I know about the Glock bulge and there have been threads
ad nauseum in regard to the 40 SW.

What about 45 ACP?, from what I have seen it is not a fully supported chamber either. Does brass from a 45 also bulge? Will full length sizing eliminate it or does one need a bulge buster or similar die?

As it it not a high pressure round is there any need to worry about it?

Just it case a 45 might follow me home some day

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Still Running Against the Wind

I have several Glocks in addition to my S&W's but have not had my M21 long enough to notice whether the cases bulge. I did get a Lone Wolf barrel for it so that I can shoot lead bullets with fewer problems and found that the Lone Wolf barrel seems to support the base more completely than does the Glock barrel. This may be something to consider if you have problems with bulging.

My Glock M21SF works great if you feed her what she likes. She balks a bit on some loads that feed easily in my 1911's. That may become less of a problem as I shoot her more.

No I do not have one. I did have a 40SW but sold it as I did not want to spend the extra money for the new Lone Wolf barrel. I believe those are fully supported so the brass should not bulge.

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Still Running Against the Wind

I have the Glock G30SF and have never had any problems with the brass and I've used Starline and Winchester for reloading with no tell-tell signs of bulging. I don't "hot rod" the loads as 8.2 gr of HS-6 is probably my hottest load. I've shot Winchester factory 230 gr +P loads with no problems as well.

The "glocked" brass thing is a rumor perpetuated by people who don't like Glocks. Also, the people who sell these "bulge buster" devices.

Loading and reloading brass from a .45 Glock is the same as any other .45.

I use a KKM barrel in my Glock 21, because I reload and use lead bullets.

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I believe in the wadcutter.

I have seen the bulge on 40 SW Glock brass, what is that? Several manuals warn on not reloading the 40 SW Glock and Browning HP??

The 9mm Glock is fully supported

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Still Running Against the Wind

I shoot .45 in a Glock 30, a Remington 1911, and an S&W 625-4.
No bulging in any of these and all my loads chamber in any gun.
Bought a Bulge Buster when it first came out and agree that its useless.

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-jwk-
US Army '72-'95

The more I read on it, it appears that the "bulge" issue on the 40 SW is due more to a loose chamber than the actual support.

Those are great pictures nomad but what are we looking for?? The support at 6 o clock??

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Still Running Against the Wind

40S&W works at lot higher pressure then the 45acp so you get a poor unsupported chamber bulge in one and not the other

Wrong and right. Well, let me say that again. If the Glock bulge is a "rumor," it is one of those rumors that is a fact. 40SW operates at sufficient pressure to move the structure of the brass cartridge case around. Its indisputable. If you can't tell what is going on just by looking at a fired case from a .40SW Glock, get a mic out and measure. It won't take you long to get the picture.

Right about .45 Auto. The pressure is not sufficient to deform the case and loading for the Glock .45 ACPs is just like loading for any 1911.

I do not have my G21 any longer, but when I did, I never had the slightest problem with handloads. The G22 is entirely another cat.

Yeah, it just shows the different shapes of chambers. All the makes compromise on support somewhere to get bombproof feeding.

My .40 glocks don't bulge. I don't have a .45 to compare it to.

I collect range brass in all calibers (you never know when you might get a gun in that caliber and it's nice to have brass stockpiled), including a lot fired in various model Glocks in various calibers, and I haven't found a bulged case yet. Other than Glocks making a different indentation on the primer, you would never know it came out of one.

I bought a Storm Lake barrel for my G30, specifically to shoot lead (took all the warnings on forums to heart), and it does has slightly more full support than the Glock barrel, but that doesn't interpret as the Glock doesn't have enough support. The SL barrel also doesn't feed as well as the Glock barrel. I went back to the Glock barrel, seeing as the rifling in both barrels were identical, and haven't seen the first bit of evidence of lead build-up. No lead, no bulge, 100% reliability. The only other difference is that the Glock's chamber is slightly looser than the SL (and I mean barely) which probably contributes to the better functioning.

While the .45 ACP is more forgiving than the higher pressure cartridges, I haven't seen any evidence of overpressure in the cases I collected.

I have bought thousands of once fired range brass and picked up just as many. Not so many are left behind these days so I mostly just buy it. The worst I have seen is bulged cases that either had some interesting chambers or were reloaded once before and reloaded hot in an interesting chamber.

