Seconded. There's no need for all this finger pointing and accusing just because someones memory or descriptions regarding an incident where their gun literally blew up in their hands is a little foggy. Come on now
Again, another Shield 40 blow up... R.I.P.
- Thread starter ChrisfromCT
- Start date
Seconded. There's no need for all this finger pointing and accusing just because someones memory or descriptions regarding an incident where their gun literally blew up in their hands is a little foggy. Come on now
A few points that come to mind:
- Assuming all the OP is true (and I am not questioning him), the similar factors in this and other kabooms reported over the years seem to center on a couple of things. Virtually all are in .40. There were reports of similar issues/problems/blown cases in Glocks, again, all in .40 The pressure curve and variation in the ammo seems to be excessive and abrupt. Both the Glocks and S&Ws seems to leave a lot of the case head unsupported. Combine that with the greater pressure, and a recipe for these kinds of incidents is made.
Personally, I own three Shields, and five Glocks. All in 9mm. You could not give me a .40. If I feel the need or desire for a larger caliber (and sometimes do), I carry a .45 acp.
All of this is obviously IMHO, only. I have been shooting and carrying for over 30 years, and a LEO (now retired) firearms instructor for all of my time. I was there at the beginning of the development of the .40 through my close connection with Wayne Novak. The original promise of the .40 was that it would fit into a 9mm package with little change. Novak's even made a couple of 3913s in .40, with a new barrel, magazine, and opened breach face. Needless to say, they did not hold up. That turned out to not be true. I have also never heard of any of the 3rd Gen. S&W guns in .40 with these kinds of failures. Again, my suspicion is that the particular design of the feed ramp and chamber on some guns leave too much of the case head unsupported. Thrown in the pressure issues, and perhaps a slightly out-of-spec piece of brass, and there you go.
Sorry for the long post.
- Assuming all the OP is true (and I am not questioning him), the similar factors in this and other kabooms reported over the years seem to center on a couple of things. Virtually all are in .40. There were reports of similar issues/problems/blown cases in Glocks, again, all in .40 The pressure curve and variation in the ammo seems to be excessive and abrupt. Both the Glocks and S&Ws seems to leave a lot of the case head unsupported. Combine that with the greater pressure, and a recipe for these kinds of incidents is made.
Personally, I own three Shields, and five Glocks. All in 9mm. You could not give me a .40. If I feel the need or desire for a larger caliber (and sometimes do), I carry a .45 acp.
All of this is obviously IMHO, only. I have been shooting and carrying for over 30 years, and a LEO (now retired) firearms instructor for all of my time. I was there at the beginning of the development of the .40 through my close connection with Wayne Novak. The original promise of the .40 was that it would fit into a 9mm package with little change. Novak's even made a couple of 3913s in .40, with a new barrel, magazine, and opened breach face. Needless to say, they did not hold up. That turned out to not be true. I have also never heard of any of the 3rd Gen. S&W guns in .40 with these kinds of failures. Again, my suspicion is that the particular design of the feed ramp and chamber on some guns leave too much of the case head unsupported. Thrown in the pressure issues, and perhaps a slightly out-of-spec piece of brass, and there you go.
Sorry for the long post.
Fastbolt
Member
First of all, I'm glad the OP is reporting that he's not seriously injured.
It's not at all surprising that someone might not be able to recall some details (or their sequence in relation to each other) when confronted by an unexpected incident, especially when it's an unusual incident for which they've never been prepared. Eye witnesses can make for some occasional contradictory testimony even under the best of conditions.
Let's give the OP a break.
Having seen some failures of plastic-framed pistols, and having learned of others in various armorer classes, from other instructors, etc over the years ... it's certainly not surprising that someone might fail to recognize when a frame has experienced a crack caused by an "over-pressure event".
The event might involve a case failure (case head blowout) or an obstructed bore. No way to know without examining the fired case and barrel, and the case was unable to be identified. However, I've also heard of at least one barrel failure (different brand of gun) reported where an obstructed bore was eliminated as the likely cause because an instructor was carefully observing and counting every hole appearing when helping a shooter. Sometimes things happen.
Anyway, I remember being told (in an armorer recert) of an instance where a LE shooter was shooting a plastic-framed gun and didn't realize that he'd experienced a short-loaded round which had left a bullet in the bore. It was later determined that at one round, and maybe 2 more rounds, were fired before the obstructed bore was cleared by the successive round(s) pushing the stuck round out of the barrel.
The barrel wasn't damaged to the point where it prevented the slide & barrel from operating normally, but the over-pressure of the gasses building up in the barrel (while the bore was obstructed) were enough to cause damage - a crack - in the frame on one side.
