expect.

I guess experiences will vary.

Ahh, but you haven't KBed your Glock, have you? That changes the grip angle.

 

[1911user]

That's odd...when I compare the backstrap angle between the Glock and my 1911, they're nearly identical. Also, both firearms point nearly exactly the same way in my hand, which is what I'd expect.

I guess experiences will vary.

I'll bet the big difference is arched vs. flat mainspring housings. I could believe an arched 1911 and a glock would point about the same. I like and use a flat housing 1911 and every glock I've tried points high at a 15-20 degree angle. That's a major reason I'll never buy a glock for serious use; it doesn't point well for me.

 

[KriegHund]

WTH is he suing glock for?

Cause they didnt build their gun to withstand a .45 blowup in the chamber when the chamner is partially open (from what i can tell)

Yeah, it sucks, but sh** happens.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

WTH is he suing glock for?

Cause they didnt build their gun to withstand a .45 blowup in the chamber when the chamner is partially open (from what i can tell)

Yeah, it sucks, but sh** happens.

Glocks can fire out of battery -- which is one reason I don't own one.

 

[JohnKSa]

fantacmet,

Between the time the 1911 was introduced and the time it became hugely popular in the U.S., it was often criticized for having a poor grip angle while European pistols such as the Luger were praised for being natural pointers.

Elmer Keith repeatedly states in his book "Sixguns" that the 1911 grip angle made it a poor natural pointer. BTW, he did like the pointing capabilities of the ORIGINAL Colt .45, the SAA.

 

[R.H. Lee]

So where is a Glock chamber any more 'unsupported' than a 1911? They look the same to me.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

So where is a Glock chamber any more 'unsupported' than a 1911? They look the same to me.

The difference is not in the chamber design, but in the fact that the Glock will fire out of battery. More than one KB has been traced to a dirty weapon (often due to firing lead bullets). As crud built up in the chamber mouth, the case went in a little less each time, until finally the case ruptured.

Somewhere there's a picture floating around on the web of a series of cases lined up -- the first has a tiny, barely visible bulge, the next a bit more and so on until you get to the one that ruptured.

 

[R.H. Lee]

The attached pics are of another .45 acp Glock that had a case failure at the unsupported chamber over the feed ramp.

and

I didn't realize the G21 also had the unsupported chamber like the G2

eh?

 

[strambo]

I can see sueing for the 50K and maybe a couple 100 grand for pain and suffering. However, 3 million for pain and suffering??? If a Police officer is so wimpy he thinks his "suffering" over a few scratches and some burns merits 3 million dollars...I don't want him "protecting" me. Finally, 50 million punitive damages?? Yeah, Glock really deserves to be put out of business for this BS.

I like how they sue 3 companies just in case. Who's fault was it, who are they trying to punish? Was it Glock (poor design), Federal (bad ammo), Alliant (bad powder), or PPD (bad inspection, armorer), or the officers (poorly maintained weapon?) How about a combination of all of the above. I hate money grubbin' lawyers and their "I'll get greedy and try to hit the lawsuit lottery" clients.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I can see sueing for the 50K and maybe a couple 100 grand for pain and suffering. However, 3 million for pain and suffering??? If a Police officer is so wimpy he thinks his "suffering" over a few scratches and some burns merits 3 million dollars...I don't want him "protecting" me. Finally, 50 million punitive damages?? Yeah, Glock really deserves to be put out of business for this BS.

I like how they sue 3 companies just in case. Who's fault was it, who are they trying to punish? Was it Glock (poor design), Federal (bad ammo), Alliant (bad powder), or PPD (bad inspection, armorer), or the officers (poorly maintained weapon?) How about a combination of all of the above. I hate money grubbin' lawyers and their "I'll get greedy and try to hit the lawsuit lottery" clients.

Unfortunately, our system is designed to promote this. In some countries they have a pre-suit session where the plaintiff and his lawyer have to demonstrate that they really have a case, and that the defendant is probably liable. We have nothing like that -- any fool can file suit for anything. And once you're sued, you must defend.

It leads to a scam on the insurance companies, "I know it'll cost you $100K to fight this suit. Give me $80K and I'll go away."

