Ballistic testing can tell you many things about the caliber you’ve selected and the ammunition available for it. This factory 180-grain FMJ load in .40 S&W penetrated 36 inches of ballistic gelatin. Not a good police load for crowded streets.
Glock’s first model, the G-17, came out in 9mm Parabellum. Why? Because that was what the Austrian Army wanted. The 10mm and .40 hadn’t been invented yet (unless you counted a crazy experimenter working for a particular gun magazine out of Southern California) and only Americans wanted a cannon like the .45. The 9mm was and is a near-universal police and military caliber, so much so that in some countries possession of the ammunition or a firearm chambered for the ammunition is forbidden. If you needed to, I’m not sure there is a country on the face of the planet (perhaps save for Vatican City) where you couldn’t lay hands on at least some small supply of 9x19.
The Nine had to be first, and as a result the limitations of the 9mm created the limitations of some of the Glock models. But the basic design of the Glock is scalable, that is, you can adjust the dimensions to create a slightly new product. Let us use the 1911 pistol as an example, since so many seem to view it and the Glock as competitors. Starting out at a .45, the 1911 probably could be scaled down as a 9mm. However, Colt didn’t do that when they developed the 9.8mm pistol for the Rumanian pistol trials of 1910. They shortened the slide and barrel but didn’t scale the design down. They also didn’t do that when they made the 9mm Lightweight Commander for the US Army in the early 1950s. All 1911 pistols, regardless of caliber, have the same basic exterior dimensions, those of a .45. However, the Glock 9mm (G-17, etc) and the Glock 45 (G-21, etc) have different exterior dimensions.
Another example of a scaled product would be the S&W revolver line. The .44 and .45 revolvers are larger in all dimensions than the .38 and .357 revolvers. Making the .38s the same size as the .44s makes no sense. (S&W did make the .357 at first only in the .44 frame. But they wanted to make sure the gun was up to the power and pressure of the .357 Magnum and to make sure the gun was large enough it didn’t beat up the customers from excessive recoil. It was, after all, the mid-1930s.)
Ballistic testing can tell you many things about the caliber you’ve selected and the ammunition available for it. This factory 180-grain FMJ load in .40 S&W penetrated 36 inches of ballistic gelatin. Not a good police load for crowded streets.
Smith & Wesson went with different frame sizes for different uses. From top to bottom: a .45, a .357, and a .38.
The 1911 can be scaled, and it has been. The pistol in the middle is Colt’s attempt to scale it. The one at the bottom is John Browning’s pre-1911 .380 pocket pistol, the Model M.
Why, then, wasn’t the Colt scaled down for a 9mm model? Because no one wanted one. The 1911 was in .45, and anyone who wanted a lesser caliber could damn well go and find someone else to make it for them. Besides, Colt was making it for the government, who only wanted .45s, and any extra R&D work on other calibers would come straight out of Colt’s pocket. As a result, the 9mm and .38 Super are for all purposes a .45 caliber 1911 with the “wrong size” hole drilled down the barrel.
Colt did, later, scale down the 1911 when they created their Colt Government .380 pistol. It had some manufacturing differences (to the detriment of the pistol) from the 1911, but it was a scaled-down 1911 in most regards. The neat trick would have been to have made a pistol that small in 9mm Parabellum. Now that would have been a pistol that would have sold by the truckload.
There are limits to scalability, however. The Glock models manufactured in .380 Auto, the G-25 and G-28, are simply the 9mm G-19 and G-26 modified to be blowback and .380 Auto. I’m sure Gaston Glock is fully capable of designing them from scratch as .380 pistols, but for the size of the market (basically, places that don’t allow military or police caliber pistols) why go to the expense? We run once again into evolutionary vs. revolutionary design.
The calibers you can have in your Glock are not limited by the availability of the brass but by the unavailability of barrels. Left to right: 9mm Parabellum, 9x21, .38 Super, 9x23, .357 SIG (barrels now available), .400 CorBon, .40 Super, .460 Rowland.
An example of a nonscalable design is the Beretta M-92. You could increase the size of everything on or in it to make it a .45 instead of a 9mm. but the grip would end up being so large no one could hold it and shoot it. The most that could be done was to replace the 9mm barrel with one in .40, which Beretta has done. The marriage is not always a happy one, as many report the Beretta in .40 to be a real beast to shoot. At least, a beast compared to other .40 pistols, not “a beast” as compared to, say, an S&W in .500 S&W Magnum.
Following up on the revolution of the Glock, American experimenters evolved new models and new calibers. New models, you ask? I’d call a pistol with compensated barrel, red dot sight, replacement trigger parts and high capacity magazine a different model from what the Glock factory produced. And since there are tens of thousands of gunsmiths, armorers, machinists and tinkerers who are fully capable of fitting a new barrel, the Glock you can have does not necessarily have to be just the Glock that came in the box.
In many of these calibers, the mechanical difficulty of changing to a new barrel is non-existent. For example, changing a G-17 from 9mm to 9x21, or .30 Luger, is simply a matter of the appropriate spring and a new barrel. However, finding a barrel is not an easy thing. So, while a caliber may be possible, finding the barrel may be unlikely. The dimensions of the Glock barrel are not so complex that you couldn’t find a machinist capable of recreating a Glock barrel from a suitable-bore barrel blank. If you really, really had to have a G-17 in .30 Luger, you could have one. It would just cost money. That said, I present the calibers of the Glock, factory and otherwise.
You can make a .30 Luger barrel for your Glock as I did, just for kicks. You can’t get one from Glock.
The .30 Luger (left and right) is used in some places where the 9mm Parabellum (center) is prohibited.
The traditional method of measuring external ballistic power is by calculating kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared. (The headaches come in converting all the numbers to the proper units.) The big problem many shooters have with kinetic energy (besides the need for a calculator to figure it) is that it gives too much emphasis to velocity. Increasing a bullet’s speed by, say, 10 percent has the effect of increasing its kinetic energy figure by 21 percent. Too much, some say.
In the early days of practical shooting, the “computer” used to calculate stage and match results was a four-function battery-powered desktop calculator. (I still have the desktop calculator our club bought in 1981 to speed up tabulating the match results.) To speed up calculating whose ammunition made Major or Minor, Jeff Cooper, the originator of practical shooting, came up with a simple formula: Bullet weight in grains times velocity in feet per second. To save writing, we then simply dropped the last three digits of the resulting six-digit number. Thus, a 230 grain bullet from a .45 (that’s about all anyone shot back then) going 825 feet per second posted a raw factor of 189,750. Rounding it off got a Power Factor of 190. Back in the early days, you had to post a 185 to make Major.
We quickly found out two things: most factory ammo didn’t make Major, and it was not fun to shoot ammunition that really made the 190 Major power factor. I had a precious stash of RA 69 ammo I hoarded in the late 1970s. It was factory ammo, with the 230-grain bullets traveling a sedate 730 fps. In those days, factory ammo was exempt from requiring proof of Major. It gave me an advantage in a bunch of matches, before the advantage went away when it was all used up. In IPSC shot in the United States, the Power Factor, or PF, needed to make Major has been coming down. From that initial 185, it slipped to 180 for a short time, then to 175 for a long time, and is now 165. To shoot Minor, you need only meet or exceed 125. Many factory loads in 9mm make Minor with room to spare.
Other shootings competitions have differing limits, and some don’t have mathematical limits so much as they have equipment that limits leaning out your loads.
