This one was self-inflicted: 10 grains of Bullseye behind a .45 Auto 230 gr ball round (a double charge) = H&K USP kaboom.

Unlike other polymer frame kabooms I've heard about though, the HK frame merely cracked, saving my hand from *any* damage. Tough bit of kit.

Besides the blown-out mag, the frame was the sole casualty -- every single part in the frame (trigger/hammer mechanism, mag release, etc.), the slide, and the barrel were undamaged and reusable.

Needless to say, my .45 reloading procedures got a *major* overhaul, and my press now has lighting directly between the powder loading and bullet seating stations.

Two, both with duty pistols...

1st my P229 .40 S&W, broke off the nose of the slide after 12 or so years. 2nd a squib in a 9mm P320. Excellent reminder as to the importance of carrying a secondary weapon!

While at the range, halfway through a mag in my P6, slide went halfway down the frame. Locking lug on the EFK Dragonfyre barrel had sheared. Fractured, rather.

I have seen a lot.

Bunch of Glock Kabooms. (3 or 4 all .40 cal guns)
Bunch of 320 Kabooms. (5)
Squib rounds out of every major ammo manufacturer.
MK23 that locked up internally and wouldn't let the gun fire because of parts breakage.
glock take down lever sheered once.
Mythical West German 226 that nothing is ever supposed to break on because it is a by God West German SIG made by pixies firing pin sheered (x2)
Three SIG P Series guns with cracked frames (all kept shooting until replaced)
Broken extractors on short extractor P226s
Broken extractors (only 2 so far) on long extractor 226s.
Dead triggers on a bunch of M&Ps.
All sorts of magazine failures.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
One of the first ones I saw in person was a cracked frame rail on a P229 in .40. It was a Marshal in for some practice, and they came out and asked one of us to shoot their gun because it was going low to the left. One mag, then a field strip to find the rail about 1/2 cracked through enough that the slide could rotate slightly.

I don't know if this was a known problem, but the exact same thing happened to my P229. Started shooting low left and eventually found a cracked frame rail. I'm glad to be rid of that gun.

Broken trigger return spring on a P220 DAK. Probably from excessive dry firing. Most of you know that the 220 still uses the straight trigger spring, not the looped one found on other P22X series of guns. It broke neatly in half. Halfway through a range session and suddenly the trigger wouldn't reset by itself. Pieces fell out when I removed the right grip.

Broken firing pin positioning pin on a P226. It has the solid variety of pin, not the roll pin. Again from excessive dry fire. Noticed the pin was working itself out on one side while dry firing one night.

I had a Sig P320 blow out the extractor and crack the grip module.
Twice.
On the same day.
Witnessed by some members here.

Bruce

Colt Mustang back in the late 90's. Firing factory Federal .380 loads and the mag drop button blew right out of the frame. Colt wouldn't cover and said gun was out of warranty (bought in 90). LGS made it right and got me into something else.

Of course, we all know what happened to the Mustang.

I wore out one end of the trigger bar spring of my mid-90s P226. I happened right in the middle of shooting to qualify for my CO concealed carry permit.

I told the guy I'd be right back. Rushed home and got my P228 and finished the qual.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
No, not a stoppage. No matter how reliable you believe your handgun is, you need to know how to clear a stoppage. ......
What have you personally experienced?

Clearing malfunctions is what most armies teach in the second week aka grass week. Loading, unloading, reloading, malfunction one, malfunction two, emergency maintenace. Forwards, backwards, upwards, rearwards, by night, in the sun, in the snow and twice on Sunday. It safes not only your live but protects your comrades when your part of the live firing exercise goes bad. Good advice!

Had a ka boom with an early Smith , 2" M-60 .38 snub. Loaded a cyl full of the 125 gr Federal +P's we carried at the time in our M-28's. Carried it for years in my jacket, inner pocket as a back up.

One night coming home there was a huge porcupine on my driveway. I got out and at 15 feet popped a rd at him with the snubby. NO effect.

Couldn't pull the trigger...The top strap was GONE...found it years later about 100 feet from the spot where I fired. And the cylinder was peeled open.

Federal factory round, no barrel obstruction either.

From that same lot of ammo had two M-28's that fired over pressure rds, with primers flattened and pierced. Federal didn't seem to care in the least.

Stupid on my part to have thrown a +P in an older M60 too. Lesson learned.

My P226 stopped working in SA mode during a qualification shoot. The trigger would t release the hammer. Decocking after each shot let me finish the course within the time limits.

I had a PPKS lock up tight after firing. Empty case in the gun, but couldn't get it apart. Had it repaired and sold it.

The IZH-35M 22lr pistol will fire out of battery. When it does it launches the extractor into orbit. Replaced the extractor and game on. No damage to the pistol.

Had a bolt hold open on an AR break just above the pivot point on the latch. The rifle would still lock open, but it had to have a magazine in it to do so. I finished the match and replaced the part.

The firing pin on the M261 22lr adapter is a bit of a bad design. I have the upgraded replacement part and still manange to break one every few years.

Outside of the obligatory M2 mishap, the one really strage failure I saw in the Army was an M203 shot it's barrel downrange. The latch that keeps the barrel on the launcher had broken, and the shooter didn't know it. Had he forcefully opened the launcher it would have come off in his hand. Instead he gently opened it, loaded it, and launched it down range. No injuries.