Only because the Glock 22 has been brought up... Google up the differences in the various generations of chamber support for 22's and you will see the older one's were mainly the culprits. Lots of older police Glock 22's and brass from them float around. I bought the Redding die and swaged my way through 4K empties and while it was less than thrilling it went faster than I thought it would. But I'm willing to spend the extra time and effort to know that I'm making good ammo.

Indisputable huh? So I guess all the people out there shooting and loading their "glocked" .40 brass are wrong, and really do have a problem that they don't realize.

This is exactly why this lie keeps getting spread. People that believe so strongly in old information that is no longer correct.

Well, we aren't talking about 40S&W on this thread, fellas.

Now, for the OP, no, I have never noticed the "glock smiley" on the 45ACP. It is as unsupported as some of the other ramp barreled guns, even 1911's! I know, for some that is almost blasphemous, nevertheless true.

My son and I have shot BUNCHES of 45ACP loads out of our Glock 21s. He had the standard, I have the G21 SF and it fits my hands much better. I had a hard time getting it pried out of my son in law's hands when he shot it!

My load, since I have a factory barrel I only use plated or jacketed in it at this point, is either 4.7gr of Bullseye or 5.3gr AA#2 under a 230gr Plated RN from either Berry's or Ranier.

Both are super accurate out of that gun. No problems with bulging with those loads.

Fired quite a bit of .45 ACP in a G-21 that belonged to my brother. Never had a problem with bulges. Just shot plain Jane ball and Winchester Black Talon 230 gr. JHP. All was excellent. This past week I've been shooting my G-22. Last few days I've put 250 rds. through it... Tula Remington and Federal. No problems at all. The Tula is steel cased. As would be expected, no bulges. The Remington and Federal is brass cased. No bulges. Initially early Glock .40's had teething problems. None now. My pistol, bought 7/10, has been sheer perfection in every respect.

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<><

Then me and 8 of my deputies are both blind and crazy....
I LIKE Glocks, and my deputies have carried G23's and 22's for over 16 years.
With that said, 5 years ago we evaluated a variety of 45ACP handguns for our agency. The ammo used was Master Cartridge 185 grn +P with nickle plated cases.
Glock provided us with 3 G 21's for testing at our request, as did several other firearms makers.
The SRT team was detailed to do the shooting at our range.
ALL THREE GLOCK 21's LEFT BULGES ON ALL THE CASES WE COULD RECOVER FROM THE RANGE.
We rejected the Glock for that reason, and I presented the Glock rep (who is a good friend of mine) with several of the fired cases....
Now, this is NOT an anti Glock post....it is the truth. I saw it. I was there. So were a lot of my other employees.
THAT group of Glock 21's bulged cases...that is all I am saying. I am not saying yours does, or they all do.....the 21's we shot did...

Kind of hard to enforce the law with a crew like that!

Look at my post. I didn't use ANY +P, HIGH PRESSURE(for the 45ACP) in any of my tests.

Apples to apples, oranges to oranges. If you use standard ball type loads or less, you will have NO bulges.

I didn't even have them in my Glock 22, which this thread is not about, when I shot my handloads in them. I got cartridge specification velocity, 1000fps from a 180 HP bullet and NO bulges either. Believe it if you want, say I am blind, whatever.

Part of the "trick" to reloading, and that is what I do, for a Glock is to know it's weaknesses and get them to perform anyway. (Without the dreaded KB!)

Slow powders, Unique and above for the 40S&W. Ball type ammo, 230gr RN @ 800fps (same as most factory ammo today, Fiochhi especially) and you can do anything you want with a Glock 21, all day long, no bulged cases.

Reloading, FWIW!

most of my brass in 45acp is Glocked!

I load standard dillon dies and have never had an issue since 1993 in my 1911s.

The Gun Zone has a section on Glock Kaboom's. It happens, just not that much. .40 S&W more than other calibers.

Some commercial ammo was problematic.

Bulged brass is not an issue, except to the reloader. It is the catastrophic failure that causes concern.

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I believe in the wadcutter.

My Glock 21 is a second generation model. I've reloaded my Glock-fired brass with no noticeable difference. It loads the same as brass fired from my Government Model.

