ka-booms and glocks

[charlesc]

1 What exactly is a ka-boom?
2 Does it happen only in certain caliber cartridges?
3 Is it restricted only to Glocks?
4 In Glocks, which generation/models had ka-booms?
5 Do any current 4 gen glock models have had and/or are having ka-booms?
If so which ones?
Thanks

[Dc777]

Kaboom is the result of a case failure and the term was coined by Dean Speir.... And it is a term used for glocks, not other guns. That doesn't mean that another gun can't have a hiccup but its used exclusively for glocks.

[charlesc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP7CYxvwy4k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VX1OHxy9ck- glock 19 kaboom

[mete]

For a Glock kaboom means the round is fired out of battery, that is before the slide is fully forward. Discussions of this were very common after the Glock came out in 40S&W.That's the cartridge that was causing problems.It was part of the learning curve for the new .40. Handloaders also were to blame often usually by over pressure. Chambers of the Glock were redesigned and chages were made in Federal ammo that I remember.

[James K]

The term "Ka-boom" is fairly recent but the idea of a gun blow up has been around for about as long as guns. It is not limited to case failure, and even when it is the fault might not lie in the case itself. Blowups can result from defective material in the gun, bad gun design, bad case material, insufficient support for the case, an excess charge of powder or the wrong kind of powder, a barrel obstruction, or some other cause.

Perhaps someone, somewhere, has decreed that "ka-boom" is to be used only for Glocks, but if so the term is now universal enough that it is not limited to any particular type or brand of firearm.

Glocks have been singled out because some gun experts decided that their barrel design does not offer sufficient case support, especially in the .40 S&W caliber, with the result that the bottom rear of the case blows out and the high pressure gas destroys the gun. Others blame the gun design for allowing it to fire out of battery. There seems to be no real consensus even about the cause of the problem, and any ka-boom with a Glock is seized on by "experts" as proof of their pet theory.

One of the problems in analyzing a Glock ka-boom is that it is immediately assumed that the problem was one of the above, and usually no one wants to even consider any other possibility. I am aware of at least one .40 Glock "ka-boom" that happened because the shooter loaded a 9mm into the barrel where it stuck. When a .40 round was fired behind it, the barrel burst; everyone blamed the "bad" Glock chamber design.

Jim

[Wreck-n-Crew]

What exactly is a ka-boom?

There are different meanings to different people and as of late a Ka-boom is more often used to describe an explosion within the gun outside of the barrel. But the long held term was a gun or barrel that exploded. Usually an overpressure explosion resulting in casing failure and damage to the gun, maybe person. Sometimes a case failure in an unsupported chamber resulting in the pressure being released within the gun causing anything from no real damage to catastrophic failure of the structure that is exposed.

2 Does it happen only in certain caliber cartridges?

it can happen to any gun that is over pressurized. Some more than others depending on gun make and design and what your shooting in it.

3 Is it restricted only to Glocks?

No. Though fully supported chambers are less likely to have a Ka-boom, they are not a GLock only thing.

4 In Glocks, which generation/models had ka-booms?

Any generation of most any gun is susceptible to a ka-boom with over pressure. But the Gen 2 in certain calibers that I am aware of, maybe the gen 1's. Someone will fill this in. These "Glock Ka-booms" are not caused by factory standard ammunition. IT is related to or blamed on reloads. OR so it appears.

5 Do any current 4 gen glock models have had and/or are having ka-booms?
If so which ones?

Not to my knowledge. Someone else may have some more input as to the differences in the chambers from the older gens to the new ones than I have.

[RBid]

It should be noted that Glocks in .40 (those most credited with being time bombs) are issued, carried, and fired by PDs and Federal agencies across the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Between those and privately owned pistols, there are probably more than a million Glocks in .40 S&W in active use.

Despite this, kaboom stories are very rare.

If they were blowing up, those government issued pistols wouldn't continue to be issued. Liability is a big thing.

[Guv]

Doesn't Raylan Givens (Justified) shoot a 40 cal Glock!

[filthy phil]

As james said I had a out of battery kaboom with a gen2 g20 shooting lead. Lead buildup and my laziness caused it..mag came apart and remaining rounds fell out. Burning powder went in my eye

[DPris]

Happens with factory loads, too.
A now-retired friend who used to be an exec at PMC told me years ago they'd get complaints about their ammunition "blowing up Glocks".
They'd ask the gun owner to send their pistols in for a look, whereupon they'd ship the guns to Glock who quietly replaced them.

The .40 seems to be the most common caliber for kabooms.
A gal I knew blew up her 9 at a department qualifier a while back.

