Haven PD to ditch Glocks after explosions.

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I don't see how this could happen and would like to know the reason for it. I carry a Glock30 everyday because I know without a doubt it will fire when I pull the trigger. If you here anything else on the matter please post it. thks.
 
I know everyone is thinking Glocks are crap, hope they buy S&W's but usually when something like that happens it has fired out of battery or a case head failure. But considering what it takes to be a Glock Armorer it not surprising they are blaming the gun.
 
I'm hearing a lot of this lately. Two of my friends were shooting July 3rd and a Glock .45 kaboomed big time. The slide lock, and trigger group were blown off, the slide was jamed in the frame and wouldn't budge. The frame was cracked for 2" on the left side running down the grip. The magazine was blow
n out and the mag release destroyed.

The victim had scorch marks numerous places on his shooting and support hands, but when the trigger let go, it tore all the skin off 2" of his finger down to the meat and singed it.

The same guy and I worked a Glock Shooting Sports Federation match the week before and had to send 3 competitors to the onsite Glock armorer to get there guns repaired.

Last year the Indiana State Police changed from Glocks in .40 S&W back to 9MM due to functioning and kabooms with their Glocks. The Superintendant is a Glock freak and wouldn't dump them for Sig or Smith, so he cut a deal to get all the .40's replaced by 9's. The Troopers are not happy about this situation, but the Glock freak has the juice, power and position to dictate the rules.
 
I have seen bulged 10mm casing which were reported to have come from Glocks. Same seems to be true of some Glock .40s, at least one pass through resizing die is being sold to reform the cases.
This sounds really strange though. From what people say Glock has a first case customer service organization, I would have expected them to be all over this.
 
The feed ramp extends into the chamber on all glocks, leaving a portion of the brass unsupported and prone to bulging. Fixes are mostly for .40/10mm brass as they can be pushed through. But it was not stated whether it was reloaded practice ammo, or duty ammo. Unfired brass runs fine, chambers are loose compared to other brands. But to blow the trigger and magazine out would almost have to have the round out of battery.
 
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I would be interested to know if the round which caused the explosion had been cycled through the magazine more than once. We have noticed deep seating of bullets in rounds cycled twice. We all know that ain't good.
 
I would tend to blame poor maintenance.
If you don't check the recoil springs and replace as needed, the gun will fire out of battery, causing KBs.
We had one failure here, during a gunfight I think, of a Model 22. Cause was traced to officer's pouring oil into the firing pin channel, jamming it up. Read the manual.
 
Well I have first hand knowledge of this. I had a model 21 that let go, case blew out in the spot that is not supported. It blew parts out, bloddied may strong hand and locked the gun up into a paperweight. I took it over to Glock (20 minutes from my house) and they looked it over: Not new ammo= no new gun. They gave me the option to fix it for 300 bucks or swap it for a new gun and 350 bucks to make the deal. I wasn't happy, to say the least. I told them if I couldn't shoot a reload/remanufactured cartridge in the gun, I can't own it. I shot Glock matches for 12 or so years, had 7 of their guns, verbally sold dozens of guns to my shooting buds, and always defended their product thick and thin. The rep just stood there with the "can't wait to go to lunch" look on his face and said "you heard the offer that we made" :mad: Well I took the trade for a new model 19 9mm, walked out, haven't shot Glocks in the last year and a half, sold 5 out of the 7 guns already; with the other two in the "trade for something like a Smith" pile, and wrote a letter to the Glock big cheeses explaining my reaction to "their offer".

I had a bust case in one of my 1911 pistols many years ago (new ammo); some will say that their cases are not 100% supported either (they aren't) but the results were very different: ruined one magazine, cracked a grip panel, and browned my shorts. I mentioned it to a factory rep at a shot show-- he gave me 4 mags a set of Cocobola Grips off of a display gun, gave me a shooting bag, glasses, towel, stickers, and an APOLOGY (well; 10-12 of them).

