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California handguns Discuss your favorite California handgun technical and related questions here. |
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#1
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Supported vs Unsupported Glock barrels
Hello all,
My topic here will cover both Reloading and a Handgun, so please bear with me. It has been said that Glocks don’t like or the company doesn’t recommend using reloaded ammo. Any explanations on this. I’ve also heard some chatter regarding Supported vs Unsupported Barrels. In the case of my G35, I have both a stock barrel and a Alpha Wolf barrel, and I was wondering how to determine which has what. It is my understanding that stock Glock barrels are Unsupported and that is the reason for a phenomenon know as the Glock Bulge ? Are there any aftermarket barrels that are Supported, and/or will allow it to use Reloaded ammo ? Please expand on this if I haven’t articulated my questions/concerns correctly. Thanks in advance. |
#2
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I think your referring to the Glock smile term.
It mostly happened to .40 s&w caliber glocks. Gen 2 if you google a bit better m sure you can find a picture of early style Glock Barrels with a comparison of supported and unsupported chambers. If you have a gen 3 or later factory barrel you should be fine. As long as you are not shooting unjacketed bullets or reloaded ammunition. I hope this helps. As a personal best practice I do not shoot reloaded ammunition out of my firearms. Also I realize people shoot reloaded ammunition that they reload themselves or know who reloaded it. I’ve known a few individuals who have had a gun blow up in their face and have scars. Last edited by Mr. Helio; 12-02-2020 at 10:01 AM.. Reason: To add images and clarify post |
#3
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You can shoot reloaded ammo through a factory Glock barrel. Glock doesn't recommend shooting cast lead ammo because people cast varying hardness to their bullets, and lube them differently. Glock cannot control what you do and how you load your ammo, so they include this disclaimer for liability.
I shoot reloaded ammo exclusively. I now shoot mostly cast powder coated bullets, about 14,bhn with good powder coat, and also shoot Xtreme copper plated bullets with no problem. I just watch for leading and check and clean often. Properly sized bullets with the proper hardness can be shot through polygonal barrels, but it's incumbent on you to ensure you do so safely. Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk |
#4
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I’m not aware of any company that recommends using reloaded ammo. The companies want to avoid liability and damage complaints when people double-charge their reloaded ammo.
Glock chambers are both “unsupported” and relatively huge. If you’ve ever heard someone bragging about how “reliable” their Glock is, this is one of the reasons why. You can coat the walls of your chamber with sand or mud and still chamber and fire a round because of the loose tolerances. (By the way, people complain about the “battle rattle” of old military 1911s, but it served the same purpose. Loose tolerances may degrade accuracy, but they result in fewer malfunctions, as well). Resizing brass fired out of a Glock is a huge PIA — unless you’re going to fire the reloads out of another Glock. It takes extra work to get the bulge out of Glock-fired brass, especially near the base, and sometimes you never can. Military brass is especially difficult to resize properly after a Glock has allowed the pressure to leave a bulge in it. A Bulge Buster works on a lot of it, but not all of it. I’d estimate that about 1/4 of Glock-fired brass won’t fit into a SAAMI spec case gauge after resizing and reloading it. A Bulge Buster will fix about 1/2 to 3/4 of those. Of the reloaded cartridges that won’t case gauge properly, very few of them will chamber properly in my CZs (tight chambers). Many, if not most of them, will chamber properly in my SIGs (slightly larger chambers). ALL of them will chamber in my one Glock (huge chamber). I bought the Glock when the company offered Blue Label purchases to veterans a few years ago. The only reason I have the Glock is to shoot all my out-of-spec reloads with, and I don’t bother collecting that brass again. I hope this helps. This is all based on my own experience, so take it for what it’s worth. But I did call Dillon once to ask for advice on getting 9mm cases to resize properly on an XL650 with their resizing die and the guy I spoke with asked if the brass I was using had been fired out of a Glock. I said I didn’t know because I swept it up at the range. He said, “Well that’s your problem. If your brass is fired out of a Glock you might as well throw it away.” I told him that wasn’t practical because I usually get other brass mixed into my own when collecting it at the range. He suggested screwing the resizing die down as low as it could go. It might have helped a little, but not much.
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Anchors Aweigh |
#5
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There are some people that it's just not worth engaging. It's a muzzle BRAKE, not a muzzle break. Or is your muzzle tired? |
#6
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NO firearms company says it's OK to shoot Reloaded ammo in their guns. CYA on Liability !!!