PMC was not known for slipshod quality at the old Nevada plant, and Glocks were what they got the complaints about.

There are other cases, the three primary causes I'm aware of are attributed to lack of case support, firing out of battery, and bullet setback (mostly LE where the same round may be chambered repeatedly).
A distant fourth is handloads.

Denis

[tangolima]

Why Glock tends to have out-of battery ignition? What's the mechanism?

Heard about insufficient chamber support in certain version of Glocks. But other designs have the same issue too. Most of the time there is no problem at all. Occasionally there is bulging brass. At worst the brass blows out and the magazine gets blown out the gun. Not really a Ka-boom.

Real Ka-booms I have heard of were due to double charging in hand loads. Glock or not, any pistol will become a mess if you do that.

-TL

[dayman]

Kaboom

, or more appropriately "KABOOM!" is the sound an explosion makes.
It's closely related to "bang!": the sound a gun makes.

I myself started using "kaboom" - around the age of 4 - when playing "Cowboys and Indians" to let my cousins that the dynamite (stick) I had thrown at them was exploding.

I say that, not just to be snarky, but to point out that it's anything but a scientific term.

People use it to describe a catastrophic firearm failure in non-specific terms - like kaput, but more explosive.

it is a term used for glocks, not other guns.

People may have started using it to refer to catastrophic case failures in .40 glocks (due to the fact that they were relatively common in early models), but I highly doubt Dean Speir was the first person to refer to an exploding hand gun as having gone "kaboom". And either way, at this point it's really just a general term for unspecified catastrophic failures.
If you check the archives, you'll see that people use the term for all sorts of failures in all sorts of guns, and like any slang term, it's definition is going to be defined by common usage - like how "google" has morphed into a verb.

People will know what you mean if you use it to describe any sort of failure that would have made a "kaboom" kind of sound when it happened.

[MTT TL]

The only gun I have actually seen go boom under normal usage was a HiPoint pistol. It was more like a disintegration. If you shoot cheap guns make sure you wear eye protection.

I have no idea what the failure rate is but if it were high and dangerous enough in the United Suits of America there would be tons of successful liability cases if there were a serious issue.

[Noreaster]

45 acp Glocks mostly seems to go KB when using reloads, (the one case I have experience with was a swat class and the guy was using reloads in his G21.) There was a PD using factory 45acp ammo that had problems. The earlier 40 cals seem to have had the most KB. I had a 357 Sig Glock fire out of battery for an unknown reason using factory duty ammo, very big mess and a bullet lodged in the barrel but the gun was salvaged. And then there is a whole another issue with green ammo eroding the breach face and causing the firing pin to protrude, (Sig has had similar problems with lead free primers causing damage.)

[Tactical Jackalope]

It can happen to anything from a Wilson Combat 1911 to a Hi-Point.

People just get excited when it happens to a polymer gun because sometimes it looks a little more dramatic.

Glock haters just love waving that flag so much that beginners get scared.

Not my pics, but here are guns "ka-booming". They all can.

[WardenWolf]

From what I've managed to research, the problem arose primarily from a perfect storm of flawed cartridge and flawed chamber design.

The .40 S&W bullet is highly prone to setback, much more so than .45 or 9mm. And because it's a very short cartridge, setback of as little as .1 inch can double the pressure. This, when coupled with the poorly-supported chamber of earlier Glocks, was a recipe for disaster. It is only on the most recent generation of Glocks that they finally corrected the issue.

The setback issue with the .40 round is bad enough that I would not advise anyone chamber a round more than once, and is the primary reason I will NOT own a gun in this caliber. I do believe the round is fundamentally flawed, and that older Glocks chambered in it are inherently unsafe because they encourage blowout in a round that is already prone to overpressure conditions.

I have a friend who nearly blew up his Springfield XD .40 with setback round, but fortunately I spotted it before he chambered it again.

Also, because of the reasons listed above, it is an extremely bad idea to reload for an older Glock .40 unless it has been rebarreled. The brass in the unsupported area will be stretched and stressed beyond the rest of the case, making future failure much more likely.

[kjd2121]

My friends gen2 G17 kaboomed with a reload. It broke the slide stop tab. but nothing else was harmed. We continued to shoot it after I confiscated the reloads.

After that, I will never shoot reloads out of any Glock - that's just me....

[RX-79G]

Those aren't kaBooms. KaBooms are typified by case head failures in factory loaded ammunition with in spec guns that have no damage to the parts of the gun that contain pressure. And they do it randomly, not consistently.

That's why firing out of battery, which Glock connectors allow to a greater degree than the disconnectors or connectors of other firearms, is the likely culprit. In normal circumstances, a gun will function perfectly without a device that guarantees that the action is in full battery. Such insurance is only there for when something goes wrong.

