Glock 21 kaboom's

[Blackhorse]

Anybody heard anything about kaboom's in the glock 21? If so what were the reasons. I've heard about the problems with the glock 23 so only reload my brass once for that one or use factory ammo.

[ranburr]

Reloads are not as evil as everyone seems to think, (as long as they are good reloads). You can have major issues if you shoot a lot of lead target ammo. Shooting ball, jacketed ammo, and cleaning your barrel once in a while should give you years of uneventful service.

ranburr

[Rivers]

There are no issues with Glock 21's KBing.

[281 Quad Cam]

Outside of the "fictional" Portland PD accounts, Glock 21's have no history of kB's.

Not many people I know consider the Portland story to be authentic.

[caz223]

The 21 has not had any kB! issues that I'm aware of.
As how the .45 is a low pressure round, and the gun is a large frame, I can't imagine the normal use that would contribute to a kB!
Certainly reloads with too much bullseye/titegroup/clays would be one factor.
I'm not sure exactly (I have a NIB 21, never shot it.) if you can shoot lead through it or not.
I'd steer clear of lead, just as a precautionary measure, although when managed correctly I'm sure it's fine.
I have a H&K USP compact .45, and although this one has some miles on her, she's never seen a lead round.

[Hard Ball]

Any Glock can fire out of battery. The resukts with a Glock 21 will probably be less severe that with a .40S&W model.

[juliet charley]

The G21 (and 30 and 36) can and do kB!, and at about the same rate (proportionately) as the .40 S&W--too often.

[Rivers]

Juliet speaks with a forked tongue.

[juliet charley]

Naw, Rivers has just had one glass too many of Kool-Aid! :p

[Half-Price Assassin]

any gun can KB! even the "almighty" 1911 :rolleyes: . this is why GLOCK 21s kb,

some moron, takes the whole GLOCKS are indestructable, nothing can destroy one mindset, reloads with double charged lead ammo, then when his poor GLOCK blows up, after he never took care of it properly, or cleaned it good, he then proceeds to blame GLOCK for making an unsafe product. if you shoot factory ammo like the book says, and use safe reloads, your wont ever have to worry about your .45 (or .40) GLOCK blowing up.

[juliet charley]

The issue is not whether other handguns kB!--they can and do. The unfortunate truth is, however, Glocks can kB! with factory ammunition (not reloads/not lead bullets), and Glock can have a catastrophic with ammunition that handguns made by other manufacturers would have handled. Glock tolerances, for better or for worse, do not allow any room for error and will result in a catastrophic failure with ammuniton that could have easily been handled by another (non-Glock) handgun.

There's actually another thread running on the same issue:

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200507

[meatcurtains]

Please...:rolleyes:

The fact is that there are several thousand (if not hundred thousand) G21s in service. Browsing the net, I can only find maybe 3-4 unique cases of G21 KBs.

Let's say for the sake of argument, that we can find 50 proven and unique G21 KB instances. Assuming 150k G21s in service (what I believe to be a conservative guess), that's a .03% failure rate...and that's assuming that the KB is in-fact the result of a manufacturing or design defect.

It's unfortunate that in some circles, that glocks tend to be viewed the light of a negative deliverable. It's like the classic 9mm vs. 45 argument: "I know this guy who got shot 4 times with a 9mm and lived; he would have been dead if it was a .45". Similarly, the conditions that cause a glock to KB could "easily been handled by another (non-Glock) handgun". It's great to be able to make assertions like that, but when you don't -- or can't -- know the conditions of the event, that's all they are...wild assertions.

Though not a statistically significant sample, this (http://www.glocktalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=462537) G21 seems to be holding up just fine.

[Rob96]

If you want a Glock, your best bet is the 9mm models.