As far as the Unsupported Chamber BS it was cured by Gen 3 and by then the offending Federal Ammo (marked FC and FC-10) which caused all the problems in the first place had been shot up or removed from the shelves. This problem was completely resolved by 2008-9. If you get a gen 3, 4 or 5 pistol you needn't worry about this. I used to debulge all my .40 S&W brass by running it thru a Lee Factory Crimp Die with the crimp function removed. Now I don't bother as the F/L Dies do a good enough job on the cases and you have to use an F/L die even if you debulge first anyway. Hot tip: Use either Plated Bullets or Powder Coated Boolits, If you don't know how to fit uncoated lead boolits to your barrel you will get leading in the barrel which will lead to pressure spikes which is why the "under informed" warn about this. If you understand Boolit fit in the barrel this will not be any more of a problem than it is for any other caliber. You can avoid it all together by using Plated Bullets or PC'd Boolits. and don't ever use maximum loads. There is absolutely no reason to reload the .40 S&W hotter than Midrange, for 99.9% of shooting. If you need hot loads for SD then just go buy a box of Factory Loaded HD Ammo. Of all the Pistol Cartridges , the .40 S&W is the most likely to bite you, but only if you try to hot rod the round. If you just stay at Mid Range levels you'll be fine. Been reloading this round this for 16 years. Haven't had a problem yet, but I also pay attention to the fine points, and other details often overlooked. If you can't do this then don't reload anything! Randy
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Rule #1 Liberals screw up everything they touch. Rule #2 Whatever they accuse you of, they are already doing. Rule #3 Liberals lie about anything no matter how insignificant. Rule #4 If all else fails, they call you a Racist! It's not how well you do what you know how to do,,, It is how well you do what you don't know how to do. www.buchananprecisionmachine.com Last edited by W.R.Buchanan; 12-02-2020 at 8:41 AM.. |
#7
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If you have a Gen 3 through a Gen 5 you don’t need to worry about an unsupported chamber, it’s not an issue. I’ve put over 100,000 rounds of my personal reloads through my Glocks, over 30,000 of them have been .40.
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Im a warmonger baby, I got blood in my eyes and I'm looking at you. |
#8
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To figure out supported vs. unsupported take out the barrel and put a round in it. You will notice that it fits snuggly and has a positive stop as it headspaces on the lip in the chamber.
Now look around the base of the case, where the feeding ramp is - if you can see a section of the brass, it's *unsupported*. On the other hand, if the brass is completely wrapped with the barrel (it's technically not the barrel, but on a pistol it's a single part so let's call it a barrel for simplicity), then it is a *supported* barrel. As you look at this, it becomes clear what the problem is - if the pressure is very high, either because it's a hot reload or an overall hot caliber, the brass in an unsupported barrel will expand where there is empty space and create a small bulge. This bulge will have to be removed during reloading, or the brass won't chamber in a different gun with supported chamber or in the same gun if it's not oriented exactly the same.
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#9
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The key being the word "random" - unless you shoot very little or only in remote areas, you will end up with other people's brass and that can be literally anything...
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NRA Benefactor Member |
#10
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The gen 3's and above are supported more than the past.
In my own experience I've loaded well over 100k rounds of 40sw and shoot them in Glocks and 2011's. I have a bulge buster tool and have never used it. I have never blown out a case at the web either. To give you an idea about how people discredit Glock factory barrels - I have a KKM Match barrel in my G34 and that has less case support and a looser chamber than the stock barrel...just sayin.
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Man, this place has gone bonkers. |
#11
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The .40 S&W case doesn't have a lot of capacity when one considers bullet weight. Pressures go up VERY QUICKLY if one seats the bullet deeper than the published data. Even the published data can be wrong, especially if you are using different brass than tested to develop the data. (that really means one isn't matching the published data) A friend was developing loads in his Glock 22 more than 20 years ago, using published data for Clays powder. He blew out a case, it was pretty exciting. Turns out the data was a little off, not a lot, but the pressures go up quickly at the upper end. Emphasis added to the initial post also. Every so often someone comes along and tells me/us we absolutely cannot shoot any form of lead bullet in a Glock pistol. Maybe he can't, but some of us have been doing it without issue for a while. Randy covered it pretty well. ETA: I'm always glad to see people post that know what they are doing.
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There are some people that it's just not worth engaging. It's a muzzle BRAKE, not a muzzle break. Or is your muzzle tired? Last edited by eaglemike; 12-02-2020 at 11:48 AM.. |
#12
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I shot only range pickup brass for 2 or 3 years and never once got a bulged case. I'd "retire" about 100 of my cases (lost or unrecovered) and pickup another random 100 per trip, so I went through lots of brass.
I doubt I got that lucky, and glocks are probably the most common .40sw at the range. I didnt bother buying a bulge buster. ... Also, you can shoot lead out of glock barrels. Just clean your gun like normal. |
#13
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So there is at least this one. Dan |
#14
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I was fortunate to go to Angeles Shooting Range on just the right day about 40 years ago.