Power depends on pressure. If you want to push a particular bullet faster, you can do one of two things: increase the maximum pressure, or stretch the time the expanding gases push in the bullet. (Or both, if you’re really eager to increase performance.) Since the maximum pressure is set by SAAMI, the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturing Institute, and all firearms are designed with the particular caliber limit in mind, exceeding the pressure limit isn’t a good idea. To get a longer push, you need a slower-burning powder. But the short barrels of handguns limit how much you can do. Basically, if you want more power you need to go to a larger caliber.
John Moses Browning was not just a brilliant firearms designer; he came up with a number of cartridge designs. The .380 is one of his longest-lived. What it amounts to is the largest case that can be wrestled into a pistol originally designed for the .32 Auto (another Browning design). A straight-walled case using a 9mm bullet, it is called the 9mm Corto, 9mm Kurz, 9X17, and 9mm Browning Short as well as .380 Auto. Despite both being 9mms, bullet weights of the .380 and the 9mm Parabellum do not overlap. The low operating pressure of the .380 cartridge and the blowback design of pistols chambered for it don’t allow for more than bullets heavier than 90 to 95 grains, launched at just under a thousand feet per second. (At best. Some loadings are more like 90 grains at 900 fps.) Light bullets at modest velocity doesn’t seem to add up to much, but the .380 is still a step up from the .32, which features 72-grain bullets at much the same velocities. The .380 has been heavily favored as a defensive round for over a century not because it is a powerhouse, but because it has been chambered in the sleekest and most compact pistols for all that time. And when it comes to flat and compact, you can’t beat the champion pistol of the Pre-Glock era, the Colt Model M.
You can load heavier bullets than 90 to 95 grains if you want, but since the overall length of the cartridge has to remain the same, the heavier bullet uses even more of the small cases available capacity. Heavier than normal bullets thus end up being launched at much-reduced velocities. Since there is nothing to be gained, no one bothers. And since in the Glock you can have the same-size package in 9mm Parabellum, who would want the .380? Collectors, for one group, but they can’t have them. More on that in the chapter on the G-25 and G-28. As for .380 Glocks, if Gaston could come out with a Glock system pistol proportioned like the old Colt Model M, he’d sell even more pistols than he does now.
The first, and the most popular. The 9mm came about over a century ago for much the same reason the .380 was invented at much the same time: more bullet. The German Army liked the then-new Luger pistol. But they weren’t too enthusiastic about the .30 Luger cartridge. It was and is a bottlenecked round that features an 86- to 93-grain .30-caliber bullet at around 1150 fps. What Georg Luger did to satisfy the German Army was neck the case up as much as he could, resulting in a 9mm bullet, basically a .35 caliber. The result was a 115-grain bullet at 1150 fps. A big step up at the time, and one that has found favor ever since. And similar to the .380, it wasn’t because it was such a thunderbolt. The 9mm has found favor for many shooters for almost a century because it represents a reasonable amount of power for a handgun, at the cost of a controllable amount of recoil, and one that can be had in robust and durable designs that are not too large. A handgun as a sidearm has to be portable, or what’s the point? If you make a handgun too bulky, you might just as well carry a rifle, and then also get the power of a rifle, too.
Left to right: 9x18 Makarov, .32 ACP, .380 ACP and 9mm Parabellum. Glock makes pistols in .380 and 9mm Parabellum, but only the 9mm is available to us – a situation that’s not likely to change.
Remember, we aren’t talking of handguns as hunting or target competition tools, even though they are eminently suitable for those tasks. The first and foremost thought that follows the question of needing a handgun is that of defense.
For a machinegun crew, having rifles as well as the machinegun is just too much gear. But a pistol in a holster is always handy and often enough of a tool to solve an emergency. For a police officer, carrying a rifle around would be a real drag. Not that there aren’t lots of places where they do. But not because the rifle is handier. As a backup to a rifle, not much beats a handgun on your belt, unless it is your buddy standing next to you with another rifle ready to go. For the question of defense with a handgun, many consider the answer to be something in 9mm.
The 9x21 is not only a rule-beater caliber, it has the distinction of being a rule-beater on two continents for two different reasons. The cartridge was designed and first loaded in Italy, where those fine, upstanding citizens are forbidden possession of military-caliber pistols. In particular, the 9x19. If you had guessed that the 9x21 was simply the 9x19 case lengthened by a whopping two millimeters, you’d be correct. However, to make a reasonable manufacturing process possible, the overall lengths of the 9x19 and 9x21 cartridges are identical, as are their standard operating pressures. Therefore, any pistol that can be made for the 9x19 can be made for the 9x21. Does it make sense? Only if you are an irrational, firearms-fearing politician, but again I digress. If the operating pressure or overall length of the 9x21 had been altered from that of the 9x19, it would not be possible for manufacturers to offer pistols at a reasonable cost. To keep cost reasonable, the 9x21 is the barest possible disguise of the 9x19.
Which 9mm is best? It depends. For which game? For what purpose? By whom?
Here in the United States (where we also have firearms-fearing politicians) the 9x21 existed for a different reason. When the competitors in the sport of IPSC shifted to high-capacity pistols in the early 1990s, many shooters looked longingly on the 9x19 cartridge. Cheap, plentiful brass made reloading an extremely inexpensive proposition. Compact (in girth) high-capacity frames and magazines of 9x19 pistols were common and inexpensive. The only fly in the ointment was operating pressure. To get the 9x19 boosted up to Major scoring levels, the standard pressure had to be exceeded by a wide margin. The resulting loads back then were in the pressure range of Proof loads, the loads fired when a pistol is first manufactured to make sure it can withstand excessive pressures.
The Board of Directors of the United States Practical Shooting Association were worried about 9mm proofload level ammunition being used on a regular basis in competition, and so forbade 9mm Major ammunition. (There had been years of precedent of 9mm proof loads being hard on guns, from the use of the British 2-Zed load in certain UK military organizations. The pistols they used lasted only a short time before being worn out, and they were not shot as much as IPSC pistols.) Since there were no loading specifications on the 9x21 cartridge and no published pressure ceiling, some competitors began loading those cases to Major to get around the 9x19 prohibition.
Left to right: 5.7 from FN, 9mm Parabellum, .40 S&W and .45 ACP. NATO’s search for a Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) centers on something like the 5.7 and not the good old calibers that have always worked.
The difference between a 9x19 barrel and a 9x21 barrel is the chamber. Many barrels – not Glocks, however – can be converted with a reamer such as this one from Loon Lake Precision (Manson Reamers).
You should gauge every round you load to make sure it will function properly and not jam.
As it has a habit of doing, physics took care of the problem for a while. The majority of the 9mm Major loads were so hot they had a tendency to break parts on the guns they were being fired in. Progress in powder design has brought the pressure ceilings of 9mm Major loads down to an acceptable level, while gunsmiths found ways to make parts fit better and made them stronger. Then, 9mm Major was allowed as a competitive caliber in late 2002, but only in Open Division pistols. It is not allowed in the other Divisions with the exception of Revolver. Just like that, the 9x21 died in the US. Since then 9mm Major has had a small but dedicated following.
The “other” nine in the United States is the .38 Super. As a competition cartridge, the Super reigns supreme. Accurate, reliable, able to handle the pressure needed to make Major, it unfortunately can’t fit in a G-17 sized Glock. It is too long to fit in the 17-22 (9mm and .40) frame. The 20-21 (10mm and .45) frame is big enough, but the breechface on those slides don’t accommodate the .38 Super rim size. And the 9mm slide on Glocks won’t fit the frame of a 10mm/.45. If we want a .38 Super, we’ll have to wait for Glock to make a specific model of it. (Not much of a chance there, but you never know.)
