Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Supported 45ACP?

I enjoyed my 1911 until the day a factory load blew out over the feed ramp. My face was peppered with brass and powder bits, the mag was destroyed and the remaining rounds were blown out, and smacked me in the crotch. The mag had to be pried out of the well, and the gorgeous set of cherry stocks I had on it were shattered. I was hurting in several places, but not injured. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />I sold the 45 shortly thereafter, but have been thinking of replacing it with a better design. What options are there in 45ACP that have a fully supported barrel?
PJ

What brand was the 1911 that came apart on you?

That's the first time I've ever heard of a 1911 blowing up with factory ammo. It happens to Glocks in .40 S&W fairly frequently, but a good 1911 with factory ammo? Never heard that before. What kind of factory ammo was it. Was it plus p ammo? What brand of 1911?

TRH, have you ever actually had one blow up on you? Or seen one with your own eyes as it happened. Don't go spreading fairy tales around.

To the original poster, I doubt that the supported or unsupported portion of that case is going to cause or stop what you described as happening. Sounds like something some Gun store warrior sold you on to sound like he knew what he was talking about. Sean

Papajohn,

Fully-supported barrels are generally a premium feature since the frame has to be cut different. That said, it's a commonly requested item so any 1911 'smith worth his salt will convert a standard pistol.

The majority (all?) of the semi-custom 1911 builders such as Ed Brown, Wilson, Clark, etc. offer supported barrels, and "standard" manufacturers such as Para also offer supported barrels in their lineup, as does Springfield in their alloy frames and shorter barreled models.

Some idea of your budget would help narrow done the list.

Don't get too excited over this LoneEagle. We sent a G 23 back about two weeks ago. The gun and Winchester ammo came from our store, the gun was pretty much destroyed by the KA-BOOM, but the shooter only got his hand bruised up. They do do this, it is a design flaw IMHO as pressures are quite high in the .40S&W round. Good info here about the subject and some pictures. http://www.thegunzone.com/glock/glock-kb.html
I would guess that the feed ramp on the 1911 had been modified too much causing the KB, I have seen a couple of them do the same thing for that reason, also 1 Browning HP for the same reason.

Well, if all I could rely on to form my opinions were things that I've seen with my own eyes, that would limit me quite a bit. Fortunately, I am not limited to my own narrow experiences, as there are forums like this where people can report the things that they see, so others can learn from them. Go to any handgun focussed web site and do a search for "Glocks" and "KBs" (i.e., Kabooms) and see the flood of firsthand accounts you'll find. Or is that all part of an elaborate conspiracy against Glock?



P.S. the only reports I've heard had to do with the .40 S&W Glocks.

LoneEagle,

"I doubt that the supported or unsupported portion of that case is going to cause or stop what you described as happening."

Not to pile on, but I get the impression from your statement that you don't believe fully-supported barrels offer any advantage. Is that correct?

T LEE,

I wouldn't call it a "design flaw", since the Glock does exactly what it was designed to do.

Kabooms as you know, are typically a result of the overly-large chambers (the polygonal rifling plays a part also) that Glock uses to improve reliability. Most Kabooms can be avoided if shooters follow Glock's recommendations.

I'm not a Glock fan mostly because much of the design is a concession to something or other. That said, lots of folks love them and that's fine with me.

Well, I tend to be a little skeptical when all of these reports of Glock K-Bs start out with "A friend of a friend" or "Some guy at the range said..." You know what I mean. There are a lot of people out there that will pick a gun that they don't like for one reason or another, like a polymer frame, and using the anonimity of the internet spread BS about that gun everywhere there are people to read it. And the stories tend to grow, and take on lives of their own. Look at the story of the "man-eating" grizzly bear with the pictures of a supposedly half eaten hiker. Sean

Maybe I didn't word that well. A supported barrel most certainly does have use, especially in high pressure chamberings like 10mm. My point there was that I believe that there was some other problem with either the ammo or the gun that caused the K-B that the original poster reported. I think that after 93 years of building 1911, if the unsupported barrel was a real concern in .45 ACP all manufacturers would have switched their production over to supported barrels.

