Squibs and Kablams

[VonZipper]

I always carry a short wooden dowel with me, maybe 3/8" dia or so, maybe 12" long, that just fits into the barrel. That way, if I happen to be chewing up some of Dear Ol Dad's lead reloads, and one goes PFFFFTT, I have a way to clear said bullet out (free reloads come with their inherent drawbacks!). A good rule of thumb is.....get familiar with the way your gun sounds.....if you EVER hear something that doesn't sound or feel quite right.....STOP STOP STOP STOP.......unload, make safe, check EVERYTHING, including barrel. The last thing you want is a bullet lodged in the barrel with a full-power load up to bat!

[Lee Bell]

Originally Posted by MisterCee

What are Squibs and Kablams? I hear them referring to poor ammo but what is the danger if one of them finds its way into your chamber.

A squib is a round that, for one reason or another, releases so little energy that the bullet does not make it out of the barrel. Most often, it's because there's no, or very little, powder in the case. The problem with a squib is that it leaves the bullet in the barrel as an obstruction for the next round that is not a squib. Both the sound and the lack of recoil make a squib easy to identify, but they still cause a lot of problems for those that are shooting quickly, such as action sports shooters.

A kablam, kaboom, etc. is the generic term for a gun that unintentially disassembles itself, as in blows up. These days, it's most often used to describe what happens when the somewhat loose, partically unsupported case in a Glock .40 allows the bullet case to fail. It can be quite spectacular. It also occurs when someone has a squib load or any other obstruction in the barrl when they fire a normal round, chambers a round with a double charge of powder or anything else that causes an explosive release of pressure in any direction other than out the barrel.

The most recent kaboom I know about was only a couple weeks ago. A guy dropped a 20 gauge shotgun shell into his over and under for his wife. When the round dropped into the barrel, he realized he still had his 12 gauge barrel installed. He changed the barrel and his wife shot her round of trap. He then changed back to his barrel, forgetting the 20 gauge shell that was still in there, and blew his gun up with the first shot. It was the lower barrel that let go. When it did, it took the smallest two fingers on his left hand with it. An understandable mistake, but a costly one.

As for what to do when you have a squib, if you hear or feel anything unusual when you shoot your gun, stop and inspect it. Above all, check for an obstruction in the chamber and barrel. Many of us that reload, carry a wooden dowel in our shooting box to clear squibs. You use it to drive the bullet out of the barrel without harming the barrel itself.

If you have a kaboom, there are several options:
1. Go to the hospital.
2. Perform first aid.
3. Thank whatever gods you believe in that it only hurt your gun.
4. Send the gun off for expensive repairs or simply buy a new one.

The best way to deal with a kaboom is not to have one in the first place. Be very careful when reloading to avoid a double charge. It's not all that hard to look in the case each time, but a remarkable number of people never do. Avoiding barrel obstructions is also pretty obvious, but that doesn't stop people from having them. The guy that blew up his high power rifle because he left the bore sighter in the end of it when he fired won't be forgetting this one.

Some people will suggest that not buying a Glock is a good way to avoid kabooms. I don't buy that, but have other reasons for not wanting a Glock. The top two reasons are XD9 SC and XD9 Tactical.

Lee

[para_org]

Someone here said in an earlier post that some of the reasons why ammo goes kaBoom are not known. (Or something that I equivacate to meaning as such.)

Horsepoop.

As of the last ten years or so, we DO know what to do to avoid such things. Among them are;

- Make sure the rounds are well shaken after initial manufacture. Shipping or even "rolling the round" will take care of this.

- Do not use too little or too much powder in manufacture.

- Do not seat the bullet either too short or too long.

- Do not use brass that is either too long or too short.

- Do not make the crimp either too aggressively or too light.

- Make sure the primer is not seated too far out or too deeply.

- Do not mix up components willy nilly.

- Do not make duplex or triplex powder charges.

- Do not stress components or the gun past their known limits.

- Do not enlarge or diminish the component sizes too much or too little.

Now the reasons why are covered well in the available literature. One recent book that covers quite a bit of this is the 2nd edition of "Modern Reloading" by Richard Lee.

[Tomcat088]

actually, I think you might be referring to my post that was quite early on. I didn't say that we didn't know why ammo goes kaboom, we know exactly why ammo goes boom. I said we don't know exactly why some guns go kaboom. It could be a double charge, bad brass, unsupported chamber, failure to go fully into battery, there's lots of theories about why GUNS go KaBoom. Some people think it's strictly ammo related, others sometimes just chamber related, and alot of people both. I hope that clarifies what was said.

[para_org]

Well you are being very polite about it, and I do appreciate that, but sorry I do not get it either. Guns blow up because they are either crap, OR someone pushes them beyond their design parameters.