Another problem is we allow over-use of things like class-action lawsuits (where the lawyers get more than 60% of the money, and the members of the class get a coupon for $10 off on their next oil change.)

We ought to have the English rule (loser pays the winner's costs.) And in contingency fee cases, the lawyer should be liable for his share.

 

[R.H. Lee]

The difference is not in the chamber design, but in the fact that the Glock will fire out of battery. More than one KB has been traced to a dirty weapon (often due to firing lead bullets). As crud built up in the chamber mouth, the case went in a little less each time, until finally the case ruptured.

A Glock won't fire any further out of battery than will a 1911, which is what, 1/32" or thereabouts (maybe Tuner can tell us) until the disconnector meets the groove in the slide. The Glock barrel drops out of the way of the firing pin when the pistol is out of battery; it can't fire because the striker can't hit the primer.

 

[Crosshair]

Glocks can fire out of battery -- which is one reason I don't own one.

Even my Llama 1911 knockoff doesn't fire until it is in full lockup, and it has seen better days.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

A Glock won't fire any further out of battery than will a 1911, which is what, 1/32" or thereabouts (maybe Tuner can tell us) until the disconnector meets the groove in the slide. The Glock barrel drops out of the way of the firing pin when the pistol is out of battery; it can't fire because the striker can't hit the primer.

Despite that, Glocks seem to have more KBs than about anything else. And while a clean, empty Glock may have the breech out of alignment with the fireing pin, a slide moving dynamically forward on a round being shoved into a dirty chamber is a different matter.

 

[Graystar]

Ahh, but you haven't KBed your Glock, have you? That changes the grip angle.

I feel so silly! That was so obvious!

 

[kirkcdl]

The story I got was that Glock offered to replace the ENTIRE PPD inventory with another model,if PPD wanted,contingent on PPD returning the 2 KB'd G21s to Glock for inspection.PPD refused,and Glock retracted the offer.The photo I saw showed an open channel about 1/2" in width running from the right rear of the ejection port all the way to the bottom of the grip,in sort of an inverted "L" shape.If this officer was right handed,it would have been right across the palm of his hand,left handed would have been fingertips.Others here may have better sources as far as the details go,though...

 

[MTMilitiaman]

This guy is obviously desperate. With numbers that high he can only be hoping to get enough attention to persuade Glock to settle out of court. Fifty-million? That's absurd to the extreme. Ludicrous beyond measure. The guy should be pistol whipped for even suggesting this incident is worth a tenth of that amount. I want to see Glock force him to put his money where his mouth is by taking this to court. Call his bluff. Make this guy squirm at the thought of his own lawyer fees.

I am not a fan of Federal ammunition. I have had comparatively more problems with it than I have with Wolf, believe it or not. I've had 3 incidents with Wolf spaced over about five years and 6000 rounds. But in about 200 rounds of Federal ammunition, I had a round blow a primer out. We had to tap the bolt open with a mallet. It was a 150 gr SP in a Rem M700 .270 Win and it was my sister's first time shooting anything larger than a .223. She was so frightened by the incident that she hasn't went shooting since.

The steel that Glock uses to construct their barrels and slides is actually very high quality. You simply aren't going to get the described effect from a kB unless there is something drastically wrong with the ammunition being used. Chances are, this particular ammunition would have kB'd any handgun on the market and the damage to the shooter would have been as bad or worse.

The Glock offers case support comperable to other designs, and barrels and slides at least as strong as most others on the market. The primary difference in their chambers is that the Glock chamber is about as loose as SAAMI will allow it to be, which makes the pistol less suseptible to dirt at debri and improves reliability, but may have an adverse affect on case life if you handload. But Glock's chamber and case support is only an issue if you plan to handload and only then, if you want to fire a sustained number of atomic loads for your particular cartridge. Furthermore, Glocks are no more suseptible to firing out of battery than any other modified Browning system, including the 1911. I have tested this on my Glock 20, my brother's Springfield MilSpec, and my dad's Ruger P90.

I love how the Glock vultures love to circle and swarm things like this. It really shows how desperate people are to trash the success of others.