Long story short-- Plastic lower receiver= junked gun-----Steel lower receiver= can shoot another mag full in a few minutes. (after you visit the lnumber 2 room):D

Not long after all of this happened, a fellow club member blew his Model 21 up about 16 hours after it was at Glock to inspect, clean the gun and to replace the recoil spring to ready it for a GSSF shoot. Remaned ammo= no new gun. What a surprise ha :(

Oh yea, I joined this forum soon after this went down and have purchased 18 new and used Smith and Wesson guns in the same time period. I told the last Glock rep guy I saw (about a month ago) the last sentence with the remarks of: "I put my hard earned money into a product that backs there customers---NEW AMMO OR NOT!" (I had some Smiths before this, but was really a semi-auto competition type of guy, GSSF, IDPA, Steel, etc. but have gone more toward the wheel gun. There loss!
 
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All manufacturers tend to disclaim liability for the use of reloaded/remanufactured ammo, not just Glock. Glocks in particular often have a problem if someone used lead bullets. This is done because there are many fly by night remanufacturing outfits (think of the infamous "gun show reloads") as well as people who simply don't know what they are doing that reload ammo.

If a gun blows because remanufactured ammo was used, the people to take it up with would likely be whoever made said remanufactured ammo.

If your gun blows up with your own reloads, well maybe it was the gun, but maybe... just maybe... it was your ammo. Shrug.

I don't know why the Glocks in question blew. Given the ammo shortage, my first question would be was someone, or the department, using remanufactured ammo or personal reloads? Did they use lead bullets and have a bore thickly coated?
 
well I have seen Glocks with jamming problems and such but this is new to me, but I did see a deputy packing a G 23 with a tactical light mounted today, hope he doesn't hear this, he seemed confident in it
 
Crazy K38 said:
well I have seen Glocks with jamming problems and such but this is new to me, but I did see a deputy packing a G 23 with a tactical light mounted today, hope he doesn't hear this, he seemed confident in it
Click to expand...

The bigger issue there might be that there are complaints of .40 caliber Glocks having reliability issues with lights mounted. Several posters have claimed first hand knowledge of such. I don't know if the type of light affects performance.

There have been many stories of Glock "ka-booms" aka "kbs" over the years, though most often associated with the .40s. What to make of it, and the root causes has been the subject of quite a bit of bandwith. The .45 GAP cartridge that the G37 uses has been controversial itself.

Other guns that I've seen photos posted on forums of that have blown include various and sundry ARs, an H&K USP, and I've seen revolvers mounted in shops that had blown. The latter cases were usually cautionary examples of what happens when you pull the trigger again after a squib load or using Uncle Jeb's old reloads from a rusty coffee can. Though I did hear a seemingly reliable story from a guy a trade with about a brand new J frame blowing and have seen photos of Taurus Judges that self destructed. (I haven't seen a blown Sig-Sauer, but I'm sure they're out there.) Sometimes ammo is to blame, sometimes there's a latent problem with a particular gun, sometimes there was a lack of maintenance.

Some people avoid Glocks because of a fear of the dreaded k-b. Others do not. Still others always carry one or more spare guns as a hedge against such things (most users are unharmed after kbs).

Ammo QC may have dipped a bit over the last few years. I've taken visibly deformed rounds out of boxes of WWB. Not all LEOs are firearms geeks, so it might be possible that ammo that ought be tossed ends up loaded into mags and carried or used on the range I suppose. It's also possible to do things to any firearm that will cause it to blow. Barrel obstructions, barrel leading, squib loads (seperate from barrel obstructions caused by things like dropping your gun in the muck and firing it to clear the barrel, always a favorite killer of duck guns in years past) all contribute.
 
