Saturday, March 13, 2004
I got a note from a my Father today, about Portland, Oregon's police force replacing all of their Glock 45's.
"An article in this morning's Oregonian says that the City of Portland is replacing all 230 of its Glock 21 .45 cal handguns after 2 of them "blew up" (with minor injuries to officers) while being shot at target practice on March 1. One additionally "catastrophically failed" a year ago.
"They claimed that they examined the ammo and it was not a case of faulty loads. The bureau is replacing them with 9 mm versions. Seems like a step backwards.
"Have you heard of such failures?"
Here's what I wrote him back:
Yep, happens all the time with Glocks in .40 S&W and .45 ACP. I've probably examined half a dozen that that have blown up. Happens in Glocks that digest either large quantities of cast lead bullets, or small quantities of swaged lead bullets. Even that isn't enough to do the deed, though. The gun then has to be improperly cleaned (not removing the fouling from the barrel) and then fired with relatively full power jacketed bullets. The jacketed bullet starts down the barrel, pushes a bunch of fowling ahead of it which increases friction dramatically, pressure spikes, and Kaboom! ! ! ! The chamber splits into two sections, top and bottom, along the weakest cross section, which is horizontal (parallel with the horizon as the pistol is held upright in your hand). If you look at your barrel in that area, you will see that is has less steel there than any other cross sectional area.
The good news here is that I don't know of anybody that's ever been seriously injured in one of these incidents. The bullet is fired out the front, the chamber splits, the gun won't cycle, and no further firing is possible. Usually the shooter is bruised and possibly "peppered" with hot gasses, and the pistol is totaled, but no major harm, unless you're using it to defend yourself, in which case you're screwed.
The interior barrel contours on a Glock are radically different from traditional pistols. Herr Gaston Glock wasn't any kind of a shooter himself and when he designed the first Glocks he used input from European police and military agencies. None of them shoot anything like the quantities that US police and military shoot, and consequently they don't use lead bullets (which are strictly an economizing measure). Those barrels are designed to spin-stabilize jacketed bullets, to decrease fouling by not having lands that cut into the jackets of the bullets and to last for a long, long time. They are not designed to operate when heavy lead fouling is present, because they never anticipated that there would be any in the barrel in the first place. His rifling design is far, far superior in all respects to traditional rifling, and has been heralded as one of the great leaps forward in firearm technology. But not if you shoot lead bullets.
Look into the rifling of your Glock, and you'll notice no visible lands and grooves, just a spiraling smooth surface. If you remember your firearms history ("Tales Of The Gun" on The History Channel is great for this) you'll recall that rifling was originally straight, and was cut into barrels to allow continued firing in spite of fouling. Land and groove rifling allows jacketed bullets to "pass over" or "ride on top of" a large amount of fouling without harm. Glock rifling does NOT. It was never designed for it, and it's not surprising that it doesn't do it very well. It was only later discovered (by accident, if I remember correctly) that spinning the rifling stabilized the bullets and improved accuracy. It was not originally a design feature.
The solution is quite simple. Shoot only jacketed or cast-plated bullets in your non-9mm Glocks. The 9mm appears to have sufficient strength to not have this problem, but I still don't shoot lead bullets in them. Also, since they don't spin-stabilize soft lead bullets worth a hill of beans anyway, there's no great loss in not using them. I tried cheap lead bullets in my Glocks in the late 80's, and found that they keyhole at distances as close as 7 feet. Not worth the effort. Rainier plated bullets are about 15% more expensive than pure lead cast bullets, don't foul, don't give off aerosolized lead particles, and are much easier to load. That's what I use in just about anything these days. I don't even bother with straight cast bullets anymore.
"An article in this morning's Oregonian says that the City of Portland is replacing all 230 of its Glock 21 .45 cal handguns after 2 of them "blew up" (with minor injuries to officers) while being shot at target practice on March 1. One additionally "catastrophically failed" a year ago.
"They claimed that they examined the ammo and it was not a case of faulty loads. The bureau is replacing them with 9 mm versions. Seems like a step backwards.
"Have you heard of such failures?"