Or you could pester Caspian for a Glock slide to fit a G-20 or G-21 frame, one with a .38 super breechface. But please don’t call them until after you’ve solved the magazine problem. Where are you going to get a G-20 or G-21 magazine tube with .38 Super feed lips?
The 9mm Parabellum (left) and the .38 Super. Though it offers extra case capacity, the Super can’t fit into the magazines or frames of the many 9mm pistols.
The 10mm Glock is not as popular as the 40, so why list it first? Because the 10mm is the father of the .40, and the .357 SIG and others. In the 1970s, experimenters writing for Guns & Ammo magazine were trying to break the “9mm vs. 45” argument by finding a third path. For the technically-oriented, they took .30-30 brass and turned it on a lathe to remove the rim. (.30 Remington would do the same, and not require rim removal.) They shortened it and reamed the resulting pistol case to take bullets from the old .38 40 WCF cartridge, a true .40 caliber. (I read the article and tried making a case for myself. It is even more work than it sounds like.) With a round to use, they modified (and heavily so) a Browning P-35 to take their new invention. Why the Browning? One of the arguments in favor of 9mm was capacity. Rather than develop a new round and plug it into the same platform (1911) for the same number of rounds (then only seven per magazine) they went with the Browning. They could stuff 10 or 11 rounds into a Browning mag, splitting the difference between .45 capacity and 9mm capacity. The result was a cartridge that split the difference in power, capacity and recoil but was no larger than the standard servicepistol samples of either. The overall length of the .40 G&A cartridge was deliberately designed and made such as to fit into a Browning 9mm magazine. Keep that interesting data in mind for later.
Did it work? Yes. Was anyone interested? Aside from a bunch of other inveterate experimenters, not really.
The next step was another dead end in itself, but one that advanced this most excellent caliber. Two fellows formed a company called “Dornhaus & Dixon.” They designed and made a pistol to beat the band. It had a trigger system that could be either single action like the 1911, or double action like the wondernines. The trigger mechanism and grip shape were both inspired by the Czech CZ-75. The safety could be switched from one side to the other. It had high-capacity magazines, a comfortable grip shape even for being hi-cap, and the whole enterprise was cheered on by none other than Jeff Cooper himself. Oh, yes, this new pistol, called the “Bren Ten,” was chambered in a new cartridge, the 10mm. In overall length, the 10mm matched that of the .45 ACP, not the shorter .40 G&A that fit into the rebuilt Browning Hi-Powers. Loaded by Norma, the 10mm ammunition promised, and delivered, a 200-grain bullet at 1200 fps. It was one hot load, and it looked like it would be the new hammer of Thor.
Except for one thing. The subcontractor making the magazines couldn’t do it. Early purchasers got their pistol with a magazine or magazines. Those not in the very first bunch of buyers got pistols lacking magazines. The guns weren’t common, but the magazines were downright scarce. Magazines became a hot property, and prices quickly skyrocketed. Some other source quickly stepped in and offered magazines for $125 per! Today, paying $125 for a brand-new high-capacity magazine doesn’t seem too painful. At least not for those worked over by a specialist and gunsmith like Dave Dawson, who tunes magazines for top IPSC competitors. Imagine paying that much in 1985, when you could buy a bushel basket full of 1911 military surplus magazines for $5 each. The gunsmith who taught me, Dan McDonald, had a Bren Ten, and glory be, his even came with magazines. He had a steady stream of potential buyers, all wanting the gun “and the magazines.” He even had offers for just the magazines.
The 10mm is factory-available with bullet weights from 155 to 180 grains and can be reloaded in a range of 135 to 220 grains.
The Bren Ten even had the ultimate 1980’s product placement, in that it (for some reason) was selected as the sidearm of the main character on Miami Vice. Now a syndicated show on late-night cable, in the 1980s Miami Vice was the hottest thing on television. And Sonny carried a Bren Ten, at least for a couple of seasons. What with its being flashed on the tube each week it was the gun to have!
Without magazines, the Bren Ten was quickly a historical curiosity, and the 10mm was going to die an agonizing death. But then Colt saved it. (I can’t imagine how such a serendipitous event came out of Colt back then, but as one of the fellows who taught me a great deal about selling guns once said: “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.”) Colt came out with the 1911 in 10mm, and called it the Delta. And in stainless, too! Smith & Wesson soon followed suit with their model 1006, and 10mm fans were in hog heaven. Then in 1986, a rolling stakeout squad of FBI agents attempted to arrest two armed bank robbers in Miami, Florida. The perpetrators objected, and when the smoke cleared the robbers were dead, two FBI agents were also dead, and most of the others were wounded. The FBI was not at all happy with the performance of the 9mm cartridge they had depended on, and soon instituted changes. The big one was caliber, and from then on, the 10mm was going to be the FBI cartridge. Unfortunately for all involved, reality soon reared its ugly head.
Colt rescued the 10mm from oblivion.
Smith and Wesson offered the only 10mm double action pistol on the market. The FBI decided (for reasons only they know) they wanted “improvements” to the trigger, in the design S&W had been fine-tuning for what was then over 30 years. While S&W made the required design changes, the FBI started training agents in the new 10mm. Even with an all-steel gun, the 10mm was too much of a handful. Agents who had been qualifying for years now found they couldn’t manage the new gun using the hot new ammo. (I briefly owned a couple of S&W M-1026’s, and I can’t imagine trying to get the average law enforcement officer qualified on Norma ammo with one of them. “Not easily” is the answer.) Even backing off the load wasn’t enough, as 180-grainers at 1150 were still too much. You see, just a few years before, the FBI had gotten itself in trouble in court because the firearms training program had been deemed behind the times and disproportionately unsuited for women. Backing off on the load didn’t help much, as going from 200 grains at 1200 fps (a 240 PF) to 180 grains at 1050 fps (189 PF) is still a far cry from what the 9mm load had been: 115 grains at 1150 fps (132 PF).
Left to right: standard .40 S&W cartridge; .40 loaded long for ISPC competition (too long for any Glock); 10mm.
On top of all that, how could those who did qualify carry the thing? An all-steel 10mm pistol is a big and heavy thing. Compared to the much lighter 9mms and revolvers agents had been carrying, it was far too big and heavy a gun for daily carry. S&W, worried about durability, refused to make an alloy-framed 10mm if the Bureau was going to insist on using full-power 10mm ammunition.
Oh, and the modifications the FBI wanted on the S&W pistol, the M-1076? Didn’t work. The guns trigger mechanism locked up at random intervals, and the two sides ended up wrangling it out to no one’s satisfaction.
In an attempt at making the load manageable, the FBI asked the ammunition makers to come up with yet another new load: 180 grain bullets at 950 fps (171 PF). The engineers at S&W and Winchester took one look at those specs, considered the dead air space that the resulting powder charge would leave in the case, and immediately thought of shortening the whole thing to fit a 9mm magazine tube. The result was the .40 S&W. Remember the .40 G&A that would fit into a Browning Hi-Power (9mm) magazine? Yes, the whole enterprise had come full circle. And the 10mm? It is the best pistol cartridge that most people don’t shoot. It can be anything from a soft target load to a full-house hunting load. But because it requires a big gun, it gets neglected.