This crack subsequently flexed open and "pinched" the shooter's hand each time the gun was successively fired, which is the reason the problem (crack) was finally noticed. The gun kept pinching the shooter's hand each time he fired it.
I'm told the frame had to be flexed in order for the crack to become visible.
Then again, I've seen some frames damaged to the point that that large chunks of the frame material were blown away. One gun seemed operable with the missing pieces, while another one appeared obviously inoperable due to the damage.
Now, would a shooter notice if a short-loaded round came up under the striker/firing pin? Maybe. Depends.
I once had a short-loaded round occur which had enough power for the bullet to clear the bore ... and enough power for the case to be extracted & ejected (where it barely dribbled up out of the ejection port, to bounce and roll forward off the end of the slide ... but the slide didn't travel enough to pick up and strip another round from the magazine. I was shooting another make/model of small .40, and I remember my trigger finger freezing when the unexpected recoil impulse and dancing empty case occurred. (Part of my mind was sort of awaiting a BIG BOOM, as I recall. )
Another guy was coincidentally shooting another make/model of small .40 when he experienced a classic case head failure, with the case web blowing at the 6 o'clock position. It stung his hand, shocked him and another instructor quite a bit (which is why they came and got me) ... but not only was the shooter uninjured, but the gun & magazine were undamaged. Lucky.
FWTW, another thing armorers have been increasingly warned about - when it comes to the potential for an "over-pressure event" - is to avoid repeatedly loading & chambering the same round without firing it. They showed us a picture of a plastic .40 which had been totally ruined, and the probably cause identified was how the issued user admitted to repeatedly chambering and re-chambering the same duty rounds, causing noticeable bullet setback.
Why mention bullet setback in this thread? Because it's not been unknown for even major brand ammo to sometimes include a particular round where the case mouth may not have been sufficiently taper crimped, or it was damaged, etc for it to firmly hold the bullet when fed & chambered, resulting in bullet setback.
Bullet setback can create astounding increased levels of pressure when fired. We're talking more of a detonation instead of the normal deflagration when a round is fired.
I don't pretend to have any idea of what might have happened in the OP's reported incident. I'd rely on what the engineers at S&W and Winchester had to say after careful examination of their products.
If it was an obstructed bore which occurred without the owner/shooter realizing it? Well, sometimes bad things happen.
FWIW, I own plastic-framed pistols chambered in .40 S&W (G27, SW9940, M&P 40c), and I'm not losing sleep worrying about an over-pressure event. I use new factory ammo made by some of the major American ammo companies ... clean and properly maintain the guns (replacing wearable parts, cleaning, lubing, etc) ... and I don't make it habit to repeatedly chamber the same rounds. I carefully inspect each round I might have occasion to reload/rechamber without having fired it, too.
Oh yeah, and before this becomes some sort of .40-bashing fest ... I've also handled and examined a couple plastic 9mm & .45 ACP pistols which had their frames ruined when an over-pressure event occurred.
Just my thoughts.
It's not at all surprising that someone might not be able to recall some details (or their sequence in relation to each other) when confronted by an unexpected incident, especially when it's an unusual incident for which they've never been prepared. Eye witnesses can make for some occasional contradictory testimony even under the best of conditions.
Let's give the OP a break.Having seen some failures of plastic-framed pistols, and having learned of others in various armorer classes, from other instructors, etc over the years ... it's certainly not surprising that someone might fail to recognize when a frame has experienced a crack caused by an "over-pressure event".
The event might involve a case failure (case head blowout) or an obstructed bore. No way to know without examining the fired case and barrel, and the case was unable to be identified. However, I've also heard of at least one barrel failure (different brand of gun) reported where an obstructed bore was eliminated as the likely cause because an instructor was carefully observing and counting every hole appearing when helping a shooter. Sometimes things happen.
Anyway, I remember being told (in an armorer recert) of an instance where a LE shooter was shooting a plastic-framed gun and didn't realize that he'd experienced a short-loaded round which had left a bullet in the bore. It was later determined that at one round, and maybe 2 more rounds, were fired before the obstructed bore was cleared by the successive round(s) pushing the stuck round out of the barrel.
The barrel wasn't damaged to the point where it prevented the slide & barrel from operating normally, but the over-pressure of the gasses building up in the barrel (while the bore was obstructed) were enough to cause damage - a crack - in the frame on one side.
This crack subsequently flexed open and "pinched" the shooter's hand each time the gun was successively fired, which is the reason the problem (crack) was finally noticed. The gun kept pinching the shooter's hand each time he fired it.
I'm told the frame had to be flexed in order for the crack to become visible.Then again, I've seen some frames damaged to the point that that large chunks of the frame material were blown away. One gun seemed operable with the missing pieces, while another one appeared obviously inoperable due to the damage.
