Catastrophic Failure of Semiautomatic Handguns

[Irish_Army01]

The Irish Defence Forces have just acquired HK USP 9mm..We start training on them in a month or so..

Any one have bad stories about the USP?? or are they GTG?

[The Reaper]

IMHO you should be GTG.

Nice pistols, not a fan of 9x19 though.

TR

[kgoerz]

Both manufacturers stress that the problem is not with the gun, but with chambering the same round repeatedly. The NJ Regional Operations Intelligence Center urges all law enforcement officers not to chamber the same round when loading their weapons.

I may be wrong about the problem being the Gun But isn't it the gun that chambers the round. So on top of marking our magazines they want us to mark our individual rounds. every time you eject a live round pick it up and using a paint marker put a tic mark on it....ok. This is like blaming gasoline for the old Pinto's blowing up when rear ended.

noting that reloading the same round even once will void their warranty.

What warranty are they talking about? The one where they guarantee the pistol wont blow up in your face. Just how are they going to prove that a round that just blew up in your chamber was loaded more then once, Call CSI Vegas......

[Irish_Army01]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

IMHO you should be GTG.

Nice pistols, not a fan of 9x19 though.

TR

We stayed with 9mm because of interoperability training with other countries..example,the battle Group we're a member of is mostly of Nordic Countries,and all their service pistols are 9mm..

[HOLLiS]

Guns and Ammo Magazine has a sort article on crimping. Though its focus is on wheel gun the author did mention that lead bullets are more likely to move than jacketed bullets. The test was for three types of crimps. Light, medium and heavy on a 44 magnum cartridge. He fired 5 rounds and measured the 6th for shrinkage. None was noted on any of the jacketed bullets.

I am still wondering, from a reloaders standpoint, if this occurrence has more to do with ammo construction that firearm chambering the round. I read elsewhere that the loading ramp could cause bullet setback.

[dr. mabuse]

*

[Genghis_Don]

My carry gun is a Walther P99 in .40 Haven't heard of any problems there yet. Anyone?

[Karl.Masters]

Originally Posted by swatsurgeon

Without knowing details, I bet it was a Glock in .40 cal. The chamber has had issues with the pressures of some .40 rounds. The only failures described that I have seen were in that caliber.
ss

Good call SS. Here's a link to pictures of the accident at "The Gun Zone":

http://www.thegunzone.com/glock/setback.html#nb2

From the link:

"Subsequent preliminary PTLA review indicated that a possible combination of excessive pressure and a bore obstruction contributed to the explosion."

Looks like there is more to this than OAL/setback.

Karl

[HOLLiS]

Originally Posted by Karl.Masters

Good call SS. Here's a link to pictures of the accident at "The Gun Zone":

http://www.thegunzone.com/glock/setback.html#nb2

From the link:

"Subsequent preliminary PTLA review indicated that a possible combination of excessive pressure and a bore obstruction contributed to the explosion."

Looks like there is more to this than OAL/setback.

Karl

So it sounds like a squib round?

Also there is a comment about about a bullet being left in the gun. Was that a bullet, or a cartridge? I am not a expert on barrel eruptions, the ones that I have seen with "plug" or obstructed barrels looked like the one in the picture, or had a bad bulge before the obstruction.

This is almost as bad as the story I heard a long time ago, of a re-loader using bullseye in a 30-06 round. Some failures are not the gun's fault.

[Karl.Masters]

Hollis,

This incident is on my list for follow up through my agency's channels. If I find out any more of the details of the failure analysis I will post them here. Looking forward to getting the rest of the story on this.

Karl

[ODA 226]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

I stopped reading this warning at this point. You get what you pay for...... for those of you that own glocks, good luck.

IMO glocks are the worst mass produced handgun on the market today. This just adds to my opinion.

Team Sergeant

TS,
While I am a lifelong carrier of the Colt 1911A1, I have to defend the Glock for its strength and reliability.

While I was training Iraqi Security Forces at Taji, I had a guy shooting next to me on the pistol range that cracked-off a squib load (cheap Eastern block ammo) and immediately racked another round into the chamber and fired.

Knowing that I was an 18B, he stopped me during my string and asked for help "clearing" his weapon. (Since I was shooting when all this occured, I didn't know what had transpired.)

After removing the mag, I attempted to rack the slide, but to no avail. We took it back to the armory and managed to hammer the barrel out of the slide.

The barrel had a slight bulge at about the halfway point. It was then I realized what had happened.

Our full time armorer was Glock certified and after inspecting the rest of the weapon, inserted a new barrel and test fired it. It worked without a hitch!

No one can separate me from my .45, but the Glock has, in my experience, proven to be a very strong and reliable weapon and does have its place.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by ODA 226

No one can separate me from my .45, but the Glock has, in my experience, proven to be a very strong and reliable weapon and does have its place.

I've beaten this horse enough times.....

The glock is a cheap automatic for those that do not want to train people.

It's no more complicated than a six-shooter, point and pull. It's also inherently inaccurate, and sports a grip angle that's far above common sense.

Perfect for those police chiefs that want to save money and equip their people with the cheapest and most simple handgun on the open market, the only thing the glock does better than a six shooter is reload faster.

For the forces you are training, perfect.

Team Sergeant

[ODA 226]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

For the forces you are training, perfect.

Team Sergeant

TS,
My point EXACTLY!!!

[incarcerated]

The problem here is unsupported case heads, particularly w/ the .40 S&W. The .40 is a reasonably high pressure cartridge, running around 32,000 to 35,000 PSI. The designers of many automatic pistols have cut away a small crescent portion of the chamber at 6:00 to facilitate feeding as the round comes up the ramp. Remove your barrel and check it out. Cartridge brass can (doesn’t always) bulge slightly in this unsupported area near the case head. Resizing works the bulge, weakening the brass ever so slightly. When a piece of .40 brass has had the misfortune to bulge in the same place repeatedly after multiple reoladings, it can fail. When this does occur, it is usually found in Range re-loads at public ranges, or hand-loads. New factory ammo, steel case ammo (Wolf), and the 104 year-old .45 ACP (at 21,000 PSI) do not tend to experience this problem.
Springfield XDs and, if memory serves, Walther P99s are fully supported. Most Sig, Glock, Taurus and other autos generally have the unsupported (i.e. not fully supported) chamber.
Further discussion can be found:
http://38super.net/Pages/supported.html
and
http://www.hkpro.com/forum/showthread.php?p=661911

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by incarcerated

The problem here is unsupported case heads, particularly w/ the .40 S&W. The .40 is a reasonably high pressure cartridge, running around 32,000 to 35,000 PSI. The designers of many automatic pistols have cut away a small crescent portion of the chamber at 6:00 to facilitate feeding as the round comes up the ramp. Remove your barrel and check it out. Cartridge brass can (doesn’t always) bulge slightly in this unsupported area near the case head. Resizing works the bulge, weakening the brass ever so slightly. When a piece of .40 brass has had the misfortune to bulge in the same place repeatedly after multiple reoladings, it can fail. When this does occur, it is usually found in Range re-loads at public ranges, or hand-loads. New factory ammo, steel case ammo (Wolf), and the 104 year-old .45 ACP (at 21,000 PSI) do not tend to experience this problem.
Springfield XDs and, if memory serves, Walther P99s are fully supported. Most Sig, Glock, Taurus and other autos generally have the unsupported (i.e. not fully supported) chamber.
Further discussion can be found:
http://38super.net/Pages/supported.html
and
http://www.hkpro.com/forum/showthread.php?p=661911

Incarc:

You might want to read the registration message you received and comply before posting again, or the rules and stickies posted at the top of the forums here.

TR