So what is the attraction of the .40, if it isn’t as powerful as the 10mm? Simple: It fits in a 9mm-sized pistol. Remember we were talking about pistol size when discussing the 9mm? The final package you have, once you fit all the needed parts around a 9mm cartridge, ends up as a compact and often ergonomic one. If you get much bigger in cartridge size, you can easily end up with a pistol that is too big to be convenient. When the ballisticians took the dead air space out of the “FBI Lite 10” and shortened the cartridge, they ended up with a round that would just barely fit in a 9mm pistol.
In 1990, the year the .40 was introduced, police departments across the country were in the midst of switching to 9mm pistols. While the 9mm offered more rounds than the traditional 38 Special revolvers, it didn’t offer much if any increase in stopping power. The .40, with heavier bullets, did.
Glock barrels are plainly marked as to caliber, but they don’t mention other manufacturers (like S&W) by name.
When the 40 S&W was introduced, everyone involved had their fingers crossed. The introduction of any new cartridge is an uneasy time for the manufacturers. It takes a lot of money to do the R&D, set up the tooling, advertise and ship ammo to dealers. If the cartridge doesn’t gain acceptance, they don’t make money and may well lose a lot of cash. They needn’t have worried. Police departments that had just spent years analyzing and agonizing over switching to 9mm pistols couldn’t dump the nines fast enough. They had to get their hands on 40s. Not all managed to do so as quickly as they might have desired. It took most of the 1990s to complete the transition, as some departments lagged behind.
The .40 S&W compares favorably to the 9mm and .45, just in different ways. As a compromise, it’s quite popular.
The .40 is not the most forgiving cartridge to reload. It runs at roughly the same pressure as the 9mm and 10mm, but it lives in 9mmframed pistols. To fit the .40 in a 9mm pistol, you have to have thinner chamber walls and thinner barrel walls. As an object feeding up the frame or barrel ramp, a .40 is a fat, stubby object compared to a 9mm. Vary the overall length too much, and you won’t get a .40 to feed. Too long and it won’t fit the magazine. Too short and it tips down when the slide tries to push it, and it ends up stubbed against the feed ramp.
The .40 runs at such a high pressure, with such a small combustion chamber (the space in the case left over once the bullet is seated in place), that any change becomes disproportionate compared to other cartridges. One problem new reloaders run into is bullet setback. A fat, stubby .40 has to be rudely shoved against the feed ramp and shouldered up into the chamber in order to feed at all. If the neck tension or crimp aren’t up to the task, the bullet can get shoved back against the powder charge. What with the high operating pressure and the short case, a .40’s pressure is going to be disproportionately increased by bullet setback compared to a 9mm. Add to that the thinner (in the .40) chamber walls, and you can bust a gun with ham-handed reloading faster with a .40 than with any other caliber.
New calibers require new brass, and Starline makes plenty.
But as a factory load, the .40 offers performance that does indeed bridge the gap between 9mm and .45, thus fulfilling the design objectives of those experimenters back in the 1970s.
When stopping power was finally looked into with a little scientific rigor (there is still a large amount of contentious debate on the subject) one of the cartridges that stood out was the .357 Magnum. In particular, the .357 Magnum loaded with 125-grain jacketed hollowpoint bullets to the upper ends of velocity. In the “three fifty seven” those bullets could reach 1450 fps. Not orbital escape velocity by any means, but a lot more than the 9mm could manage. Not that the 9mm manufacturers didn’t try. But not even special Law Enforcement Only (LEO) loads, marked “9mm+P+” and loaded so hot the manufacturers wouldn’t warranty them, could do it.
Converting from one caliber to another requires a correct-caliber frame, and you must know the frame length to select the correct barrel.
And without that velocity, the 9mm couldn’t offer comparable stopping power. When IPSC competitors were hot on the trail of efficient compensators, one approach to getting enough slow burning powder into a case to feed the comp was the 9x25 Dillon. The short-lived Dillon is simply a 10mm case necked down to 9mm, and it is and was too much of a good thing. The noise, harsh recoil and abrasive effect on barrels and comps wasn’t worth the marginal improvement in combatting muzzle rise that the comp offered during recoil. But what it did do was show how to get .357 Magnum velocities in a 9mm-sized pistol.
While the .357 SIG is essentially a .40 case necked down to 9mm, you can’t make your ammo by necking down .40 cases. If you try, the neck won’t come out the correct length; it will be too short. (And the .357 SIG case neck is already as short as it can be and still work. Make it shorter still and it becomes unsuitable for loading.)
The .357 SIG fits any magazine (and thus any pistol) chambered for the .40 S&W.
The .357 SIG equals the .357 Magnum in velocity. If you worship at the altar of “velocity for stopping power” the SIG is for you. And it fits in the same size pistol that the 9s and .40s do.
The 9x25 Dillon? Dead as a competitive caliber for many years now. Does it have a use? Probably, but I can’t think of one.
It was only a matter of time. When Glocks first appeared, legions of American buyers looked at it and said “Neat! When will it be available in .45?” The word then, and for a long time, was “Never.” After all, Glock was selling every single one they made in 9mm, so why make a new Glock? And since it would require a new design (or the old one re-proportioned) and thus new moulds and new tooling, why do it unless you’re going to sell more pistols? But the American market insisted on a Glock in .45 and eventually got it.
As a cartridge, the .45 reflects the design imperatives of the era in which it was born. It is big and over-built, it operates at a low pressure and it is unbelievably forgiving. You can reload it with almost any powder made and come up with something useable. (Not that I would recommend using anything but published powders and loading data.) You can load it with anything from roundballs or skinny 152-grain semiwadcutters to 300-grain bullets. (The 300’s were experimented with for curiosity only; nothing useful came of it.)
The 9x25 Dillon was all the rage for a few years. Now, any pistol chambered for it is a curiosity, if it hasn’t been converted back to 10mm.
.45 cases last forever, and I’m not sure you could wear out a .45 Glock by shooting ammo through it even if you won the lottery and ammo cost never entered your mind.
What the .45 didn’t offer for a long time was a compact pistol. Oh, the shortened version of the G-30 was easier to carry and hide, but just as big around the grip. You can’t have a double-stack magazine full of fat .45 cartridges and have a grip everyone can wrap their fingers around.
9mm vs. .45 ACP: a subject never to be settled.
Just when it looked as if things would proceed normally, Glock had to go and throw a wrench into the machinery: the .45 GAP. The .45 GAP is simple: a .45 ACP (more or less) shortened enough to fit into a 9mm magazine tube. Now, that thumbnail description glosses over a whole lot of engineering changes that had to be made, but it sums it up nicely.
Why? Again, the G-20/21 were and are just too big. Most people found them too large to handle, some found it simply too large, and even those who could manage it found the 9/40 frames a lot more manageable.
The .45 GAP has found quick acceptance with law enforcement, and a number of agencies have jumped on it right from the start. It has everything its advocates say it does: all the power of the .45 ACP, with as many bullet choices in weight and style, and accuracy comparable to any other Glock. Just be aware that you can’t get something for nothing: the 9mm/.40 sized Glocks, chambered in .45 GAP, are going to have stout recoil. Get used to it, because it is worth the price in recoil.
Along with 9mm being prohibited, the military caliber of .45 ACP is also prohibited in Italy. The .45 HP is simply a .45 ACP differing in length from the original. I haven’t heard of Glock making any pistols in it, and there is no reason to do so here in the US. It does not differ in any way in bullet diameter or weight, velocity or loading data. If you are an oh-so-lucky collector who comes across a factory-marked G-21 in .45 HP, why would you shoot such a rare prize anyway?
