Reload misfortune.

[jar]

The point is that factory ammo gives you no better assurance of quality than that of carefully made reloaded ammo.

But it gives you a lot more assurance of quality than some guy you don't know.

 

[MassMark]

Glad to hear you're OK.

You might want to tell your dealer friend that he's placing himself at considerable liability peril for selling this guy's crap. It could have just been bad brass, but I get the distinct gut feeling that whoever loaded the stuff up probably doesn't know what they're doing. There is a lot of garbage out there. I see people buying these boxes of reloads at gun shows and the things don't even have any markings on them saying what the load is, etc.

There's a never ending stream of stories about "gun show reloads" blowing up guns, and almost all of it involves cases where the true manufacturer
is unknown.


-Mike

Excellent points. I don't even shoot reloads that are commercial. Too many reports about KB's with Ultramax, so when we get it in at Dicks, I let it pass. I realize there are issues with everything - even fresh commercial, but looking at some of the reloads from Ultramax and worse, some of the "no name" reloads in bags at the gun shop gives me the willies. The only reloads I have fired come from Qmmo - his .308 is excellent.

 

[terraformer]

Thanks a lot! I just threw my new Sig 229 .40 into the trash can.[sad2]

I would be highly surprised if a sig KB'd. The 357 sig which that platform supports has a much higher pressure than the .40.

 

[K-DUB]

Thanks a lot! I just threw my new Sig 229 .40 into the trash can.[sad2]

LOL!

Take it back out of the trash can. All is not lost. You can fit a .357 Sig barrel into it & it'll be fine.

 

[Lugnut]

Here's my take on this subject.

Short version:
If you do it right, reloads are fine, but the manufacturer is always going to cover its butt. Always. Hence their recommendation.

Long Version:
Most stories of Glock kBs involve the .40 S&W models. The .40 S&W cartridge is a high pressure cartridge that does not have a wide margin of safety (in other words, the normal operating pressure is much closer to the burst pressure than say a .38 Special or .45 ACP). When the .40 was developed, pistol manufacturers realized that the cartridge was short enough so that they could modify their 9mm designs to fire the .40 (as opposed to a ground-up engineering project to design a new pistol specifically for the .40).

Since the .40 is a wider cartridge than the 9mm, Glock had to use a slightly longer feed ramp for the .40 to feed reliably. They couldn't make it longer in the back, so they had to extend the feed ramp a little farther into the chamber. This causes a larger area where the case head is unsupported. When a round is fired in a Glock .40 chamber, the case expands into this unsupported area, causing the infamous "Glock bulge". With fresh factory ammo, and a properly maintained pistol, this is not a problem.

The kBs that you read about are probably caused by one of these five problems:

1. Brass fatigue - Glock-fired cases experience more work hardening in the dies than 'normal' cases because the die has to flatten the bulge on the brass. If the cases are reloaded several times, and this work hardened area ends up lined up with unsupported part of the chamber several times, the brass can (conceivably) fail.
2. Repeatedly chambering and unchambering the same round causes bullet setback, which raises the pressure to unsafe limits when the round is fired.
3. Some clown tries to load the .40 to 10mm levels.
4. A poorly maintained pistol allows a round to fire when the slide is slightly out of battery, increasing the unsupported area to the point where the case bursts.
5. No good can come of the .40 S&W.

I agree with almost all of this except the last item. .40 S&W is a darn popular round in action shooting. Many of the gun used have better supported chambers than Glocks as well. I haven't validated this but it does seem that newer Glocks don't yield the same buldge that older barrels do. In my personal experience... I get the same buldge from my Sig 229 as I do my Glock 35, Glock 27- both 3rd gen fwiw.

I shoot MY reloads thru all my Glocks... execpt for my carry loads... and I'm talking 10s of thousands to date. No lead ever.

 

[Dirtypacman]

Glad to hear your ok... if this is a dealer others could buy from please inform him he SHOULD NOT be dealing with this reloader any longer. I appreciate the heads up and reminder on reloads but it does nobody any good not knowing where such ammo was purchased. I would not want to be the one that buys the next batch.

 

[BBQ.Uncle]

I'm too paranoid to consider shooting reloads, although with the shortage I've been tempted to buy some at a few dealers. Didn't do it, though.

Glad you're okay.

 

[yanici]

Glad to hear your ok... if this is a dealer others could buy from please inform him he SHOULD NOT be dealing with this reloader any longer. I appreciate the heads up and reminder on reloads but it does nobody any good not knowing where such ammo was purchased. I would not want to be the one that buys the next batch.

Absolutely right on target! I don't shoot reloads but if I did I sure wouldn't want to use any from this place.

 

[qmmo]

.

 

[Jose]

But it gives you a lot more assurance of quality than some guy you don't know.

I will readily conceed that point.

 

[jobowker]

LOL!

Take it back out of the trash can. All is not lost. You can fit a .357 Sig barrel into it & it'll be fine.

Does anyone make a 9mm conversion barrel for it? And if so, would the mag from the 9mm version of the 229 fit it?

 

[terraformer]

Does anyone make a 9mm conversion barrel for it? And if so, would the mag from the 9mm version of the 229 fit it?

If you mean the P229, yes, barsto does. And the sig 9 mm mags should work. .357 sig is more fun though... ETA: And the .357 uses the same mags as the .40