Sherriff Oconee, do you happen to have the pics of the bulged 45 brass? That would make it pretty clear how much bulging it had.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sheriffoconee
Then me and 8 of my deputies are both blind and crazy....




They blend in better with the general population that way.

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Still Running Against the Wind

Maybe they are the ones chasing that orange car with the bars and stars on top all over! I think I've go some pictures on DVD around here somewhere!

Just kidding, don't get offended.

When we drove up there for vacation I broke every speed limit and ran every light just so I could meet the Sheriff. They must not have seen me.

JK, I think their are more LEO's in GA than any State in the country!! Must be guarding all the Post Offices.

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Still Running Against the Wind

As an add on to this...

I just ran some fresh range brass .357 SIG through my Redding G-Rx die and some of them had some bulge issues. I didn't see any older style Glock smileys but some were more bulged than others.

"JK, I think their are more LEO's in GA than any State in the country!! Must be guarding all the Post Offices."


OCD1, now that just hurts.

Glock 21, uses octogonal rifling, while all the others uses hexagonal rifling. The ones with hexagonal rifling are the ones that causes leading problems.

Well when I was up there in you neck of the woods I never saw so many LEOS and post offices on on 5 mile stretch of road. Why is there so many little Post Offices? We have two for a population and land mass area 10 times what is there.

It's like Real Estate agents down here.

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Still Running Against the Wind

No idea if that's true or not but I shoot a lot of range pickup brass & I'm certain a lot of it has been through Glocks. I can't really say I've ever seen an overtly bulged .45 case, and I inspect my brass fairly closely.

.40 S&W OTOH...

No, and then no.

What I mean is, no, Glocked brass is not a rumor, it is a fact. It is wrong that it is only Glocks that produce it though. Someone picked a name, we don't like it so the phenomenon is wrong? No, that is wrong.

People have had stock 9mm Glocks KB. They had them with factory ammo too! Now that is something you don't hear very often! "Some stupid hick reloader, blew up another Glock." Now that you do hear a bunch of and it is totally wrong too.

Loading for a Glock is certainly different that loading for any other firearm on the planet. Why? Stock guns have generous chambers, in every caliber. It is one of the ways that they are so functional. They are designed that way, and their design works, period. Does it have some design characteristics that make it mandatory that we consider them as we reload/handload for them? YES! Can they perform as well as other firearms? Oh my YES! Better than most as a matter of fact!

To think that there are NO special things to consider is asking for an unfortunate accident to occur. One that need not if we do our due diligence when it comes to reloading/handloading.

I have never had a KB in a Glock. I never will. The first reason is that I will never fire factory ammo in one. The second is my handloads will be carefully crafted to take full advantage of any design issues that I encounter when loading for one.

Now, I have had a KB in a Browning High Power, 40S&W, with my own reloads. I know of another individual that had the same thing, same load, same type of gun. Had I known what I know now, especially as they apply to generous chambers, I wouldn't have had the KB in that firearm either! I can correlate that knowledge directly to any of my Glocks and will avoid any problems with "glocked" brass and hence any KB.

Do what you want. You are full age I imagine. Responsibility for your actions is just part of being an adult!

+1 Skip

Well I know that I just spent 1.5 hours running 1000 pieces of .40 through my GRX die. The bulge is real as are expanded cases fired in "generous" chambers. I can visually see it and definitely feel it as it passes through the resize. I only bought this device because my Lyman case tool showed me that some of brass would not chamber in it.

My personal Glock 30 does not show signs of the bulge or an excessive chamber. What I will say is that when I worked as a range officer there were examples of Glock bulge in .45, albeit not many at all. How could I be sure it was fired from a Glock, last stall and I was the one policing the brass when the range cleared.

That being said I do not overly concern myself with .45 brass being an issue.

A smart reloader should always keep an eye on their brass. It could be the last time you see brass if you don't!

I went to the range yesterday with by Sig 220 and a friends Glock 36. Shot a bunch of 230 gr FMJ with max load of Win Auto Comp, through each, keeping the brass separate. I could not see a difference in either. I took the empty Glock brass and dropped it in my Sig barrel and it fit snug the same as in the Glock barrel. Actually looking at both barrels with a empty in each I do not see much difference in the support? unsupported at 6 o clock. I do not have any handgun case gauge like Wilson that I have for rifle calibers.

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Still Running Against the Wind