I want to know more about the Glock "being able to fire out of battery".
I have seen no evidence of this, and cannot duplicate any such thing on my gun.
Also, some of the problems with the Glock are attributed to it's legendary toughness. People tend not to clean them for long periods of time which could cause serious malfunctions. I know MANY people that do not clean their Glocks for years at a time.
On top of that, people reload hot loads for their Glocks because they are, once again, "tough guns" and rated to handle high-pressure rounds.
Lastly, almost every case has involved a reload. The factory Federal case blew up other guns as well and was a *case failure* from defective factory ammo. Most of that number (of reloaded guns blowing up) are using lead bullets, which specifically is NOT to be used in polygonally rifled barrels.
I would imagine that the whole thing is rather overblown (no pun intended
).
With two million of them in circulation, your odds of having one, even if you treat your gun poorly, and reload hot loads in old brass, have to be much less than 1/100,000.
I still don't even know (and no one else here does either) just how many of them have really happened and how many are just rumors growing wild. Even in complete reports by people that follow these cases for a living, I have only seen a handful of cases, and almost all of those were reloaded .40.
People that disliked Glocks before, now just have an excuse to like them less, and that internet panic causes the myths to grow to larger proportions than they are. No one here has pointed to ANY proven cases yet, let alone "many" of them.
Until I see proof, I only believe in the few cases I have seen reports on, almost all with reloads, and mostly with .40, with a few exceptions. Anything beyond that is hyperbole and equivalent to an internet myth.
It is easy to see how peopl are screwing up with reloading the .40 since the .40 is a high-presure round that is loaded to capacity: one little mistake with either too much charge, too tight a crimp, the wrong seating depth, and...kB! (In any gun). The .40 is a round that is loaded to the max in every regard and should be reloaded very carefully.
Lastly, I am relatively new to guns in the grand scheme of things, but there is nothing unique to the Glock that is not found in parts on other guns. The unsupported chamber is there on the 1911, which has been used for almost a century. So, how can the .45 Glock blow up and not the .45 1911? I would have to attribute that to people using lead reloads that work in the 1911 rifling but does not work in the Glock's polygonal rifling. Either that, or as said above, people thing that Glocks are tougher, so they reload hotter.
Because of my inexperience, I don't KNOW how many other guns kB'd before the Glock came along, but I can't believe that the Glock is the first gun to blow up when it is used to shoot hot loads with old brass.
I am sure that guns past have blown up too when shot with hot reloads from poor reloaders, and to top that off, the polygonal rifleing is a bit unique to such a *popular* line of guns, and the lead issue could play a large part of it.
To me it is pretty simple:
1) Don't shoot lead.
2) If you are going to reload .40, be careful and/or load it light.
3) Don't reload hot loads in old brass.
Gee, it sounds like if you FOLLOW THE MANUAL that comes with the gun, then you will not have any problems.
As it is, if you eliminate people that insist on shooting their own crappy, hot reloads, your odds of getting a kB are literally about
one in a million.
Oh yes, and I need to add that in all the cases, no one has been seriously injured. In fact, the worst injury I have heard of is a cut finger. The polymer frame of the Glock absorbs the kB, unlike the 1911's I have heard of that grenade shrapnel all over the place, causing serious injury in some cases. So, you can feel safe that if you are the one-in-a-million person that has a Glock kB that is no fault of your own, then you know that at least that you will not be injured.
[This message has been edited by Red Bull (edited October 05, 1999).]
