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Old 04-16-2008, 08:02 PM
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VAhuntr
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: VA, USA
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Default RE: Glock 32

ORIGINAL: Ruger-Redhawk

A friend posted this on another site. Just FYI.....

It is not safe to reload for the Glock, with the standard factory barrel, for good reason. The barrel's chamber is a looser fit to the shell casing then most, by intentional design. It flairs out to an oval shape in the vertical axis towards the rear of the chamber and has what is called an unsupported area. Reload brass that has been stretched out and then resized back into shape has been work hardened and becomes more and more brittle with each reload cycle. Eventually the case can and will rupture. Sometimes, if you're lucky, it just blows out a small piece of the casing and ejects the magazine out the bottom of the gun to relieve the pressure and no real harm is done.

However. the other problem with reloading for the Glock is the higher pressures caused by the polygonal rifling of their barrel. It builds more pressure than the standard button rifling. Glock is very serious when they say not to shoot exposed lead bullets through their guns. A build up of lead in the barrel causes the pressure to go up, the unsupported cases, that are more and more brittle, are likely to rupture. The worst case results is a "Ka-Boom !"... kiss your Glock goodby, expect some injury to your hand, and don't expect to be consoled by Glock since they warned you in advance this would happen.

Do not shoot plain lead bullets, or reloads through a Glock, unless you are one of these guys who likes to use his health insurance.

The easy answer to all of this is to go to Glockmeister.com and buy the KKM Precision aftermarket drop in replacement barrel, which has a tighter tolerance, better supported chamber area, and has standard button rifling and can digest reloads rather well. The barrels are made to drop in without any additional machining.

The Glock was designed by Gaston Glock to be a looser fit in the chamber with factory fresh ammo so that it would not jam when extremely dirty in heavy combat usage and not be fussy like a lot of competition handguns. This was meant to be a combat workhorse not a prima donna. The trade off for that was the deliberate decision to make this handgun not suitable for use with reloads, especially plain lead bullets.

An easy way to see the difference is to pick up a case fired from a Glock 40mm and see how it has a bulge in it. Try and drop that casing into the removed barrel of another gun with a tighter fitting chamber like a Ruger or Beretta and see how it doesn't fit.

A lot of people don't have a clue as to what a polygonal rifled barrel is, let alone the chamber differences. There are books written, that explain this gun in great detail. The first that came out a long time ago by Peter Alan Kesler is "Glock: The New Wave in Combat Handguns" I would suggest reading up on it before becoming another statistic. These are great handguns in factory form shooting factory fresh ammo, and they can be made to shoot reloads with a standard button rifling type barrel drop in, for about $150 bucks. (And no, I am not affiliated with KKM Precision, Glock, or any ammo vendor, I am just a Glock pistol owner.)
Very well put Ruger-Redhawk! I'm glad someone else understands that Glocks were intentionally designed in this manner. I have been told that most of the problems were with the .40 S&W chambered pistols and the newer barrels have more support? I am going to try that with a fired Glock casing and see if it will fit in my Beretta.
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