But I am more than willing to agree to not agree. But then again we might just agree if I understood what you were/are saying...Um, the only thing that seem slike it is not ammo related is firing when a gun is not fully in battery. Well other than crappy gun design OR crappy ammo, this should never take place by design or function. I suppose the fact that it does says a lot, but it is also predicatable too. i.e. As predicatable, it should not also qualify as an unknown.

Anyways thanks again for the polite answer. If more threads were like this here on this forum, I would be thrilled.

[CPES]

Originally Posted by para_org

If more threads were like this here on this forum, I would be thrilled.

Go over to Glocktalk.com or snipershide and then come back here - this is one of the most well-mannered firearms forums that exists!

I do agree that most common causes of kaBooms are known, but I think what Tomcat is saying is that we don't really have an absolute, definitive reason why some particular guns blow up. The Glock .40s for example....if it were some major design flaw, every single one of them would blow up, right? Of course the kaBoom should never be caused by design, but while the occurances are common with Glocks, there are plenty of .40 Glocks in service today that don't exibit any kind of problems.

So yeah, we can all agree to disagree, but I don't think it's as simple as narrowing it down to ammo or user error only. I suppose we could try to pull all of the stats about what kind of ammo was being used in every case of a Glock .40 kaBoom, but I don't really feel like spending that much time or effort on it lol.

[para_org]

Originally Posted by CPES

Go over to Glocktalk.com or snipershide and then come back here - this is one of the most well-mannered firearms forums that exists!

I do agree that most common causes of kaBooms are known, but I think what Tomcat is saying is that we don't really have an absolute, definitive reason why some particular guns blow up. The Glock .40s for example....if it were some major design flaw, every single one of them would blow up, right? Of course the kaBoom should never be caused by design, but while the occurances are common with Glocks, there are plenty of .40 Glocks in service today that don't exibit any kind of problems, regardless of ammo choice.

If you dig deep enough into the metalurgy as well as the design and condition of a particular gun along with any particular ammo considerations you WILL get an answer as to why a gun blew up.

Are you saying Glocks blow up for no known reasons ? Or that some Glocks blow up and (so far) no one knows why ?

[CPES]

Originally Posted by para_org

Are you saying Glocks blow up for no known reasons ? Or that some Glocks blow up and (so far) no one knows why ?

Well if you dig deep enough, of course you'll find a reason. It's rather like an automotive recall, though - if enough cars have a certain issue, the manufacturer will invest considerable time and money into figuring out the problem and resolving it. If the cases are isolated to the point that it would cost the company more time and money to research it than it's worth, generally no action is taken besides writing a TSB. There are theories about why the Glocks blow up (to the best of my knowledge), but I don't know if Glock has actually rectified the problem (if a problem that they can fix even exists). I'm not a Glock enthusiast; they are great firearms, but I don't personally care for them, and don't know a WHOLE lot about thier specific problems. Glock may have figured out the problem and resolved it with thier newer models for all I know, but the fact remains that some of them blow up, and others do not. I don't know how many, I don't know why, nor do I really care to be completely honest with you. I'm not a Glock fan, as I mentioned.

If they were to dig deep enough, like you said, I'm sure they would determine the root cause or, more likely, causes. The question in my mind is: have they? Have they had enough of these problems to warrent collecting all of the damaged firearms and inspecting each one to figure out what went wrong?

My entire reasoning for even chiming in here is based on your original comment. You said "the only thing that seems like it is not ammo related is firing when a gun is not fully in battery". I don't think a Glock will even fire if it's not in battery. Many people seem to think that the glock mishaps are due to a poor chamber design that doesn't fully support the .40 cartridge. Until we have a difinitive determination as to why this is happening with SOME Glock .40s and not ALL of them, we don't really know, so how can that assumption be accurate?

My point is that you seem to think that it's either user error, bad ammo, or poor gun design. I agree entirely with all of those, and especially the poor gun desgin theory, but if that were the case with the Glock .40s, then why do some of them function flawlessly throughout their entire service life, while others blow up under similar circumstances using similar ammo, with no apparent user error (according to the accounts I've read)? Random production faults that weaken the chamber? A bad batch of factory ammo? Poor gunsmithing from the local shop? Poorly executed "do-it-yourself" gunsmithing/polishing with a dremel?

I'm just trying to be open mided here regarding the issue. There are alot of factors that go into a gun blowing up; especially one made by a prominent manufacturer. You can't just say "well, its this, this, or this, and thats it". You can certainly narrow it down based on certain items such as the ones mentioned earlier, but you also have to look at much more than that, especially with such random occurances.

I hope that clarifies my point while allowing me to remain civil - my comments weren't intented to irritate you or be derogatory, I'm just trying to explain my viewpoint.