[Joe D]

Glocks do not blow up more than any other gun. Just one of many Glock internet myths that never seem to die. I promise I am not going to get started on the Glock internet myths any more. Same applies to you Handy.;)

[juliet charley]

I just posted this on the other G21 threading. Since it applies here as well, I might as well post it in both places.
I asked a senior armorer whose opinion I highly respect to respond to this thread—his comments follow:
-------------------------

“Ask [him] if he remembers the Glock [Advanced] Armorer’s [Course] test he took when he took the Glock Factory armorer’s school. One of the questions on the test is: ‘A light, off-center indentation on the primer, failing to fire the cartridge, indicates that when the trigger was pulled the pistol?’—ANSWER--"was slightly out of battery". The factory, with this question, acknowledges the fact that the Glock’s mechanism will work when the firearm is OUT OF BATTERY. Especially with ammunition utilizing softer primers, this condition can cause Glock pistols to not only have primer strikes out of battery, but to actually FIRE out of battery—often resulting in the unsupported case rupturing and causing damage to the pistol. I have seen 3 of these catastrophic failures in Glock 21 pistols at the regional police academy using factory ammunition—these pistols had never fired reloads or lead bullets.
On the issue of a Glock "disconnector"--ALL semi-auto pistols have disconnectors. On Sig's, it is located on the trigger bar; it is not a listed part. In the Glock pistol, the disconnector is located on the top of the connector (ie. the disconnector tab). When the Glock’s slide moves to the rear, the disconnector tab on top of the connector contacts the slide rail cut and moves the connector towards the center of the weapon. This disengages the trigger bar from the connector and makes the weapon safe (unable to fire). With the Glock pistol, the slide moves only a short distance to the rear when the barrel starts to move down (for the slide to continue its rearward travel). While this distance varies from pistol to pistol, it is shorter with Glock’s than other makes of pistols. This is a contributing factor for the Glock out of battery discharges and subsequent damage to the firearms. With the pistol slightly out of battery, the disconnect feature on some Glock pistols has not disconnected the trigger bar and connector. This causes the pistol to fire out of battery. You can check your own Glock for this condition by making sure your pistol is unloaded, then manually pull the slide to the rear while you watch the barrel. As the barrel begins its downward movement, see if the trigger has been disconnected. Pull the trigger and sense if you feel the firing pin moving to the rear. If your Glock's trigger will work the firing mechanism, you have demonstrated how this out of battery condition can occur. Check enough Glocks and you will see this problem rather frequently. IF the disconnector tab was re-positioned slightly forward on the connector bar, this out of battery primer strike/firing problem would be reduced.

On the issue of ammunition being the problem, I agree that ammunition, lack of cleaning, improper cleaning and shooter error can contribute to many problems in any pistol. With the Glock’s potential to fire out of battery, ammunition with sensitive primers does contribute to the problem. In our agency, I have seen hundreds of failure to fire malfunctions with Glock pistols. Every time the malfunction is cleared, a live round is ejected to the ground. Every round has an off center primer strike. This indicates to me that the weapon tried to fire out of battery. These pistols were all "properly functioning guns" until they had the malfunction. All of the Glock pistols that I have personally seen that fired out of battery were Glock model 21's. Remember, .45ACP is not a high pressure cartridge. Armorers at other agencies which use the higher pressure 357 Sig and .40 S&W have reported similar problems, but with more catastrophic failures. The 9 mm Glocks seem to run without much trouble.

Oh, by the way, I am a certified Glock armorer with over 25 years as a department armorer and over 30 years experience as a gunsmith.” (originally post by Gary Roberts on TF)

[fairview mick]

Juliette
Show me cold facts the Glocks that are maintained and shoot "GOOD" ammo blow up.

[Hard Ball]

Internalize this, ANY GLOCK CAN FIRE OUT OF BATTERY! Some models are more likely to do it than others. If you must shoot a Glock the safest models are the 9mms.