Here's what I wrote him back:
Yep, happens all the time with Glocks in .40 S&W and .45 ACP. I've probably examined half a dozen that that have blown up. Happens in Glocks that digest either large quantities of cast lead bullets, or small quantities of swaged lead bullets. Even that isn't enough to do the deed, though. The gun then has to be improperly cleaned (not removing the fouling from the barrel) and then fired with relatively full power jacketed bullets. The jacketed bullet starts down the barrel, pushes a bunch of fowling ahead of it which increases friction dramatically, pressure spikes, and Kaboom! ! ! ! The chamber splits into two sections, top and bottom, along the weakest cross section, which is horizontal (parallel with the horizon as the pistol is held upright in your hand). If you look at your barrel in that area, you will see that is has less steel there than any other cross sectional area.
The good news here is that I don't know of anybody that's ever been seriously injured in one of these incidents. The bullet is fired out the front, the chamber splits, the gun won't cycle, and no further firing is possible. Usually the shooter is bruised and possibly "peppered" with hot gasses, and the pistol is totaled, but no major harm, unless you're using it to defend yourself, in which case you're screwed.
The interior barrel contours on a Glock are radically different from traditional pistols. Herr Gaston Glock wasn't any kind of a shooter himself and when he designed the first Glocks he used input from European police and military agencies. None of them shoot anything like the quantities that US police and military shoot, and consequently they don't use lead bullets (which are strictly an economizing measure). Those barrels are designed to spin-stabilize jacketed bullets, to decrease fouling by not having lands that cut into the jackets of the bullets and to last for a long, long time. They are not designed to operate when heavy lead fouling is present, because they never anticipated that there would be any in the barrel in the first place. His rifling design is far, far superior in all respects to traditional rifling, and has been heralded as one of the great leaps forward in firearm technology. But not if you shoot lead bullets.
Look into the rifling of your Glock, and you'll notice no visible lands and grooves, just a spiraling smooth surface. If you remember your firearms history ("Tales Of The Gun" on The History Channel is great for this) you'll recall that rifling was originally straight, and was cut into barrels to allow continued firing in spite of fouling. Land and groove rifling allows jacketed bullets to "pass over" or "ride on top of" a large amount of fouling without harm. Glock rifling does NOT. It was never designed for it, and it's not surprising that it doesn't do it very well. It was only later discovered (by accident, if I remember correctly) that spinning the rifling stabilized the bullets and improved accuracy. It was not originally a design feature.
The solution is quite simple. Shoot only jacketed or cast-plated bullets in your non-9mm Glocks. The 9mm appears to have sufficient strength to not have this problem, but I still don't shoot lead bullets in them. Also, since they don't spin-stabilize soft lead bullets worth a hill of beans anyway, there's no great loss in not using them. I tried cheap lead bullets in my Glocks in the late 80's, and found that they keyhole at distances as close as 7 feet. Not worth the effort. Rainier plated bullets are about 15% more expensive than pure lead cast bullets, don't foul, don't give off aerosolized lead particles, and are much easier to load. That's what I use in just about anything these days. I don't even bother with straight cast bullets anymore.
Monday, March 01, 2004
TRUE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
How do women do it? Is it the lifetime of being treated as second class citizens? The fact that they have to exert twice as much effort to accomplish anything physical when compared to a man? Or is it simply that whole childbirth thing, where if they weren't so strong and resilient then the species would die off in a few generations? I don't know, I'm just amazed every time I see it.
My better half flew out last Sunday afternoon, but the airplane broke down over the ocean and returns to Honolulu. They hold the passengers hoping for a fix 'till 1 am, then give in for the night and decide to find hotels to put everybody up for the night. She wants to come home, but I have the only set of keys to the new apartment, security is pretty tight and you can't get in without them, and I'm so tired I don't wake up to the sound of the phone. Since she can't get in to the apartment, she accepts the offer of the hotel they're putting everyone up in (three blocks from our new home). When she tries to eat at the restaurant, she finds out that the food coupons they gave everybody to eat at the hotel for some reason aren't actually, you know, accepted by the hotel.
The keep telling the passengers that they'll be leaving "soon," but delay from one flight to the next. She finally gets on the 4 pm Monday flight (by calling customer service repeatedly), and when she attempts to get to the airport on the hotel shuttle she finds out that they won't accept her without charging her $10 ('cause the airline didn't arrange for transportation BACK TO THE AIRPORT!). She races to get to the last shuttle that can take her in time, and slips and falls down a flight of 9 stairs with all her luggage in her arms. She breaks both of her shoes and turns her entire forearm into a massive purple bruise (looking at it one week later I can't see how she didn't break the arm, you can still see the DENT in the muscle where it landed on the edge of a step). Fortunately, she doesn't make her back any worse (did I mention that she had been to the doctor 3 days prior to all of this for a blown out back? She's supposed to be taking Vicodine and staying in bed, but she's instead trying to cure herself with just Ibuprofen and a full-throttle business trip), but she DOES break her tailbone in the fall. Now she's got to sit on the plane for 6 hours, then spend the week driving around and interviewing potential customers for a client.