The CorBon is cartridge with a long, and simple, heritage. I first saw its predecessor, the .41 Avenger, a .45 case necked down to .41, before the 10mm was invented. As soon as 10s came about, the .41 Avenger lost favor due to most .410" bullets being designed for the .41 Magnum and therefore too long.
The .40 CorBon can be made from necked-down .45 ACP brass. It’s also available from CorBon.
The .400 CorBon is the .45 case necked down to 10mm. Running at slightly elevated pressures (in the +P range for .45ACP), the .400 can push light 10mm bullets at impressive velocities. But the advantage is for light bullets only, for by the time you get to 180-grain bullets the .400 has lost its velocity edge over the .45. For someone wanting to run a comped pistol, the .400 has some allure. For example, I could see using .400 CorBon in a bowling pin gun, if you wanted 10mm (or slightly better) performance without buying a 10mm pistol. As a .45 ACP-based cartridge, it is obviously available only in .45 ACP-chambered pistols. If you can find barrels, you’ll find them just for the full-sized G-21.
Instead of limiting things to .45ACP+P pressures, the .45 Super creeps up towards the 9mm/.40/10mm pressure ceiling. As a result, you can have velocity and power gains over the .45 even with full-weight bullets. The cost is simple: Different brass, increased powder consumption and increased muzzle blast and recoil. The standard .45 ACP brass is designed for an operating ceiling of 17,000 psi. To get .45 Super performance, you need to be going up close to, or even edging beyond, the 30K range.
.45 Super brass is made tougher (and supposedly heavier, but I’ve weighed it and it isn’t the heaviest stuff out there) to take the higher pressure. (.45 Super brass is the same size as regular .45 brass, so you must be very careful not to get Super powered ammo into a regular .45.) To boost bullets faster you need more powder, which increases reloading cost. And the higher pressure and slower-burning powders you’re using increase recoil and muzzle blast. If you need the power, fine. If you don’t, what’s the point?
And you can do it all with a 10mm. Considering the cost of converting your pistol to the .45 Super (the originators insist it is more than simply installing a heavier recoil spring) you could simply buy a G-20 10mm Glock.
The Rowland is even hotter than the 45 Super. It uses cases that are longer than .45, so you can’t get Rowland ammo to fit into a standard .45. The operating pressure is right up with the top loads in 10mm, and you get honest .44 Magnum ballistics: 230-grain bullets at 1350 fps! However, you simply must use a compensated barrel to keep the gun from beating itself to death. You’ll have .44 Magnum recoil and muzzle blast.
But if you have to have .44 Magnum power and you want it in a self-loading pistol, the Rowland does the trick.
.45 Super brass is specially made for that cartridge. Don’t use .45 ACP brass for .45 Super loads!
The Casull is the winner and still champion of high velocity. The idea is simple. Make the biggest case (.45ACP) in the toughest manner (thick walls, tough brass, small primer pocket) and pump it up to the top pressure the mechanism can stand. Then neck it down to take 9mm bullets and see just how fast you can squirt them out. In the .38 Casull, it means 124-grain bullets at 1825 fps. Are barrels in .38 Casull available for the Glock? I haven’t seen any, but they are available in the 1911. Do you need one? Who said anything about need?
The.460 Rowland (right) uses longer brass than the .45 ACP to keep it from being chambered in .45 ACP pistols.
I’ve saved the smallest for last, and because strictly speaking it isn’t a caliber you can get as a Glock. What you have to do is obtain the conversion upper assembly to turn your Glock into a .22 rimfire. Rimfire conversions are an economical way to get practice, and a low-recoil way to introduce new shooters to the game. To convert a pistol to rimfire, you need not just a new barrel, but an entire upper assembly of barrel, slide and striker assembly. The slide for modern conversions is made of aluminum. The rimfire cartridge only has so much power, and can’t cycle the weight of a steel slide. By making the new upper aluminum, and a blowback, the rimfire can cycle the slide. Conversions may seem a bit pricey, but the savings in ammo costs can recoup the investment in a few thousand practice rounds. Also, if you cannot lay hands on one of the Glock training guns, the .22 LR conversion is your lowest-cost firing practice pistol available.
The .38 Casull comes loaded with 124- and 147-grain bullets. You can load others if you wish.
The .38 Casull is hot-hot-hot and plenty accurate.
If you want to shoot rimfire ammo out of your Glock, you’ll have to get a conversion unit such as the one available from Advantage Arms.
The Glock is also available in two other versions, a training paint marker and rubber bullet version, and the “no-caliber Glock.” The G-17T is available in a blue-framed version for Law Enforcement only, and can fire (depending on the barrel) either the 9x19FX cartridge or the 8x21AC. (The 9x19FX will not chamber a 9x19 Parabellum round.) They are used for two widely different applications. The paint marking rounds are used for force-on-force training. With proper face protection and additional padding, Police Officers can train against role-playing opponents, and the paint left by the impact of the rounds determines the outcome of a scenario.
The rubber-bullet rounds are not meant for use on live opponents. Instead, they are used for training where the use of live ammo would be unsuitable or dangerous. The rubber bullets could cause injury. Where they are useful would be for a SWAT team practicing room entry against cardboard targets, where the police range isn’t set up for 360 degree firing. With rubber bullets, an old house, office building or abandoned warehouse could be pressed into service, and there would be no danger from live fire.
The “no-caliber Glock” is the red-frame G-17T. While the slide cycles, and the trigger works as expected, the barrel does not have a chamber or bore, and the striker tunnel does not have an opening in the breechface. A red-frame 17T can be used to demonstrate to a class, practice draw and dry-fire, and be handled in a crowd of students, without worry about pointing an actual firearm at anyone.
Unfortunately and as with so many other things, all the really neat toys are reserved for Law Enforcement only.
Well, first, all the rimmed revolver cartridges. While I’m sure with a bit of work and ingenuity you could convert a Glock of some kind to feed .38 Special wadcutters, or .32 S&W Longs, what’s the point? If you need them, you can get them already. The odd calibers that never made it are also goners. The .40 Action Express, a .41 bullet and case with a 9mm rim, never made much of a splash (and for good reason). With the .380 already in existence, you’ll never see (my bet) a Glock in 9x18 Ultra or 9x18 Makarov. And with the fall of the Soviet Union and many of the technical standards it had, I don’t think you can count on drawings of a 7.63 Tokarev Glock being on anyone’s drafting table.
Glock makes sub-caliber pistols for paint marking and indoor training.
According to manufacturing economics, the purpose of a factory is to make saleable products. Unless there is a market somewhere for a lot of Glocks in a particular caliber, you won’t see any. And that goes for all the other firearms makers, too. Unless 9x18 Makarov ammunition is cheaper than dirt because the Chinese are giving cases of it away with every set of chopsticks purchased, you won’t see Glock, S&W, Ruger or anyone else making pistols for it. After all, if they’re giving away the ammo, it’s to prop up sales of their own (Chinese) pistols, not ours. You want a Glock in the weird ones, you’ll have to make it yourself.
