Glock 45 GAP Update
Mentioned here. The ammo maker said it was their fault:
The company that manufactures the ammunition for the .45-caliber GAP Glock Model 37 is taking responsibility for guns exploding during two separate training incidents, slightly injuring a Winter Haven police officer and a former police cadet.
A spokesman for Speer Gold Dot, the manufacturer of the ammunition, said Thursday that a batch of bullets sent to the Winter Haven department was defective.
Speer Gold Dot said after the first incident in January 2007 it recalled the bullets sent to Winter Haven but that some of the ammunition remained at the department and was used when the second incident occurred earlier this year.
Winter Haven Police Chief Mark LeVine confirmed Thursday that Speer Gold Dot had recalled the bullets after the first failure. He said some of the ammunition was kept unknowingly and a bullet from that batch was involved in the second explosion.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:15 am
There have always been problems with case head separations with the .45gap.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Actually, for those unfamiliar with the design of Glocks, this could be a problem with ANY high-pressure cartridge in a standard Glock barrel. To give utmost reliability in chambering, the barrels are relieved (carved out) to a greater extent than some consider safe.
I’m sure Glock did a lot of testing, but as I hear the story, the aim of their testing was to see how much they COULD relieve the back of the barrel, not how much protection they could give the cartridge in the chamber.
A simple solution is to get a match barrel for your Glock. A match barrel is relieved far less. Now, it may not chamber certain types of ammo as easily as the combat barrel dows, so it’s up to the Glock owner to do extensive testing of his/her own to make sure that the chosen ammo feeds reliably into the chamber.
BTW, this report says nothing about the even earlier example of an exploding .45 GAP on the police range in Portland, OR.
March 17th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I’ll take less safe and more reliable over the alternative. This isn’t mountain biking, this is combat.