[para_org]

Originally Posted by CPES

Well if you dig deep enough, of course you'll find a reason. It's rather like an automotive recall, though - if enough cars have a certain issue, the manufacturer will invest considerable time and money into figuring out the problem and resolving it. There are theories about why the Glocks blow up (to the best of my knowledge), but I don't know if Glock has actually rectified the problem (if a problem that they can fix even exists). I'm not a Glock enthusiast; they are great firearms, but I don't personally care for them, and don't know a WHOLE lot about thier specific problems. Glock may have figured out the problem and resolved it with thier newer models for all I know, but the fact remains that some of them blow up, and others do not. I don't know how many, I don't know why, nor do I really care to be completely honest with you. I'm not a Glock fan, as I mentioned.

If they were to dig deep enough, like you said, I'm sure they would determine the root cause or, more likely, causes. The question in my mind is: have they? Have they had enough of these problems to warrent collecting all of the damaged firearms and inspecting each one to figure out what went wrong?

My entire reasoning for even chiming in here is based on your original comment. You said "the only thing that seems like it is not ammo related is firing when a gun is not fully in battery". I don't think a Glock will even fire if it's not in battery. Many people seem to think that the glock mishaps are due to a poor chamber design that doesn't fully support the .40 cartridge. Until we have a difinitive determination as to why this is happening with SOME Glock .40s and not ALL of them, we don't really know, so how can that assumption be accurate?

My point is that you seem to think that it's either user error, bad ammo, or poor gun design. I agree entirely with all of those, and especially the poor gun desgin theory, but if that were the case with the Glock .40s, then why do some of them function flawlessly throughout their entire service life, while others blow up under similar circumstances using similar ammo, with no apparent user error (according to the accounts I've read)? Random production faults that weaken the chamber? A bad batch of factory ammo? Poor gunsmithing from the local shop? Poorly executed "do-it-yourself" gunsmithing/polishing with a dremel?

I'm just trying to be open mided here regarding the issue. There are alot of factors that go into a gun blowing up; especially one made by a prominent manufacturer. You can't just say "well, its this, this, or this, and thats it". You can certainly narrow it down based on certain items such as the ones mentioned earlier, but you also have to look at much more than that, especially with such random occurances.

I hope that clarifies my point while allowing me to remain civil - my comments weren't intented to irritate you or be derogatory, I'm just trying to explain my viewpoint.

Thank you for the courteous reply.

I am not irritated. Not in the least. But I think this Glock .40 blow-up deal is a bad example of 'we don't know yet'.

I looked a bit into the problem since your last email. The simple answer is that Glock is not admitting the problem, but the reasons are known for the problem. The problem is the gun. It is not properly made to the specifications the round requires.

All ammo is designed to a given standard and there is always some deviation during both use and manufacture. All of this, including the safety margins related to deviations, is known and should be a consideration during designing a gun for any given round. The Glock in .40 s&w uses a non-supported chamber along with their angled ramping. The .40 s&w round was not designed for such AND it is already WELL known that such use WILL lead to a predicatable number of case head blow outs. Heck this was part of the compromises that were made trying to get .45 performance into a reduced sized .40 round and known as a problem from the first.

I have reloading books published in the last few years that say as much. One of them names the Glock as a prohibited gun for use with this cartridge loaded to industry specifications. Other manuals just talk about the problem at sufficient length that the reader can easily discover which guns to stay away from.

In other words, if your gun is firing ANY sized round and gives back a case with a bulged head, please stop firing it. One of them can eventually blow out during firing. This has been a standard warning to handloaders for it seems like forever. I do not have a reloading book that is old enough in my collection that does NOT mention excessive pressure signs such as this.

Quite simply the Glock's unsupported chamber is expected to give this classic TOO-HIGH pressure sign. There are warnings in the loading literature that all take the time to point this out about that round coupled with that gun. And you do not see these warnings concerning other common handgun rounds. We already know how brass behaves well enough at the pressures that this round works at to know that it IS a problem. With the right set of variables it WILL result in case-head blow-out. Again this was known as a problem area when the round was designed. Please understand this part if you understand nothing else I am saying.

But I do not expect much of an answer from Glock. It is the same company that for years marketed the gun has having a trigger safety. And some people actually believed that, although a trigger pre-actuator is NOT a user-based safety. i.e. If they can be so specious about something as simple as whether the gun has an explicit safety, why should anyone expect them to respond to their gun's inherent design issues concerning the .40 s&w cartridge ?

Please be sure to note that it is not me that is saying any of this concerning the limitations that the 40 s&w round has that requires guns to have a fully supported chamber. That is something the designers did know about. So please continue to be nice to me and not kill the messenger.

[CPES]

Originally Posted by para_org

So please continue to be nice to me and not kill the messenger.

I enjoy having civil conversations - and I appreciate that you went and did further research on the Glock problem. I consider myself more educated about the issue now, and I thank you for spending the time to do that. No messenger killing will take place from my end.