In the 1911 world, it is common to convert a pistol from one caliber to another, or build a pistol that has multiple barrels or upper assemblies, to shoot other calibers. Two factors work to make 1911 combo guns more common: there is a large pool of parts to be had, and the cost of buying a new pistol can be significant. Adding to the initial cost of a new pistol would be the duplication of any custom features the first one has. Thus, if you start with a basic .45 1911, and you add a few custom tricks like a beavertail, adjustable sights, hard chrome, etc., you can quickly come close to the $2000 figure. Doing all that again in 10mm is hard to justify when with a little careful planning you can build a new 10mm upper assembly for your .45 for $500 to $600.
You’ll never see a Glock in .38 Special. No need for it, with accurate 9mm models available.
Why not do this with a Glock? First of all, buying a new 10mm Glock would cost about as much as the built upper assembly for the 1911. And since you wouldn’t need the beavertail and hard chrome job, you could have four or five Glock for the cost of the custom 1911 and its new-caliber upper assembly.
1911 owners rebuild old guns and build new assemblies for them to get more use out of an existing frame. Glock owners just buy another Glock. But some conversions make sense. If all you need is a new barrel and recoil spring, they will certainly cost less than a new Glock. And if you happen to live in some godforsaken jurisdiction where getting another pistol is a major hassle, converting an existing pistol also makes a lot of sense.
Where it starts to break down is when you need to add a slide to the cost. While Caspian makes excellent slides, it is hard to justify buying one when you can buy a new Glock for the conversion cost when converting involves a new slide, except for something like a Racegun. Let’s say you have a G-17, and you want to shoot in Open competition in USPSA/IPSC. You need to install a compensated barrel. The barrel on a Glock is removed from the slide to the rear during disassembly. A comp, to work best, must be securely fastened, usually by using epoxy or Loctite on the threads. Once locked in place, the comped barrel won’t come out of the slide. You can’t go back to Stock configuration easily.
If you have an additional slide, you can build a new top end and go from Open to Stock by switching assemblies. In Open you’ll need a red-dot sight, but you can easily get a clamp-on mount, and re-zero your pistol when you change from one to the other.
Another example would be in making a 9-pin 9mm Glock for bowling pin shooting. Again, you’d need a comped barrel. Yes, you could buy another 9mm Glock (most likely a G-17) and then add an extended, threaded barrel and comp. Either way, you’ll be buying a barrel and comp. So, which costs less, another whole Glock, or a slide and its internals?
The cost comparisons are simple, but figuring out what you want, and how much extra work and effort you’re willing to go to in order to get it is something you’ll have to decide for yourself.
Given the recent increase in ammunition prices, many shooters who have not reloaded in the recent era are now eyeing the prospect. For a few years until the war, ammo costs were so low that in some calibers shooters simply didn’t bother to reload. (9mm is the big one there, as you could buy 9mm FMJ ammunition so cheaply for many years that it really didn’t pay to reload.
The Glock’s distinctive firing pin hit is clearly visible on the right. The impression on the left is from a non-Glock pistol.
Glock pistols are designed to be reliable in function. You will have to search long and hard to find a pistol more reliable than the G-17 or any of its stablemates. But you can choke them. If you expect your Glock (or any pistol for that matter) to be reliable, you have to feed it proper ammo. By proper, I mean the correct caliber, within accepted pressure levels, and dimensionally correct. You will be hard-pressed to find factory ammo that is off the mark, but you can. Ditto commercial reloads. (If you’re curious, a little cruising of the more popular forums on the internet will get you the names of the prime suspects.)
If you want to use commercial reloads in your Glock, ask around. The other shooters at your gun club can tell you who they’ve had good and bad experiences with. Take the recommendations with a grain of salt. Some shooters have bad luck with everything they try. Others don’t. If you get three or four guys at your club telling you they’ve had bad luck with a particular brand, then you should listen.
I had an instructional experience recently on just this subject. I was at a National SWAT conference and ran into a commercial reloader I had known of for years. I had known of them because I’d had a number of customers arrive a the shop with busted guns, and that brand of reload featured frequently in the bulged barrels, blown mags, etc. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I asked the owner about the problem. He asked. “Did the problems ever stop?” I thought for a moment, and mentioned that after a certain year I stopped seeing guns come in with bulged barrels. He said “Yes, I fired my brother-in-law about that time, and took things over myself.” See, companies can learn, improve, and change the perceptions of their customers.
Personal reloads are another matter. First things first: Using reloaded ammunition voids the warranty on your Glock. Nothing new there, as using reloads voids the warranty on every other firearm you could buy, too. And why not? Glock (and all the other firearms manufacturers) have no control over the quality of the ammunition you produce. If you produce good ammunition, your Glock will perk along famously. As will every other pistol or revolver you put your ammo in. If you produce shoddy ammunition, why would you expect Glock to make right the result of your poor workmanship? End of soapbox.
If you’re going to load ammo, get current manuals and pay attention to the advice they offer.
Use correct brass for your loads. Don’t go converting it from something else just to save a few bucks. In the case of .40 Super, conversion will be more expensive than buying factory brass.
If you are using factory-new or commercially-reloaded ammunition, then you can expect years of satisfying shooting. If you are going to reload your own, then you’ll need to know a few things about what self-loading pistols in general, and Glocks in particular, demand. And then you too can produce flawless ammo for years to come.
Your brass must be sized down to minimum factory or book dimensions. There is no such thing as “neck sizing” in handgun reloading, as there is in rifle reloading. Each and every case must be sized fully. You can’t expect cases that have bulged over the feed ramp to work unless you iron the bulge out. And if you iron the bulge too many times, the case may be work-hardened and brittle. If your 9mm brass is cheap because it comes from the local police department SWAT team and their submachineguns, sort out and toss the bulged ones. (Yes, you can go to extra effort and size the bulge down, but if the brass is free, why bother?)
If you try to exceed the velocities in the reloading manuals, you may do some brass bulging yourself. There are good and valid reasons for the upper limits in published data. Believe them. I’ve known reloaders who quite heatedly argue that the upper limits are there just so the ammo makers can charge extra money for +P and +P+ ammo. (One in particular told me with a straight face that he could exceed .357 Magnum velocities in his 9mm Parabellum: “The brass is built extra tough for use in subguns. Handguns can use the extra margin built into the brass.” Rather than argue the point, I just made sure I wasn’t standing nearby whenever he was shooting.) Bulged brass in your reloads is a sign you have greatly exceeded proper pressures. Buy a reloading manual and pay attention to the upper limits they publish. Inspect your brass and stop using loading data that produces bulged brass.
The primers must be seated flush or below flush with the case head surface. In the feeding process, the base of the cartridge must slide along the breechface, and slip under the extractor. A high primer acts as if the case had a too-thick of a rim, preventing good feeding. Oh, you can get away with it sometimes, but sooner or later the high primer is going to cause the round to hesitate just a bit in feeding, throw off the feed timing, and stop your Glock.
And high primers create another problem: failure to fire. A high primer that still feeds and chambers can fail to fire. The high primer isn’t fully seated, and some of the impact of the striker goes to bottoming the primer into its pocket. If the final primer seating takes too much energy from the striker, there won’t be enough left to set off the primer. When you extract the round, you’ll see a smaller than usual dimple in the primer. New shooters often assume it is due to a hard primer or a light strike. Not so. If failure to fire happens with your reloads, look to a high primer as the cause. If factory, then look to a grubby pistol that wasn’t fully closed as the problem.
Reloading can save money. Keep your reloading bench clean and keep good records.
