Posted on 03/16/2004 5:41:17 PM PST by 45Auto
In most cases I've heard, the so-called kabooms were not caused by the ammo. The cause of the KB was a dirty striker channel or weapon. This can happen in all semi-autos. The cause is this; when the weapon is fired some dirt or pieces of brass trap the striker/firing pin in a partially extended position. The slide cycles and picks up another round out of the magazine. The round slide up over the striker and under the extractor. As the round goes into the chamber and starts to encounter resistance, the striker/firing pin indents the primer and fires the round. The round is not fully chambered so the brass is not supported usually causing case failure and sometimes parts go flying. I've had it happen on a para-ordnance, so it's not just glocks.
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I wonder how often Glock owners clean the striker channel... or if they do, over oil it to help collect gunk.
So... guys... what think? (fwiw, I don't really have an allegiance to any particular brand, I shoot Glock in competition, I carry SIG.)
I have owned a Glock M21, but used it only for IDPA competition, since it is a huge piece to try to conceal here in South Florida. I traded it in on a Glock M30 which I used for both competition and personal carry.
These days I alternate between a Glock M27 in forty and a Springfield Armory Micro .45. As long as your defense weapon has a caliber that starts with a "4" you're gonna be ok. The key, IMHO, is the ammo configuration. I favor the MagSafe in the primary mags and RBCD ammo in the spare mag. Anybody heard of RBCD? A buddy of mine in SpecOps recommended it. The .40 sizzles along at 2000fps! The motto on each box reads: "The Ammunition to use when you have only one shot between you and the end."
That probably means they pulled the trigger, so a stuck striker was not the problem.
There are a lot of under supported barrels around, maybe it's a condition of that, plus a not-fully closed breach, plus a weak web on the casing.
Why it seems to happen so seldom, but when it does, it happens at the same locale probably points to similar conditions being met.
Maybe the combination of not spotless cleaning (I haven't cleaned the pin path in years), plus sufficient, but not good ammo (federal sent out flyers on their pre-96 ammo, so it is possible for a good factory to create bad ammo) and luck of the draw on an unsupported chamber could have caused the KB's. ... then again, it could have been entirely any one of the above, or something else :o)
Any oil in the striker channel is over oiled. The striker channel in a Glock has a plastic (nylon, I think) liner and is self lubricated. Best way to clean it is a spray can of gun scrubber or similar after removing the striker (Q-tips or other such things will drive dirt into the front of the channel and will not remove it), but it doesn't need cleaning very often. You an generally tell if the channel is dirty by shaking the gun back and forth with the trigger pulled: The striker will make noise as it slides back and forth (except, possibly, on a new or very rarely fired gun). You can also look to see if the striker slides freely by taking the slide off, depressing the firing pin safety and turning it upside down and back to see if the firing pin slides freely through the pin hole in the breech face.
That must explain why the owner/rangemaster/CHL instructor at my range is so hard over against re-loads and non name brand ammo, even for practice. He's a Glock afficiando, and rents only Glock handguns.
In various handgun courses over the years I have personally witnessed five (5!) kB!s, all with factory-new .40 S&W ammo. Yes, two were with the earlier Federal 165-grain Hydra-Shok, but I've also seen it happen with 180-grain Winchester Ranger and 155-grain Speer Gold Dot HPs."
- Ken Hackathorn, World Class Firearms Instructor
I had just under 3000 when I traded my own 21 to a deputy sheriff whose new boss decided to allow his deputies to use the .45 caliber 21 as well as the .40 caliber guns. At the time I had a 19 and a 22, and got a Glock 30 from hin trade, useful since my girlfriend at the time found my East German Makarov to be just right for her smallish hands and I still had my 21 magazines to use in the Model 30. The Glock 22 went to a young USAF ROTC cadet who talked his parents into buying it for him when they asked him what he wanted for a graduation present: a 22 pistol he somewhat sneakily specified. And so I got a right price for it, picked up a new *grenade grip* model 17, and replaced both my old 17 and 19 with the new one, happily outfitted with all the spare magazines from the 4 previous 9mm Glocks I've had over the years, including three Glock 18 33-round magazines.
Now I'm down to just that G17 so far as plastic pistolas are concerned, and it's served me well, except for a recent hitch with a security company that required double-action 9mm handguns. The BATF considers the Glock trigger to technically be a double-action, but my ex-cop S&W fan boss did not. And I couldn't use my Browning GP 9mm, either.
I couldn't find a good deal on a S&W M39 that I liked, so settled for an ex-Bundeswehr Walther P.38, which worked just fine. And I had the Glock 30 for a backup.
-archy-/-
Depends. I got Shanghaied into helping out a pal who was calling in favors from every Dillon reloader owner he knew who got a contract to reload a hundred thousand rounds of .223 for a state prison system for training ammo for their mini-14s and model 700 sniper rifles. It was an interesting week's effort, during which I was supplied with all the free cokes and pizza I could handle, the cost of which was an arm that was sore for a month. I had a primer pocket swadger and ran every one of those little cases through it, pulled the handle, and dumped em in a 6-gallon bucket. I wore out 3 pairs of cotton gloves during the exercise....
One old Sheriff I used to work for- not as a Deputy- got his departments' .38 and .357 ammo reloaded using jail trustee labor, a process that seemed iffy to me, but he never had a problem during the 8 years he held the position, and his deputies could shoot. I got free ammo too, so I didn't complain too much. Ammo for semiautos requires a little more care and precision though, and in a semiauto handgun I'd rather prepare my own, thank you very much.
There has been a lot of speculation about the Glock problems. Three theories have emerged: some units have a timing problem in which they will fire before they are completely locked up; unsupported chambers could lead to case blowouts with both factory and hand-loaded rounds; some of the Glock barrels seem to have a metallurgy problem, i.e., they have measured out pretty low on the Brinnell Hardness Scale. I have replaced the factory barrels (with KKM Precision barrels) on my Model 17 and Model 21 and will soon do the same on my Model 22.
KKM, Jarvis and Bar-Sto all make very nice replacement Glock barrels, and there are a couple of other possibilities. I once considered going the .357 SIG barrel route with my own Glock 22, but it got replaced with a new Glock 17 instead, and I have no regrets thereof.
The .40 was a solution without a problem. The 9mm was a EUROPEAN police round originally, which means it was intended to use to wound, not drop someone in their socks. Both, however, are great for use in small, deep-concealment pieces.
For frontline use, or in a cop's holster, the .45 is everything you need, and has been for 80+ years. Don't fix it if it ain't broke.
Can't disagree with that sentiment. I only raise the question if more capacity is the driving issue that caused the change to the inadequate 9mm. Our troops deserve better.
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