Fully Supported Semi-Auto's

[robert101]

[ojisan]

Back in the day, competition shooters used to load the .38 Super cartridge in 1911s to maximum and beyond to reach the required "major power factor" for speed shooting.
The over-loaded .38 Super cases would often blow out, peppering the shooter's face with bits of brass and burned powder.
This was jokingly called ".38 Super face".
So, the guns were modified to provide more support to the case head to reduce the blow-ups.
This became known as a supported chamber.
Even though a tiny bit of the case sidewall is still "unsupported", this area is where the case is very thick as it transitions from the side wall into the base.
Here's a great link with pics:

http://38super.net/Pages/supported.html

[SCMA-1]

Ahh yes.......the ol' "super face".

[robert101]

oj, good article for reference. I tend to agree with its representation of a supported barrel. I don't believe the guy at the gun store really understood the difference.

[B Strong]

All self-loading pistol barrels need to have a "throat" to allow the feeding of the cartridge into the the chamber.

Different designs have different levels of throating.

Ramped barrels generally offer the most support, as in .38 Super and 9 x 23 ramped barrels in 1911 type pistols.

Glocks, because of their design parameters of feeding all known bullet types, tend to have the deepest throats in the major (anything other than 9mm) caliber chamberings:



From left:

Glock Factory G21 barrel, Glock Factory G30 barrel, Unknown manufacturer stainless threaded for compensator G21 barrel, Jarvis 6" G21 barrel, Wilson Combat G21 barrel.

Another view:

[Beelzy]

The dude was obviously a Wheel-Gunner.

[J-cat]

I was told that no pistol (semi-auto) with a feed ramp offers a barrel that is fully supported. He qualified his statement by saying he has been shooting competitively for 30 years.

And 30 years of shooting does what exactly? He still does not know what full support means.

[Bobshouse]

There are some aftermarket barrels out there that do a pretty decent job at supporting the round in the chamber. Here is a photo of a Lone Wolf barrel's chamber support vs a stock Glock barrel.



Lone Wolf on the left, stock Glock on the right.

[coop44]

Correct everybody, unsupported generally comes into play with higher pressure cartridges and ammo of questionable internal case dimensions. The unsupported area of most cases is generally at the base where the case is actually strongest. pretty much another non issue.