That is one big k-boom. I have seen several Glocks blow, .40 S&W cal, and some that the ammo head separated from the case. None of them damaged the gun, although a couple of magazines were cracked. The .40 works at much higher pressure than .45 ACP. Our situation was bad ammo from a commercial reloader. That is a lot of damage for .45 to make with a standard load!:confused:
 
GatorFarmer said:
The bigger issue there might be that there are complaints of .40 caliber Glocks having reliability issues with lights mounted. Several posters have claimed first hand knowledge of such. I don't know if the type of light affects performance.

There have been many stories of Glock "ka-booms" aka "kbs" over the years, though most often associated with the .40s. What to make of it, and the root causes has been the subject of quite a bit of bandwith. The .45 GAP cartridge that the G37 uses has been controversial itself.

Other guns that I've seen photos posted on forums of that have blown include various and sundry ARs, an H&K USP, and I've seen revolvers mounted in shops that had blown. The latter cases were usually cautionary examples of what happens when you pull the trigger again after a squib load or using Uncle Jeb's old reloads from a rusty coffee can. Though I did hear a seemingly reliable story from a guy a trade with about a brand new J frame blowing and have seen photos of Taurus Judges that self destructed. (I haven't seen a blown Sig-Sauer, but I'm sure they're out there.) Sometimes ammo is to blame, sometimes there's a latent problem with a particular gun, sometimes there was a lack of maintenance.

Some people avoid Glocks because of a fear of the dreaded k-b. Others do not. Still others always carry one or more spare guns as a hedge against such things (most users are unharmed after kbs).

Ammo QC may have dipped a bit over the last few years. I've taken visibly deformed rounds out of boxes of WWB. Not all LEOs are firearms geeks, so it might be possible that ammo that ought be tossed ends up loaded into mags and carried or used on the range I suppose. It's also possible to do things to any firearm that will cause it to blow. Barrel obstructions, barrel leading, squib loads (seperate from barrel obstructions caused by things like dropping your gun in the muck and firing it to clear the barrel, always a favorite killer of duck guns in years past) all contribute.
Click to expand...

remington is getting bad about QC as well, I pulled one out that the head case was deformed and two huge dents in the side of the casing
 
Nightowl said:
That is one big k-boom. I have seen several Glocks blow, .40 S&W cal, and some that the ammo head separated from the case. None of them damaged the gun, although a couple of magazines were cracked. The .40 works at much higher pressure than .45 ACP. Our situation was bad ammo from a commercial reloader. That is a lot of damage for .45 to make with a standard load!:confused:
Click to expand...

The ones that blew in the OP's linked article were .45 GAP pistols, which operate at higher pressure than the .45 ACP. If memory serves, they run at pressures about like what .45 ACP +P does. Supposedly it takes a bit of effort to properly load for the .45 GAP. The brass also needs to be thicker than .45 ACP brass.

Not that it couldn't have been a run of bad Glocks, but even the department seems to have initially blamed the ammo.
 
This is an amazing thread.

For those who suggest that the problem is due to reloads, does that mean that users of other polymer guns don't reload, since it seems to be Glocks that are blowing up over and over?


The fact that the manufacturer seems to recommend replacing their blown up .45s with 9mms should tell you all you need to know, whether they acknowledge the problems or not.

.
 
i only like 9mm glocks thats the cal they was made for and i just like 9mm i have had no problem and i had a 27 and had no problems
 
the one I reffered to above was a g17, but it could have been a lemon but it jamed AT LEAST twice a mag, hated that damned thing
 
Titan said:
This is an amazing thread.

For those who suggest that the problem is due to reloads, does that mean that users of other polymer guns don't reload, since it seems to be Glocks that are blowing up over and over?


The fact that the manufacturer seems to recommend replacing their blown up .45s with 9mms should tell you all you need to know, whether they acknowledge the problems or not.

.
Click to expand...

It means that there are many many more Glocks in circulation than other types.
I recently acquired a NIB Model 29 (10mm). I took it to the range, loaded it fresh out of the box, no cleaning nothing. Gun shot 100%.
 
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