Guy Neill, in the September/October 2002 issue of Front Sight (the publication of the United States Practical Shooting Association), reported finding a .40 cartridge with the bullet set back in the case. Luckily, it had been one chambered but not fired, as it had set back .060"! Experiments by the NRA some decades earlier had shown that a setback amount of only .030" could cause a doubling of the chamber pressure of the 9mm Parabellum. As the 9mm and 40 run with a pressure ceiling of 34,000 PSI, even moderate reloads can be a problem when the bullet sets back. Let’s say your conservative and moderate reloaded ammunition only runs at 26,000 PSI. If the bullet goes back .030" and thus doubles pressure, you now have a 52,000 PSI round. As a Proof Load in .40 S&W would only be about 44,000 PSI, you can see what the new pressure is: a busted case ready to happen.
Guy sat down and measured the neck wall thickness of the cases he had on hand, and found that the wall thickness varied by .0012" from thickest to thinnest. That might not seem like much, but it is.
Primed cases are expensive. When you seat your primers, make them flush.
A set-back bullet, with greatly increased chamber pressure as a result, could lead to a blown case or damaged gun. I had been loading my .40 ammo using a .397" diameter expanding bell. (The expander opens up the case after the sizing die has squeezed it down, making room for the bullet.) A .397" bell, with thin walls, could cause a setback. That I had not seen any could be attributed to most of my loading and shooting of .40 having been done in various 1911 platforms. I went down to the loading room and started measuring my .40 brass. Sure enough, I found a few that had thin neck walls. I loaded those up with my standard load and proceeded to test case setback by pressing them against the bench. They all held.
Feeling just a bit silly from rampant paranoia, I then proceeded to hand-feed them through my G-22 several times. Measuring them afterwards I felt just a bit self-conscious. Until I measured the last one. It had set back .015" in overall length! Not as much as Guy’s had, not enough to be instantly obvious from looking, but set back.
What to do? I took my expander and chucked it in Thin case necks and lack of neck tension can cause bullet setback, resulting in a kB! (ka-boom!). my drill press and polished it down with an india stone until it was just over .395" in diameter. I then finished polishing with 600-grit emery cloth to .3950" diameter. Is it enough? With a heavy sigh I sat back down and fished through the .40 brass to find some more thin-walled brass. After an hour I’d found another couple dozen, so I loaded them with the new diameter belling stem and tested them. This time there were no setbacks, either bench-test or fed through the G-22.
My future .40 loads will have a tighter grip on the bullet. They all will also be working the brass harder, but the end result will be a fractional increase in the rate of neck cracking with repeated use. Neck cracks are not a problem, as they act to decrease chamber pressure if not discovered. My dies for .400 CorBon and .40 Super have belling stem diameters of .389" and .390" respectively. Both cases have short necks and thus a need for tight neck tension. Using those as examples, my .40 S&W die can be tightened even more without causing loading problems, should I wish to polish down that belling stem even more.
You have to have enough crimp to securely hold the bullet. If you don’t, the bullet may set back into the case when it hits the feed ramp. (See above.) A bullet set back in the case increases (sometimes greatly) the chamber pressure when fired. And insufficient crimp leads to inconsistent ignition, too, leading to velocities varying a great deal, and accuracy suffering. However, too much crimp is bad. In particular, the 9mm can be quite touchy about the proper crimp. Too little, and you get wildly varying velocities. Too much, and you get tumbling bullets, especially with lead or plated bullets.
Generally, you want your crimp (tapered, always, for a pistol) three thousandths under the standard case plus bullet diameter. As an example, if you’re loading .45 ACP, you take the bullet at .451", and the case mouth with a wall thickness of .010". Double the case wall thickness (both sides, remember?) and add to the bullet diameter to get .471". Subtract .003" and your taper crimp figure comes to .468". Since many .45 shooters load lead bullets, which measure .452", the common taper crimp you’ll hear 1911 shooters talking about is .469".
Measure your belling expander diameter and make sure it’s tight enough.
Use the same process for the other calibers. Then check accuracy over sandbags, or in the hands of the best shooter at your club.
How long? As long as will reliably fit and feed through the magazine. No great secret here. If you’re going to load 115-grain bullets for your 9mm, save a few 115-grain factory loads and set them in a drawer or box. Measure and record their lengths. Load your ammunition to match the average of those lengths. How short? No shorter than the shortest factory cartridge of that bullet weight. Since you have to have at least some of the bullet in the case, you won’t be loading many 88-grain jacketed hollowpoint bullets. No loss. Short bullets nosedive, and the changed angle of the cartridge in feeding makes it tough for the slide to wrestle the stubby thing up the ramp and into the chamber. If you want to try, go ahead. But if it turns out your pistol won’t feed extremely short ammunition, give up. No point in making yourself crazy for no advantage gained in a match.
Neck tension and crimp are important on loads for every pistol, not just for Glocks.
Stick with weights in the normal range as loaded by the various manufacturers. There is a reason you don’t see 115-grain jacketed hollowpoints in .40 or 10mm or 147-grain hollowpoints in .45. Not only are they tough to fabricate and load into cases, the bullet weight and size don’t couple well with the case volume. (There is also that overall length problem, too.) You don’t see many 180-grain bullets wrestled into 9mm cases or 300-grain .45ACP loads. The cases don’t have enough volume to hold the bullet and have any room left over for powder. I tried both in the interests of scientific inquiry, and they traveled so slowly I could easily see them in flight.
Powders are made for different burn rates and density. Within the loading limits they are designed for, they work fine. Take a powder too far outside of its “comfort zone” and you’ll be surprised at what you get. Stick with published data, and resist the impulse to “get a little more” out of a powder. If you really need more velocity, and you’re at the maximum listed powder charge, then start all over again with a slower-burning powder.
A fast powder pushed past its upper limit can become very touchy. As an example, if you were to load a fast-burning powder to the maximum, and then forget and leave a box of it in the sun, you might find pressures have exceeded your expectations. A blown case can be the result.
If you need a soft load, but only have magnum powders, invest in a pound of fast-burning stuff intended for soft target loads. A slow powder loaded below its efficient ignition pressure becomes a very dirty load indeed. I’ve seen shooters loading small charges of slow-burning powders that left so much unburnt powder behind that the residue gummed up their handgun in short order.
And if the slowest powder for that caliber still doesn’t deliver the power you need, get a bigger gun. Don’t try to turn a .40 into a 10mm. Buy a 10mm. It’s a Glock; it isn’t expensive.
If you are going to load your own ammunition for use in competition where there is a threshold, or power factor minimum, you must own a chronograph. You cannot depend on known data for accurate velocities. There is just enough difference in barrels, powder charges, bullet weights, diameters and hardnesses, that what looks in the book to “Make Minor” might in your gun be quite a bit under. It would be a disadvantage to think you were loading your ammo to 130 PF, only to find at the match that you are actually shooting a 151 PF load and putting up with the extra recoil for naught. Or worse, if you thought you were loading a 130 PF load and arrived at the match only to find at the chrono station that you were actually loading to a 123 PF, you didn’t make Minor, and your “score” for the match was now zero.
Powder selection depends on the caliber and the intended use. Most of the time, if what you want is more power, you should have started with a bigger caliber.
I have recently switched to a CED chronograph (the one used as the official chronograph in USDPSA competition) and have found it very convenient, easy to use and portable. My old system with all its paraphernalia took up a case the size of a steamer trunk. The new one is smaller than my camera bag.