Now, would a shooter notice if a short-loaded round came up under the striker/firing pin? Maybe. Depends.
I once had a short-loaded round occur which had enough power for the bullet to clear the bore ... and enough power for the case to be extracted & ejected (where it barely dribbled up out of the ejection port, to bounce and roll forward off the end of the slide ... but the slide didn't travel enough to pick up and strip another round from the magazine. I was shooting another make/model of small .40, and I remember my trigger finger freezing when the unexpected recoil impulse and dancing empty case occurred. (Part of my mind was sort of awaiting a BIG BOOM, as I recall.
)Another guy was coincidentally shooting another make/model of small .40 when he experienced a classic case head failure, with the case web blowing at the 6 o'clock position. It stung his hand, shocked him and another instructor quite a bit (which is why they came and got me) ... but not only was the shooter uninjured, but the gun & magazine were undamaged. Lucky.
FWTW, another thing armorers have been increasingly warned about - when it comes to the potential for an "over-pressure event" - is to avoid repeatedly loading & chambering the same round without firing it. They showed us a picture of a plastic .40 which had been totally ruined, and the probably cause identified was how the issued user admitted to repeatedly chambering and re-chambering the same duty rounds, causing noticeable bullet setback.
Why mention bullet setback in this thread? Because it's not been unknown for even major brand ammo to sometimes include a particular round where the case mouth may not have been sufficiently taper crimped, or it was damaged, etc for it to firmly hold the bullet when fed & chambered, resulting in bullet setback.
Bullet setback can create astounding increased levels of pressure when fired. We're talking more of a detonation instead of the normal deflagration when a round is fired.
I don't pretend to have any idea of what might have happened in the OP's reported incident. I'd rely on what the engineers at S&W and Winchester had to say after careful examination of their products.
If it was an obstructed bore which occurred without the owner/shooter realizing it? Well, sometimes bad things happen.
FWIW, I own plastic-framed pistols chambered in .40 S&W (G27, SW9940, M&P 40c), and I'm not losing sleep worrying about an over-pressure event. I use new factory ammo made by some of the major American ammo companies ... clean and properly maintain the guns (replacing wearable parts, cleaning, lubing, etc) ... and I don't make it habit to repeatedly chamber the same rounds. I carefully inspect each round I might have occasion to reload/rechamber without having fired it, too.
Oh yeah, and before this becomes some sort of .40-bashing fest ... I've also handled and examined a couple plastic 9mm & .45 ACP pistols which had their frames ruined when an over-pressure event occurred.
Just my thoughts.
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My experience with un- supported chambers comes from being a reloader,
the brass fired from Glock 40s has a bulge and when i resize it some of bulge is still there so i have to run it through shell through resizing die then check for a slight line or fold in brass.Now when i fire brass through my shield 40 and 40c when i try to run that brass (after sizing and de-capping).up into full length resizing die it just falls back out. So that tells me that M&P chambers are supported.
I have also weighed WWB empty cases that are stamped WIN and they are several tenths of a grain lighter than ones marked Winchester and other manufacturers. just my observations.
the brass fired from Glock 40s has a bulge and when i resize it some of bulge is still there so i have to run it through shell through resizing die then check for a slight line or fold in brass.Now when i fire brass through my shield 40 and 40c when i try to run that brass (after sizing and de-capping).up into full length resizing die it just falls back out. So that tells me that M&P chambers are supported.
I have also weighed WWB empty cases that are stamped WIN and they are several tenths of a grain lighter than ones marked Winchester and other manufacturers. just my observations.
KTM300RIDER
Member
Just curious how many rounds through it?> I have about 1K give or take through mine and never a problem. Always shoot Remington 180 or Winchester 165's Mine does leave two light scratches on the out lip of the case, it looks like it come from the outer edge of the ramp. I have thought about honing slightly but if it ain't broke....
One thing not mentioned by the OP that I'm curious about.
Chris, was there any mention at all in S&W's response regarding the gun having the Apex parts installed?
Since there has been a lot of discussion in the M&P forum regarding warranty coverage when aftermarket parts are involved, I was wondering if S&W even commented on them.
Chris, was there any mention at all in S&W's response regarding the gun having the Apex parts installed?
Since there has been a lot of discussion in the M&P forum regarding warranty coverage when aftermarket parts are involved, I was wondering if S&W even commented on them.
Im not sure if this helps but Im having some issues with my new shield and after talking to guys on here and asking around it sounds like Winchester white box may be most of my problems so maybe the ammo is causing some bad luck with the shields or just in general? Just my observation
OP
ChrisfromCT
Member
Thanks for all for your voice and opinions.
