Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Exploded 10mm Nighthawk 1911

a Nighthawk 1911 chambered in 10mm. He said it was the most accurate handgun he has ever shot. Until it exploded.
From what my friend Greg was told, his friend was using off the shelf Armscor 10mm ammo.

1911s don’t explode as easily as polymer framed pistols. However this one was spectacular.
if you look at the picture at the top, you can see the chamber is split. I am not sure how that caused the slide to split down the middle, top and bottom. Then look at the damage to the dust cover of the frame.

When I saw these pictures the first thought in my mind was “Is the shooter ok?”. Greg assuaged my concerns and told me his friend received no harm from this accident. I think that is something remarkable about this Nighthawk 1911. It received this much damage from the 10mm round but the shooter was ok. Not sure if it was luck or due to the high quality that Nighthawk is known for. Unfortunately the shooter was unable to find any remnants of the round that detonated.

Nighthawk has never seen anything like this before and are building the owner a new gun as I post this.

I haven't felt like a good cry in a long time, but the photos of that pistol make me want to.

Glad the shooter wasn't hurt. Glad to hear they are building him another one.

Still wondering what might have been the cause.

Had to be the ammo

wow havent seen one go up like that. Crazy. Glad to hear the shooter is ok. I loved my Nighthawk. Was one of the finest 1911s I had owned. Pains me to see that.

Ouch. Close to $4k - Heinie longslide model.

Nighthawk IIRC uses fully supported barrels in 10mm, so don't think it would be a case support issue. If the lone hole in the target is from the bad round, it struck the target accurately, which would suggest the round was of normal pressure and velocity, not an overload or a bore obstruction.

I'm guessing either a gross defect of the case, or of the barrel was the culprit. The case is not available, so I'd want to pull apart some of the ammo lot and look for weak cases. Then if I can't find anything I'd have metallurgists look at the barrel and evaluate the fracture for metallurgical defects, grain size, inclusions, and hardness.

And yeah, with a plastic framed pistol, injury would have been more likely, IMO.

Whoa, that's nuts. Glad the shooter didn't get hurt.

Somehow this looks like a lot more pressure than a typical case blowout that typically directs energy sort of down the magwell.

The way that one opened up wider in the front makes me wonder if there was an obstruction in the bore? Maybe a squib left a bullet in there or something?

A crying shame for sure.

Had to have been the shooters lucky day, that he didn't get hurt. Glad he is ok. Should probably go out and buy a powerball ticket.

That's crazy. Thank goodness no one was hurt. I'd love to see more pics of the area where the chamber split.

I will second that notion.

Never saw anything like that before. Plenty of blown out mags and shattered grips from folks bubbaing the feed ramp in 1911's but that is about it.

He's lucky it split like that and relieved the pressure in that way, rather than sending the slide through his eye.

I'm going with some sort of bore obstruction as well.



Travis

Over on the 1911 forum Nighthawk rep said the guy took it to a gunsmith who beat it apart to extract the fired casing, which nighthawk did not receive. They believe it was a squib, and the implication is reloads may have been involved as well, but are replacing the gun anyway.

Forged steel slide and frame or cast I wonder?

Not much question in my mind that there was a bullet lodged in the barrel and another round fired behind it.

So what damage was caused by the accident and what damage did the gunsmith do when be "beat it apart"?

I've got a Kimber 1911 in 10mm that has shot tons of max loads and 2 Glocks in 10mm also that I've used and abused. Never saw a Nighthawk that was worth the crazy price they get for them.
Oh and by the way, both my Glocks and my Kimber in 10mm will shoot 1.5 inch 5 shot groups at 25 yards off a sandbag.

Too each his own, I guess.

Hmmmmm.... There is that.

And that is relative to the conversation, how?

Stick a bullet in a Kimber or a Glock barrel, fire another one behind it, & get back to us.

MM

Well, I actually did to a Glock 10 mm. A 200 grain XTP x2 400 grains. I had the bullets in a jar, but lost them when I moved to Texas. I found them in the spring after to snow pile/bank melted. The extreme cold might of saved my azz.