Glocks .40s are 9mm guns with a slightly heavier slide. The stubby shape of .40 makes feeding more difficult, .40 recoils harder which decreases the amount of time the action is locked and offers more unsupported area for pressures to work against on the case head. Add the fact that Glock strikers work in opposition to the recoil spring and you have everything you need to transform a dirty breach face, locking area or striker channel into an out of battery firing condition. Limp wristing could also contribute to the action not seating in full battery. Have that happen enough times, one case may eventually blow as the gun unlocks just a bit too early.

If your Glock starts vertically stringing, it is probably firing a little out of battery. The barrel is not recoiling with the sights for long enough to keep the bore aligned with them. If you factory loaded cases start looking more bulged than normal, same story. Stop shooting and clean the gun or get different ammo.

Reloads, lead, setback, etc. are all problems that can cause their own failures in any gun. They can also contribute to the conditions that cause Glock KaBooms, but if the gun was designed differently they wouldn't cause just case head failures. True overpressure detonations look like those pictures - they destroy the chamber.

Glock .40s are just a good example of a perfect storm - small design deficiencies that weren't issues with easy feeding, light recoiling 9mm guns. But .40 Glocks have used up all the safety margins in feeding ease and action locking time to the point that they will randomly fire just enough out of battery to open when case pressure is still too high.

Glock has increased the case support, but did it without redesigning the gun. This should support the case longer in the case of early unlock, but it also means that the feed ramp is now steeper. That can't be great for feed reliability.

There are all sorts of reasons a gun can blow up, but very few for how a working locked breech gun and factory ammo can randomly unlock when chamber pressures are too high and show no signs of damage to the locking system. Glock makes the only weapon I know of that makes that possible.

These don't happen all that often. What scares me is that there really isn't any way of preventing them, rare as they are. I wouldn't carry a gun that has a known issue, no matter how rarely the issue ends in the mag blowing out of the gun. You wouldn't fly in a plane which has left wings fall off every 1 to 2 million flight hours. You fix the wing problem or fly in a different plane.

[charlesc]

on you tube they have videos about Glock 19, Glock 23, Glock 34, glock 27, Glock 20, Glock 17 going kabooms.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

So - on youtube, you can find anything. The point after the explanations is what for the OP?

[tahunua001]

1 What exactly is a ka-boom?

a KaBoom is a catastrophic failure that causes your gun to explode.

2 Does it happen only in certain caliber cartridges?

it can happen in all calibers but the 45 ACP and GAP models seem to be most publicized.

3 Is it restricted only to Glocks?

no, any gun can kaboom if you create the right conditions but they are more prevalent in glocks because of the unsupported chambers.

4 In Glocks, which generation/models had ka-booms?

1-4, there is no such thing as a kaboom proof gun and glock has been no exception.

5 Do any current 4 gen glock models have had and/or are having ka-booms?
If so which ones?

so far I have not heard and cases of kabooms but nothing has changed between the gen 4 and previous generations to prevent kabooms from happening.

[charlesc]

I was just saying I found the videos about kabooms not only in .40 but also in 9mm and 10mm cartridges. Some folks said it occurs in .40. That's all.

[charlesc]

tahunua001 - you say:
1 glocks have unsupported chambers and
2 nothing has changed in gen 4 Glocks and previous generations to prevent kabooms from happening?
I may not be buying a glock then. Why should I take this unnecessary risk?

[Tactical Jackalope]

I was just saying I found the videos about kabooms not only in .40 but also in 9mm and 10mm cartridges. Some folks said it occurs in .40. That's all.

That wasn't a cartridge you were defending. It was a gun manufacturer.

You said:

on you tube they have videos about Glock 19, Glock 23, Glock 34, glock 27, Glock 20, Glock 17 going kabooms.

When most everyone else is trying to explain it happens to any firearm at any time. Not just Glocks.

tahunua001 - you say:
1 glocks have unsupported chambers and
2 nothing has changed in gen 4 Glocks and previous generations to prevent kabooms from happening?
I may not be buying a glock then. Why should I take this unnecessary risk?

You're going to take the word of one guy on a forum as gospel instead of millions of others that beg to differ including myself?

I've never had an issue. I don't JUST plink at the range either. -___-

[RX-79G]

If words are supposed to have definitions, a kaBoom isn't just any time a gun blows up. It was coined to express a very specific kind of failure that is virtually impossible with many gun designs and factory ammo.

Taking away the meaning of the word by calling any failure "kaboom" is like calling all feeding devices "clips".

Learn the vocabulary, then discuss why it happens.