your opinion on glock 19 and reloads.

[bullseyebob47]

i have thousands of 124 gr lead cast 9mm bullets, lots of old 9mm brass, and thousands of small pistol primers. i would load the 9mm rounds with 4 grs. of old bullseye powder i have. would you shoot those rounds in a glock 19? or should i buy a 3rd party glock 19 barrel like this:

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/67...wist-402-stainless-steel?cm_vc=ProductFinding

even if i would be lucky enough to get my hands on that barrel for $100, im now thinking i should just use my reloads on a plain hipoint 9mm carbine for $200. any issues with the high point and reloads?

 

[warhwkbb]

Getting the popcorn ready.....

 

[Rule3]

Getting the popcorn ready.....

I have salt and REAL butter.

 

[jmorris]

I don't know how many thousands of cast bullets I fired through Glock pistols before the Internet came around and I learned it was a no, no. The manuals they sent with the pistol said nothing about lead ammunition, did say not to use reloaded ammunition though.

Keep an eye on leading and you will be fine, if you are the kind of person that worries too much, get an after market barrel with conventional rifling.

If you do get an aftermarket barrel, don't be surprised if the factory barrel is more accurate. Was the case with two different after market Glock barrels I had.

 

[GLOOB]

If your G19 barrel is the same as mine, it will chamber and shoot any lead bullet from .356-.358. But I would go .357, if I had a choice. And it seems to like LLA tumble lubed bullets better. I can shoot a couple THOUSAND without any fouling. The commercial blue lube bullets leave a thin film on the riflling, which I think might be antimony wash.

 

[GLOOB]

Note that if your bullets are the tiniest bit too small, a Glock bore fouls really, really bad, really, really fast. So case swaging is something to keep in mind.

 

[murf]

hey gloob,

what diameter do you recommend for plated, or jacketed bullets?

murf

 

[Olympus]

I bought an aftermarket barrel just to be on the safe. Ended up going with a threaded barrel and killed two birds with one stone. Helps justify the need for a suppressor in the future.

 

[mstreddy]

I am one of those that has shot a lot of lead bullets through my Glocks in the original barrels. I'm shooting more plated now, and I'm also using the Lone Wolf barrels in both my 17 and 19 now, same as above, because they are threaded.

 

[2ndtimer]

You might check Dillon Precision to see if they have the Lone Wolf barrel in stock. I have shot hundreds of cast lead bullets through my Glock Model 19, but none the past 10 years or so. I plan to pick up a Lone Wolf or Storm Lake barrel for mine. Save the original barrel for jacketed bullets.

 

[X-Rap]

Probably 10 to 1 in mine are lead. I'll clean my 40's a little more frequently.

 

[Olympus]

Plated bullets are ok in factory barrels.

 

[LiveLife]

Shooting reloads/lead bullets in factory Glock barrels - http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?p=9451186#post9451186

As to shooting lead reloads in Glock barrels, there are several more considerations. These are considerations for shooting lead bullets in any barrel:

- Commercial lead bullets come in different hardness ranging from softer 10 BHN to harder 24 BHN.
- Lead bullets come sized .001" larger than jacketed bullets and can be obtained sized .002"+ larger.
- Proper hardness/bullet to barrel fit/sufficient powder charge need to be used to properly deform the bullet base to seal the high pressure gas as gas leakage/gas cutting leads to increased leading.

There are issues specific to Glock barrels (see picture above):

- Glock barrels have longer leade (space the bullet jumps from the case neck/chamber to the start of rifling) which increases high pressure gas leakage.
- Glock barrels have very smooth start of rifling with rounded rifling which allow the lead bullet to slide deeper into the barrel before sufficient chamber pressure starts to develop which further increase high pressure gas leakage.

These Glock barrel features allow more high pressure gas leakage around the bullet which results in more of the following:

- High pressure gas leakage around the bullet blows liquefied lube from the bullet and down the barrel which may increase fouling/leading build up, especially near the chamber end of the barrel.
- If high enough powder charge is not used, powder burn may be inefficient and insufficient/inconsistent chamber pressures may not deform the bullet base to allow the bullet to "skid" down the barrel and increase fouling/leading build up.

Unless you use the proper hardness/sizing of lead bullet for the powder/charge used that produce sufficient chamber pressures to minimize fouling/leading build up, it is a good idea to inspect the Glock barrel more frequently for fouling/leading build up. So more careful load development/powder workup may be required. rcmodel usually recommends inspecting the Glock barrel around 200-300 lead rounds and I found this to be a good interval as loads that produce fouling will start to decrease accuracy above 300 round count. If your lead loads produce fouling/leading at lower round count, inspect the barrel more often and clean as necessary. If you develop lead loads that work well with Glock barrels to minimize/prevent fouling/leading, that's great.

 

[cheygriz]

I sent mine to BarSto and had a cut rifled, stainless steel match grade barrel factory fitted. One of the best moves I ever made for a weapon.

https://www.barsto.com/category_main.cfm?ID=GLOC

 

[ku4hx]

Got my first Glock in 1991 ... a model 20. Since I'd been casting and loading since 1970 I just got the proper molds, smelted a workable alloy, blended a fine lubricant, bought an appropriate sizing die and went to it. I guess I'd cast and shot many thousands of boolits in that Glock, and others, before we got the internet and I realized I couldn't do what I'd been doing so successfully for so long. Man I was sure glad to find out I'd been doing it wrong all those years.

 

[cdk8]

I do not personally think an aftermarket barrel is necessary to safely shoot GOOD reloads through a 9mm Glock. There are quite a few people with first gen G17's that have six and even seven digit round counts and some of these shooters have used lead ammo. And there are gazillions of people with Glocks that load their own ammo. I purchased a 17 to have a gun that can be fed just about everything short of rounds that use extremely hard primers. I've used both lead bullets and remanufactured ammo when I have been able to find these products for a significant discount over factory new and/or FMJ range ammo, or when they are the only available offerings.

I think the most important factor is the quality of the reloads themselves. Some companies have excellent reps where as others the absolute latter. Shooting reloads or LRNs in a Glock seems to be a topic that can lead to heated debate. With that said, I think a major reason the Glock manual says what it does is liability related. The fact that not all remanufactured ammo is the same, some makers of crappy reloads may not conform to the specs that the ammo should be, tracing liability if ammo itself causes a major issue to small reloading companies may be more difficult than with factory manufactured ammo, and how the results with reloads can turn out bad if a serious mistake is made likely all influences the positions many gun makers take on using reloads.

I think the chance of a squid round may also be higher with some remanufactured ammo, especially if its coming from a not-so-great source. That would influence a liability concern given some shooters may fail to notice a squib in slow fire (or be shooting at such a rapid pace or in a stress-shooting environment) that they fail to notice what happened and then fire a round while the last bullet is still lodged in the barrel.

Additionally, I think it is important to use a cleaning solution that effectively removes lead. I've found out that quite a few cleaning products do NOT do a good job in this category and I do think that excessive lead buildup can, in extreme circumstances, lead to major performance/safety issues. For example, M-Pro 7 Bore Gel is a product that rapidly removes lead buildup when used with any standard PB bore brush and I found it to work better than the cleaner I started out with. YMMV.