She gets to the hotel Monday night/Tuesday morning (about 1 am), and the toilet doesn't work. She gets up in the morning and the shower doesn't work. She gets out on the road and does 12 hour days to make up for the lost day, and, being the stubborn, driven person that she is, she finishes interviewing every nursing home on her list with about 2 hours to spare on Friday. Where upon she flies back to help me finish up moving to the new apartment, broken tailbone, thrown out back and now a cold all combined.
The next day (today) we found out that her leather couch (which cost about $5,000 and is the only nice piece of furniture we own) does NOT FIT INSIDE THE APARTMENT. Simply no way to maneuver it into the place without knocking down a concrete wall, which is load bearing for the 7 floors above us. So she gives it to one of the guys helping us move, has her first emotional outburst of this whole ordeal (minor, and well deserved) and we get done tonight at around 11:00 PM. Her new job and first day of training start at 7:00 am tomorrow.
And she keeps going. I don't know how, but she does it.
How do women do it? Is it the lifetime of being treated as second class citizens? The fact that they have to exert twice as much effort to accomplish anything physical when compared to a man? Or is it simply that whole childbirth thing, where if they weren't so strong and resilient then the species would die off in a few generations? I don't know, I'm just amazed every time I see it.
My better half flew out last Sunday afternoon, but the airplane broke down over the ocean and returns to Honolulu. They hold the passengers hoping for a fix 'till 1 am, then give in for the night and decide to find hotels to put everybody up for the night. She wants to come home, but I have the only set of keys to the new apartment, security is pretty tight and you can't get in without them, and I'm so tired I don't wake up to the sound of the phone. Since she can't get in to the apartment, she accepts the offer of the hotel they're putting everyone up in (three blocks from our new home). When she tries to eat at the restaurant, she finds out that the food coupons they gave everybody to eat at the hotel for some reason aren't actually, you know, accepted by the hotel.
The keep telling the passengers that they'll be leaving "soon," but delay from one flight to the next. She finally gets on the 4 pm Monday flight (by calling customer service repeatedly), and when she attempts to get to the airport on the hotel shuttle she finds out that they won't accept her without charging her $10 ('cause the airline didn't arrange for transportation BACK TO THE AIRPORT!). She races to get to the last shuttle that can take her in time, and slips and falls down a flight of 9 stairs with all her luggage in her arms. She breaks both of her shoes and turns her entire forearm into a massive purple bruise (looking at it one week later I can't see how she didn't break the arm, you can still see the DENT in the muscle where it landed on the edge of a step). Fortunately, she doesn't make her back any worse (did I mention that she had been to the doctor 3 days prior to all of this for a blown out back? She's supposed to be taking Vicodine and staying in bed, but she's instead trying to cure herself with just Ibuprofen and a full-throttle business trip), but she DOES break her tailbone in the fall. Now she's got to sit on the plane for 6 hours, then spend the week driving around and interviewing potential customers for a client.
She gets to the hotel Monday night/Tuesday morning (about 1 am), and the toilet doesn't work. She gets up in the morning and the shower doesn't work. She gets out on the road and does 12 hour days to make up for the lost day, and, being the stubborn, driven person that she is, she finishes interviewing every nursing home on her list with about 2 hours to spare on Friday. Where upon she flies back to help me finish up moving to the new apartment, broken tailbone, thrown out back and now a cold all combined.
The next day (today) we found out that her leather couch (which cost about $5,000 and is the only nice piece of furniture we own) does NOT FIT INSIDE THE APARTMENT. Simply no way to maneuver it into the place without knocking down a concrete wall, which is load bearing for the 7 floors above us. So she gives it to one of the guys helping us move, has her first emotional outburst of this whole ordeal (minor, and well deserved) and we get done tonight at around 11:00 PM. Her new job and first day of training start at 7:00 am tomorrow.
And she keeps going. I don't know how, but she does it.