[WheelGunRealGun]

my glock 21 has at least 5k rounds through it, no kaboom.


lol I defied nature and brought this thread back to life!:D

[IMightBeWrong]

Everything Kabooms. There's no pistol that's more likely to explode than any other. Glocks were rumored to be more likely, but they really aren't. They just have a huge market, so you're more likely to HEAR about them blowing up in shooters hands because there are more of them in shooters hands than most other weapons.

Flame suit on. I know how much people love to spread the KABOOM gossip.

[thegunsmith]

I've never seen a 21 that has kb'd personally, but I have seen 2 10mm (model 20), both of which were shooting hot handloads (the shooters both claimed to be using new unfired brass, not once fired or twice, etc.) and both were not catastrophic (as in injury/death causing), but both required new frames, and one required a new complete slide. Nether were verifiable OOB's and neither were using lead rounds. Both guns were clean when they Kb'd (clean enough for me to note that they were clean enough).

I'm a Glock armorer of 15 years or so, and have been a gunsmith for nearly 20. It can and does happen, that shouldn't be the debate in my mind, but whether it's preventable and how. I have heard of 21's and that they can OOB, but aside from seeing a few "misfires" which if I try hard enough, I MIGHT be able to convince myself there is a chance that it was OOB, I can only chalk the FTF's as ammunition based concerns.

Reading the above comments, I am not questioning myself but am paying attention to the future firing. I actually own a 21 and use it fairly frequently, so aside from setting my gun up to KB, I will see what I can do to mess with a dry unloaded gun to try and get a true OOB strike.

Yes the thread was dead...but now I'm on a mission... to see if I can get the gun to OOB on me... Thanks for resurrection of this thread.

As a final note: the two failures on the G20 both had bowed or destroyed frames above the trigger guard about at the ramp area/takedown area, there was nothing outside of this area, and no damage to the barrel ramp (to the naked eye). I did not see the gun KB...so cannot verify the OOB situation.

[Noreaster]

One went Kaboom and injured the operator during a Singleton Tact. pistol class. The officer was using cheap reloads which are not to be used in Glocks. My friend's Norinco 1911 also went Kaboom and he was using reloads from the same place. The G21 user was injured and the Norinco user was not.

[Will Beararms]

I don't shoot reloads.

The Gen. 4 Glock addresses some of the out of battery concerns via the new stronger recoil spring assembly

If you are scared, don't own a Glock.

The FBI, BATF and DEA want their officers in the field to be exposed to kaBOOM's. This is why they all have contracts for the Glock 22 (Tongue in Cheek)

[Double Impact]

This K-BOOM thing is just stupid.
All guns can K-Boom mostly due to reloads.

The only reason you may read about it happening to glocks more is simply because there are more glocks out in the field.

Like it was mentioned earlier would the FBI have chose the glock 23 for there official field carry gun or all the 70% of law enforcement or more around the world use them if they were going to K-Boom any more then any other gun?
I think not. And price is not the only reason they choose glock.:D

[Edward429451]

I shoot 99% reloads. I owned a G21 for almost 20 years and fed it all sorts of lead hand loads. I never had a problem. Know why? I have a modicum of common sense.

I'll never own another Glock. Any gun that is so sensitive to ammo, and how you hold it, is not user friendly so deserves to live at the dump. This is my common sense talking to me after owning it for 20 years. There are many many better guns on the market than glocks.

[madmag]

I hate seeing the bad guys with an advantage. Last I read Glock had about 65% of the US police department business...too bad the police are using guns that kaboom, or fail due to limp wristing.

You would think that police departments would be more careful about their choice.:rolleyes:

[trex1310]

I heard the Sig Sauer P220 was prone to kabooms.

[trex1310]

I heard the Ruger SR1911 was prone to kabooms.

Sorry, I didn't hear that. I actually started that rumor.

[Dan D]

A while back I remember someone at a gunsgop told me that glock changed the feed ramping the 21's so that the chamber wasn't so thin towards the rear of the chamber ti reduce the risk of a kaboom. Again not sure if there's any truth to that.