My initial thought was that since the apex kit was installed before this all happened, the gun would no longer be covered under warranty. Either way I needed the firearm to be inspected regardless.
When I first made the call to SW they said to include a list of all aftermarket parts just incase - but not saying whether it will void the warranty. It was just so that if they replaced the firearm they would need to know which parts to pull out.
That was the last they mentioned of it. They seemed to direct their attention to the ammunition
My initial thought was that since the apex kit was installed before this all happened, the gun would no longer be covered under warranty. Either way I needed the firearm to be inspected regardless.
When I first made the call to SW they said to include a list of all aftermarket parts just incase - but not saying whether it will void the warranty. It was just so that if they replaced the firearm they would need to know which parts to pull out.
That was the last they mentioned of it. They seemed to direct their attention to the ammunition
OP
ChrisfromCT
Member
I would say about I had put 1k rounds through it give or take
OP
ChrisfromCT
Member
OilTrader
Member
I find it interesting that the pressure of the 40S&W is being brought up as a possible instigator of the kaboom. Max SAAMI specs for it and the 9mm Luger and +P 9mm Luger are as follows: 40S&W: 35,000. 9mm: 35,000. 9mm +P: 38,500.
I'm glad the OP wasn't seriously hurt. And I find it interesting that WWB ammo keeps cropping up in these kaboom stories.
I'm glad the OP wasn't seriously hurt. And I find it interesting that WWB ammo keeps cropping up in these kaboom stories.
Keep in mind that SAAMI pressure levels are just that, levels.
You can have a failure at levels below maximum if the pressure change takes place so quickly that it exceeds the elasticity characteristics of the material containing the build up.
As an analogy... diving, your body may withstand going to a 500 foot depth, but the time taken coming back up can mean the difference between life and death.
I too find it interesting that WWB ammo seems to be mentioned the most.
You can have a failure at levels below maximum if the pressure change takes place so quickly that it exceeds the elasticity characteristics of the material containing the build up.
As an analogy... diving, your body may withstand going to a 500 foot depth, but the time taken coming back up can mean the difference between life and death.
I too find it interesting that WWB ammo seems to be mentioned the most.
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Pointblank2U
US Veteran
There's a big difference between a pistol "blowing up" and a case head failure. Generally with a case head failure it will blow out the magazine well and destroy the magazine. It happened to me once many years ago with a Glock. I was using some questionable MagSafe ammunition that I believe was dangerously overpressure and the case gave way. The pistol itself was undamaged.
skip4309
Member
Fastbolt
Member
HP White Labs is one of the most well known and respected independent labs who do this sort of work.
They've also been used by S&W upon occasion over the years, when their engineers (or corporate legal staff?) wanted an outside opinion. I thought I recalled hearing how they'd sent a M&P 9 barrel to an outside lab a couple years ago (even though company engineers didn't find any problem with it), when something about a possible manufacturing issue was raised by a LE agency (and as I recall, the barrel material, heat treating & manufacturing was found to be without defect by the outside lab).
Now, if a customer wanted to pay the freight for such an independent inspection if one or another gun company didn't feel it was necessary? I'd imagine the customer's money would be just as acceptable as that of a gun company to an independent lab.
This is a screen shot from Smith and Wesson M&P Facebook page. I don't know the person who posted it but if this is how he pulled them from the box then I can see some relevance to the ammo being the cause of the Kaboom. IMHO
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Chris is S&W sending your Shield back to you ? They usually don't return a gun they find is unsafe to shoot. Tell them you have a lawyer that wants to examine the pistol and you want it back. They'll probably cough up a new Shield for you.
-Mike
-Mike
ditto1958
Member
I find it rather upsetting that Smith is not simply replacing the gun. Their competitors seem to have much better customer service. I read recently where a guy dropped his 1970's 10/22 and damaged the receiver. Ruger determined they could not repair it and sent him a brand new 10/22 and a mailer to send them the old one.
I have two Henry rifles. I have called Henry twice to order parts that I damaged. Both times they refused to charge me and sent the new part for free.
Smith seems to be really stingy about standing behind their products.
I have two Henry rifles. I have called Henry twice to order parts that I damaged. Both times they refused to charge me and sent the new part for free.
Smith seems to be really stingy about standing behind their products.
A few months ago, I called S&W to order a new rear sight for my Shield. I has chewed the original up during the development of a workable push pin for the M&P's for my line of sight pushers. I was fully prepared to pay for the part. They asked what happened to the old one and I told them exactly what happened. I wrecked it in the process of a commercial venture. Anyway, they sent me a new one and refused payment, even though I offered. Of course this was a $12-15 part, not a gun.
