Glock Kabooms? Not what you think

[Esq.]

I'm aware of one Glock 21 Kaboom that happened to a local police officer. He was shooting gunshow, garbage reloads. Unfortunate but that's what happened.

[Wildcat]

Not the vaguest notion of how many times my 9mm brass has been thru' the press, tho' I have quite a lot of it, so the joy is spread around.
How many reloadings were supposed to be involved in the .40 kabooms? I've avoided them for this and other reasons.
Moon

I never went through the exercise of trying to see how many loadings 40s will take.
I think it greatly depends on the casing design and how well the gun supports it. Some of the severely bulged cases seen in this thread would explain why I don't think 40s survive all that long.
I guess if they were shot in a S&W 610, most of them would last quite a while.

Meanwhile, the 9s I shoot rarely split so they last until they get lost.
45 go a long time.

In other peoples' guns, it might be different.

[halfmoonclip]

Yeah, I've never experienced a problem with 9mm brass, other than flat wearing out and cracking. When WalFart had 100 rounds @ $13, a lot of it followed me home.
A shooting buddy was deeply dubious about the .40 for a lot of reasons, the kabooms and smileys among them, so I never messed with them.
.45s aren't any more expensive to reload, and I've stayed with them for a .40-something.
What does drive me nuts are gunshops selling rookies .40s because they're 'better' than a 9...and recoil more, and cost more to feed, but the shop wanted rid of the .40 because they're harder to sell. So it goes.
Moon

[NWPilgrim]

I have reloaded many thousands of rounds of .40 for Gen 2/3/4 Glocks and never have seen the widely touted case bulge. I size with a regular sizing die, no need for bulge buster dies. I also reload thousands of 9mm and .45 for Glocks and see no difference between the cartridges or ones fired in non-Glocks. I have had reloading buddies who competed with .40 Glocks who reloaded thousands per week and also never had a problem with cases.

Not saying it never happens to others but the case bulge and weakening is not a given, I think only under some circumstances.

I reload .40 cases like all my other handgun calibers: reload until case cracks at neck or shows sign of starting to split. These are normal case wear failures and not catastrophic by any means. I do not see a need to count times reloaded for any handgun case. I do tend to stay with mid-range loads like I do for all other calibers, and never over book maximum. Pushing max pressures all the time with any cartridge has to be harder on the gun and greatly reduces the margin of error from so many combined factors.