So no I don't think that in this situation a supported barrel would have changed the outcome one bit because there was something else at play here. Sean

I would since it only seems to happen with the .40 S&W and 10 MM's, both high pressure rounds. That I believe should have been taken into consideration. One size fits all when containing an explosion don't work.

LoneEagle,

You could be right, but since the unsupported section of the case is the weakest link beefing up this area can only help.

T LEE,

The majority of problems Glock has is with lead bullets and reloads - both of which Glock considers taboo. Part of the trouble stems from both reloads and lead bullets being readily available and cheap, and another part stems from those that don't read the manual or consider the warning just another meaningless "Do Not Eat".

If a manufacturer warns against using particular ammo, I'm all ears. In Glock's case, I would rebarrel faster than you can whistle "Dixie".

I still don't think so. I do not know anymore about PapaJohn's K-B than you do but I would bet there was another factor that caused the K-B. Just because the chamber was partially unsupported did not make the gun blow, or it would have happened on the first round from that gun, and the first round from all of our 1911s, Hi-Powers, Rugers etc. And if that case blew a supported chamber would not have lessened the damage either. Sean

Not necessarily, but it is an incident waiting to happen! And like I said, I have personaly seen several in guns other than Glocks, I been in this business as a part timer and/or dept. armorer for over 30 years and have seen some weird, hard to explain happenings.

Sorry for the lack of info, have been gone for a while. The gun was originally a Norinco, but the previous owner had tricked it out quite a bit. New barrel, Bo-Mar sights, new trigger, Commander hammer, around $600.00 in aftermarket parts, and before that day, it was a fine shooter. By the way, the ammo in question was a Remington 200-JHP factory load I had used many times before. My suspicion is that it was a bad piece of brass. I still have it. For whatever reason, it was an apparent overpressure load. And once I got the mangled magazine out of it, and replaced the stocks with some rubber-uglies, it was a fine shooter again. I just got the heebie-jeebies every time I held it, after what had happened. I have shot an EAA Witness in 40SW for 13 years, and have never had a problem, even with an accidental overload. The gun held up fine, but the primers were falling out of the pockets before they hit the ground, and I only fired two shots before I knew there was a serious problem. That's another advantage of the newer CZ-75 style design, the frame rails are on the outside of the slide, so there's less wobble, and a stronger gun. Maybe I'll just get another Witness in 45, I know I can trust it. Not to knock the 1911 design, but I'm not convinced it's the best, anymore!
PJ

It is pretty hard for any of us to argue (with a straight face) that one design is superior to another. It comes down to what you like and what you trust. If you get the willies when you get ready to pull the trigger on a certain gun or gun type then that is not the gun for you.

Luckily I have not had a gun blow up on me though I have had the opportunity to examine a couple revolvers that had had a rough life. I shoot Glocks, Rugers, 1911s, and revolvers. I have enjoyed them all. I have been tossing around the idea of a Witness (maybe the 45 with the .22 lr kit), but the 10mm has my attention as well. So if you do get the 45 let us know how you like it. Sean

Well, I have a 1911 .45ACP parts gun I built on a Caspian frame about 20 years and close to 200K rounds ago as well as a 1952 Commander in .38 super with probably close to 20K thruogh it that I trust unequivocally. My daughter carries a first gen G23 .40S&W as off duty and plain clothes that has never bobbled either through 10 years of practice and qualification shooting with factory ammo (issue is 165 grn Speer Gold Dot) and that is all it has ever seen. Yet I have seen several KB Glock .40's as well as others including 1911 .45's and one 9MM Browning HP. I still believe there had to be a bad mod to the ramp of the .45, that WAS the cause on the ones I have seen. On The Glocks, I just don't know, they were unmodified and using factory jacketed ammo. Ammo QC is the only thing I can think of as pressure is critical in the Glocks.

I still prefer my revolvers just because thy fully support the cartrige, but then I have seen some double loads blow a revolver to bits a few times also. Like the Sgt. on Hill Street used to say "Be careful out there".