On another note, the best way to ruin a Glock is to take away its low bore axis and short trigger reset, complicate it with additional safety mechanisms, and add a far inferior metal treatment to get rid of Glock's Tennifer metal treatment. In other words, the best way to ruin a Glock is to turn it into an XD. Anyone who says that an XD would have faired any better in this incident, or that an XD is noticeably more durable (let alone twice as much so) or reliable than a Glock is full of crap.

And finally, I just shot my Glock 20 today. Love the thing. Big surprise, no kBs. Must be a fluke

 

[Aguila Blanca]

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.

The ammo seems rather variable, but I respectfully think your analysis actually points to the guns rather than the ammo as being the likely culprit.

Three kabooms, two separated by a few days and one two years prior. The chances of all the ammo coming from one batch are miniscule. However ... how often does (did) the Portland PD purchase new pistols? Despite the time span between the kabooms, it seems probable that the pistols were all purchased at the same time. There may be an innate defect, either in the G21 design or perhaps just in a run of pistols that came out of the factory at the time Portland bought theirs. It just took a couple of them longer to kaboom than the first. I wonder if there are any records as to actual round count through the weapons. Maybe the guy two years ago likes guns and shhots a lot more than his colleagues.

Insufficient data, to be sure. But IMHO it appears more likely that it's a gun problem than an ammo problem.

 

[meef]

$53,050,000.....????

*** did the kaboom do?

Bend his spine clear backwards and blow his head up his greedy a$$...?

Stuff like this makes me want to

 

[Double Maduro]

This guy is obviously desperate. With numbers that high he can only be hoping to get enough attention to persuade Glock to settle out of court. Fifty-million?

The Oregon courts just upheld an $80,000,000 settlement against a tobacco company. I believe the paper said the officer is back at work.

I love how the Glock vultures love to circle and swarm things like this. It really shows how desperate people are to trash the success of others.

This from someone who knows nothing about it but swears it must be the ammo.


DM

 

[No_Brakes23]

I have no sympathy for this guy simply because he is suing both the gun manufacturer and the amo manufacturer.

It's one or the other, and if he's not sure, then it's BS on his part.

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

The Oregon courts just upheld an $80,000,000 settlement against a tobacco company. I believe the paper said the officer is back at work.

That is a completely different issue. Tobacco companies deliberately misled the public as to the safety of their product and even increased the amounts of dangerous addictive substances. I do not believe gun makers do this.

 

[carebear]

Hey Penguin. Thread drift, we agree for different reasons. Go figure.

The eeeevil tobacco companys misled people but cigs were called coffin nails and death (then cancer) sticks over, what, at least 50-60 years ago?

Must have only been misleading the unaware or patently stupid.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who voluntarily ingest something legal or illegal (especially something that makes you feel BAD the first few times you do it) then try to blame the manufacturer later for their own stupidity.

An actual mechanical failure of a product being used as it is intended is no parallel to smoking. Hopefully they won't settle and the jury will award damages based on actual culpability weighed against the real damage done.

ps - Glock is bad.

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

Hey Penguin. Thread drift, we agree for different reasons. Go figure.

The eeeevil tobacco companys misled people but cigs were called coffin nails and death (then cancer) sticks over, what, at least 50-60 years ago?

Must have only been misleading the unaware or patently stupid.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who voluntarily ingest something legal or illegal (especially something that makes you feel BAD the first few times you do it) then try to blame the manufacturer later for their own stupidity.

An actual mechanical failure of a product being used as it is intended is no parallel to smoking. Hopefully they won't settle and the jury will award damages based on actual culpability weighed against the real damage done.

How severe were his injuries anyway? Is he disfigured? As for tabacco I also blame people that smoke for their illnesses ( I do not smoke or drink for this very reason and I am trying to quit red meat but not as successful at that )...but big tobacco spent lots of money to mislead the public and to target the poor and the underage. People that were not aware of the danger until recent years. I feel about smoking the way I feel about AIDS....it is a tragedy that people in the 80's were struck with a horrible illness that they were not even aware existed but today if your are diagnosed I have this small part of my brain that says "you knew it was out there and still chose to engage in risky behavior".