Not an actual failure but a set up to one was the time I accidentally had a 40 caliber Beretta 92 magazine issued to me during qualifications. How it got into the arms room is anyone's guess. The magazine wouldn't lock in, anf I didn't figure it out until the second click-tap-rack-bang. I had to hold the pistol teacup to keep the magazine in place and still qualified expert on the pop up targets.

Kahr Arms/Thompson 1927A1 semi-auto. Jammed up one afternoon at the range. Empty cartridge would not extract, bolt jammed halfway open.

Got it apart, extractor groove in the bolt fractured allowing the extractor to jam between the receiver and the bolt.
Going to the Kahr and Machinegunnet forums it was evident that I was not the first one to have this happen to.


Warranty on the rifle was one year to original purchaser. I acquired it three years previous from a friend in a trade. He bought it in '09 and had never fired it. At the time it was about $1300 with accessories as he also gave me the sales invoice for it.

I contacted Kahr the next day and up front told them that I was not the original purchaser and gave them the S/N. They said in so many words "your problem". So that evening I FB messaged them and received a reply with no commitment for assistance from them except that they would "consider" it but it was still on my dime for shipping and inspection.

So I ordered the bolt and a new extractor and had a local "smith install it. My only satisfaction is the LGS I help out at was considering purchasing some Kahr pistols for sale. When I told him of my "stellar" experience with their customer service he has since rethought that idea.

Had a Taurus 605 rupture the barrel in my hands at the range.

I had a customer at the range/gun shop I used to work at blow an FN 5.7 into pieces. Went up to him and the only thing he had left in his hand was the grip.
He did not get hurt.
We picked up all the pieces and put them in a small box and sent it back to FN.
FN was nice to the customer and aloud him to buy a new gun at cost.

quote:

Originally posted by Bigboreshooter:
Does watching your Ruger 1911 launch the front sight into space count? Mine was on its FOURTH front sight in less than a year when I decided it was time to move one.

When the Ruger 1911 first came out they were using MIM front sights that I suspect were mis-handled after the initial molding process. This material is VERY fragile when it's in this state because it's basically a slurry of steel and binder. Fail to treat it very gently and you can introduce a small crack that remains after it's been fired and cooled. End result is that after a fairly short period of use you'll find that you front sight is lacking the blade because that is somewhere on the range floor. BTW, I had three SR1911's with this issue and one CMD and one GVT had a small crack in the front sight blade. In the case of the CMD that caused the blade for fly into never find it land on a range outing. Called Ruger and emailed them close up pics of the still intact but cracked front sight on one GVT model and the broken sight on my CMD. Two days later 2 new sights arrived in the mail and those sights had rather obvious differences in the contouring that leads me to believe they were machined from billet steel instead of MIM.

Since that time I've also purchased a Ruger SR1911 in 9mm and it came with a front sight identical in contour to the replacements for my two defective sights. Sum it up and Ruger experimented with a more economic front sight and when they found out that was problem prone they changed to a more traditional manufacturing method quickly and handled any customer problems in a fair and quick method. BTW Ruger offered to replace the sights on both of my pistols but I just didn't want to do without them and have the skills and tools to replace the sight myself.

Two instances:

1) Springfield Armory TRP 1911. The ejector on these guns are held in place by adhesive. For awhile. The adhesive on mine let go. Stopped the slide. I was able to disassemble and see the problem. SA repaired (and pinned the ejector). Since it was at the mothership, she also has a trigger job. Fine shooting gun now.

2) Back when I was young and dumb, I would buy reloads at gun shows. One fine day I was shooting those reloads in my Colt Combat Elite (the old duck tail safety, not the newer Beavertail). Big bang, my hand stung, bottom of the mag blew out, the wrap around rubber grip blew halfway off. I am one lucky SOB, no injuries. Took the gun to a smith and had it checked out, all good and it's still a good shooter. Learned an important lesson that day: I shoot rounds from one of two sources: factory or my own hand. When I reload I QA every 10th round (I use a turrent). Those gun show reloads are now components. Except the powder, that was gone in a flash.

I had a "roll pin" (actually a cut nail) work its way loose on the frame safety lever of a custom Beretta 92 and lock up the action with a live round in it. The previous owner had it e-nickel played and I guess the shop couldn't reassemble it properly due to tolerances changing.

Took quite awhile to get it running again but luckily wasn't the end of the gun and no injuries

I have seen several pistols fail in training classes. At a 3-day class one of the instructors just got done telling us that Glock and M&P were the only true fighting pistols and that the rest were all toys that rarely made it through their class without breaking. Then the Glocks and M&Ps started dropping like flies.

Countless Glocks lost their sights.
One Glock had a broken trigger spring causing a dead trigger.
Another Glock had some sort of internal failure that rendered it dead, he had to use a loaner for the rest of the class.
One M&P cracked a frame, another M&P had a dead trigger. A 3rd M&P locked up when the ejector bent during an enthusiastic mag reload. All of those guys needed loaners to complete the class as well.
The P226 I was shooting in that class didn't have a single hiccup.

I have shot enough and attended enough classes to know that all brands can and will eventually break, which is why I find the elitists who worship particular brands while dogging others to be especially funny.