That day there was a gun manufacturers' "open house" day. All the big name companies were there with reps and new guns to shoot for free. I shot one of the really early Glock 17s. Besides the cheap feeling polymer frame, the lack of a safety and the unfinished carved-from-bar-stock look of the slide, the biggest issue was how it destroyed the cases. The feed ramp was generous to say the least, leaving the case side exposed beyond the web. The chamber was oversized too. It is easy to get a reliably feeding gun with a funnel for a chamber but the fired cases were expanded too far to resize and many were bulged at the ramp area. This was not a concern for the Glock designers as the gun was made with the Austrian military in mind, who do not shoot reloaded handgun ammo. So, the brass was sacrificed to get reliability. Production 17s had less feed ramp depth. As a hand loader, back then I could not see much point in a no-frills part-plastic cheapo pistol if it was borderline on destruction when fired and killed the brass with every shot. What was interesting was the S&W Sigma that was available to shoot a little further down the firing line. A nicer plastic frame with better ergos for me, still no safety but a more refined look, it shot well and it did not kill the brass. Seemed the Smith was the better choice between the two.
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#16
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I had a factory Federal case blow out on my G43. It pushed out the extractor, but didn't cause any damage.
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Poke'm with a stick! |
#17
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I had daily conversations with the designers at S&W. Their design to fix the base plate issue was another nightmare. In the Sigma the base plate is what limits over travel of the magazine up into the mag well so as to prevent the magazine hitting the ejector. Well the mag base plate designers who designed the replacement mag bases didn't take into account their "new" base plates were thinner than the originals and allowed the magazine to be forced up into the mag well making the magazine hit the ejector. This led to numerous ejectors being broken. The phone call to them was priceless when I described the problem. The designer had a pistol in his hand and I told him what was happening. He said it wasn't possible. I told him to slam the mag into the mag well. I heard him manipulating the gun, then silence for a few seconds, followed by "Um, I'll have to get back to you"... Needless to say we ditched the Sigma pistols after about 6 months of duty use. Fortunately we had no incidents where the guns failed while a officer was in danger. We did have about five instances where the magazine base plates failed in a spectacular way causing the spring to shoot out and the 15 rounds of ammo to also be ejected...
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Poke'm with a stick! |
#18
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I haven’t shot factory ammo out of my Glocks in a while. I shoot 500-1000 rounds of pistol per month depending on how much time I have. For what it’s worth some of my glocks have never seen factory ammo. I size with carbide dies and lube them first and have never had a problem sizing. With semi wad cutters I only average 1 malfunction every thousand rounds.
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#19
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No problems resizing Glock-fired brass to fit back into a Glock chamber, but have you ever checked your resized Glock-fired brass in a SAAMI spec case gauge? Have you ever had any problems shooting your resized Glock-fired brass in a gun with a tighter chamber?
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Anchors Aweigh |
#21
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I'm going to tell you a very UNPOPULAR statement. The chamber of the glock pistol is designed by engineers who hold at least a bachelor's degree if not a masters degree in mechanical engineering. The chamber is designed with a purpose and it has many purposes, one of them being if a case fails, it will direct ALL the energy down and away from your face. Another purpose is to accommodate all types of factory ammunition in the high heat of the desert to the freezing cold of the alps and more. Dirty, sandy, icy, wet, submerged or blood soaked, the round will chamber and fire. All by design. With that said, I've put hundreds of thousands of rounds through my many glocks over the years and I've been reloading for over 15 years now. 1) Knock on wood, I've never had a double charge or a Kaboom in my many years 2) I've. never seen a glock bulge case I couldn't resize and reload. It's brass and malleable. I have gotten split cases and those get recycled. Some suggestions: - Get a quality full length resize die and make sure it is setup to the manufacturers recommendations - Inspect your brass. Learn to listen to the "ring frequency" of good vs bad brass, there is a distinct sound. - Buy a SAAMI case gauge and check your loaded ammo Finally, as a fellow reloader, my last suggestion is to go slowly at first and learn your reloads and your gun. Glock brass is not to be feared. |
#22
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I bought a Sigma when it first came to market. I had one on my CCW but it had a terrible trigger pull and the tang when it recoiled would hit my hand in a strange manner that actually hurt me hand. BTW I had to send my Sigma back to the factory because the sear spring broke and the connector bent. I sold it after I got it back and bought a Glock 23. It was a much better gun that I could actually shoot well, and fit my hand much better than that Sigma.
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#23
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Try this:
Don't buy cheep guns, then you don't have to worry about unsupported barrels.
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We’re ALL GOING TO DIE! Can’t somebody do something?!?!?!?! |
#24
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I shoot my pistol brass interchangeably between all my pistols without problem. So glocks, 1911’s, sigs, whatever else is in the safe. They’re all tossed into a common ammo can when done, I’d be surprised if they weren’t mixed. |
#25
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Everybody says no reloads. I've shot 1,000s of reloads through Glocks with ZERO problems. Mostly lead. You need to keep the speed reasonable and the hardness up as the oddball Glock rifling loads up easily.
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#27
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I like the Lonewolf 40-9 conversion barrel for my G35. Well I had to ream the chamber with a standard 9mm Luger reamer and now I really like it! Out of the box it would jam on reloads. The factory chamber was tighter than my ammo gauge.
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The wise man said just find your place In the eye of the storm Seek the roses along the way Just beware of the thorns... K. Meine |
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