Ah, the big question. Lead and Glocks. Lead is a dense, soft metal with a low melting point and one that readily alloys with a number of different hardening elements. Atomic symbol Pb, from the Latin plumbum, which is also the root of “plumbing.” The Romans used to use it for water pipes and seals in aqueducts. They also cast it into balls for their slingers to hurl in support of the Legions, complete with the legion’s name, number or motto cast in them.
Lead has mild to moderate medical hazards. Listen to the EPA and anti- gunners and you’d think lead was as toxic as plutonium. It isn’t, with few exceptions.
Lead bullets and Glocks don’t get along. Generally speaking, the factory barrels on Glocks lead quickly, causing a decrease in accuracy and an increase in chamber pressure. The use of lead bullets in .40 caliber Glocks has been implicated in the “ballistic disassembly” of a number of those pistols. Why? No one is quite sure. There is a great deal of speculation. Some focus on the polygonal rifling, surmising that the better seal it offers increases leading. I’m not too hot on that idea for two reasons. One, H-K uses polygonal rifling, and they don’t seem to suffer from leading like Glocks. And two, past experience with cast bullets has shown that it is a poor seal that leads to gas-cutting and really severe leading, not a tight one.
Another line of speculation is that the Tenifer treatment makes the surface of the bore “too hard” and thus increases friction. Again, I’m not buying it. A harder surface, all other things being equal, has less friction, not more. And proper bullet lube should protect a bore regardless of its hardness.
One promising line of inquiry is the matter of bullet lube. The black powder shooters among us have found that lubricant is critical to accuracy, preventing leading, and reducing fouling. It’s my bet that some enterprising caster could make a killing by tracking down just what lubricants reduce or eliminate leading in Glocks. Properly marketed, such a lube or line of bullets could prove very popular. After all, if it won’t lead a Glock, it can’t be bad in other pistols, right?
My own theory on the matter is that a number of small variables have to stack up against the Glock in order for the problem to surface. After all, the observation of leaded Glock bores is not universal. So if the bore diameter or the bullet diameter vary, or if the bullet’s hardness vs. its velocity and pressure limits are incompatible, or if the lubricant is too hard or too soft, or if the powder is too fast or too abrasive, you’ll get leading. And whereas in other pistols where you’d need all of these causes to get leading, in the Glock you only need two or three of them.
Glock used to mark their .40 barrels with “.40SW” but they’re now marked only “40.” If you want to use lead bullets in your Glock, swap out the factory barrel for a cut-rifling match barrel.
In the midst of all my speculation, Robin Taylor sent forth his Second Edition of The Glock in Competition. In it he has a chapter by Mark Passamaneck that gives the best technical explanation of Glocks and lead bullets I have read. Basically, the bore is tighter than a cut-rifling bore is, swaging the bullet and thus increasing leading. There’s a bit more to it than that. However, as I am not one to simply appropriate research data, if you’re really curious about all the gory details, get Robin’s book. (Taylor Freelance is the publisher.)
If leading is such a problem, why doesn’t the factory solve it? Let’s see. The rest of the world hardly lets anyone reload ammo at all, and those that do use jacketed bullets. Factory ammo is almost exclusively produced with jacketed bullets. With jacketed bullets the pistols work just fine, offering reliability, accuracy and durability. Only Americans are in the position of being able to afford to do lots of shooting, load their own, and are cheap enough to use unjacketed bullets. Austria just doesn’t see it as a problem.
What to do if you want to use lead? The simple solution is to switch barrels. Get a replacement barrel from a barrel maker who is familiar with the unique American insistence on lead bullets, and be happy.
And if you are going to be cheap and obstinate, and refuse to swap barrels? First, use hard-cast bullets with a good lube. A little experimentation could find that a particular brand works better in your Glock than others. Second, brush your bore regularly during a shooting session. (Unloaded, of course!) One of the Glock shooters in our club brushes his G-19 out between stages. Brushed every 30-50 rounds, his accuracy and reliability don’t suffer. The Boresnake is a very useful tool for this: you can go to a Safe Area between each stage of a match and run the Boresnake through your Glock a couple of times, and keep the leading under control. Third, never, and I mean NEVER use lead bullets in a .40-caliber Glock. We may not know the exact mechanism by which leading and pressure spikes occur, but we do know one thing: they primarily are a problem in the 40s. Why? A convergence of variables.
When the .40 was designed, the intent was to make it fit a 9mm size pistol. Pistol makers soon found that it took more than just opening the breechface, changing the barrel and installing a heavier recoil spring to turn a 9mm into a .40. The Glock 40s are 9mm-sized pistols. A larger chamber and bore means a thinner barrel wall. To make the pistols feed reliably, the chambers are on the larger side of the specifications. Brass fired in a .40 Glock gets worked harder that it would in another .40, and it won’t last as long. When the tired brass lets go, the thinner walls aren’t able to contain it like other pistols would. And the polymer frame can’t take the gaff.
I’ve seen several other pistols blow cases, and I was on one occasion shooting a 10mm Colt Delta that blew a case. In all the instances I’ve seen, the damage was limited by the rigidity of the steel frame. In the steel-frame guns, the magazine was blown out of the gun and damaged beyond repair. Curiously, the 10mm didn’t even damage the magazine when it blew. I think it was because the magazine came apart as it was designed to for cleaning and assembly. Once I found all the magazine parts, I reassembled it and it worked fine. I still have it. It still works fine. I don’t use that load any more.
I’ve seen the aftermath of one aluminum-framed gun that had a blown case. The frame bulged, the magazine was damaged, and the slide was cracked.
Now, imagine the ability of polymer to resist impact. That’s why a Glock that gets a blown case ends up as such a spectacle. The problem isn’t that the Glocks in .40 are so “fragile” but that .40s are more likely to let go. It is a rare 10mm, and not even a common .45 that blows. (Haven’t seen a 9mm yet.)
So, how to explain all those Glocks that have blown up? First of all, we have to define “all those” as a figure. Let’s assume for the moment that there are only one million .40-caliber Glocks in the US. (A conservative number. Glock passed the one million total mark in less than nine years, and the .40 was only a couple of years old at that time.) Now let’s assume that each of those Glocks has 100 rounds put through it each year, another conservative number. Yes, we all know of pistols that have been bought but never fired, but they aren’t Glocks. Glock owners love to shoot. Police Departments that issue Glocks can plan on each pistol getting a bunch more than a hundred rounds a year through them.
That’s one hundred million firing events a year. Now, assume we have 10 ka-booms a year. (A higher number than I know of.) Wow, assuming the events are totally at random, your chances are one in 10 million of experiencing a ka-boom the next time you pull the trigger on your Glock. But we all know that every one of those occurrences will be splashed across the internet and find their way onto tens of thousands of web pages. That’s why it seems like a bigger problem than it is.
Let’s make it even better. We know that of the 10 blowups, one will be a truly mysterious random event, and the other nine will be reloaded ammunition, probably using lead bullets. If you use jacketed bullets in your reloads, your odds now drop to one in a hundred million. If you’re still worried at this point, I’d suggest offsetting your worries about the cost of a new Glock by investing in lottery tickets as a retirement plan. Your odds are actually better at hitting the lottery than they are at experiencing a ka-boom in your Glock if you take even the most rudimentary precautions.
This 1911 didn’t survive a double charge of powder. Glocks aren’t the only handguns that occasionally suffer a ka-boom! problem.
Of those nine, they will almost all be lead bullets, and probably seven or eight of them will be 40s. So, the lead-fed .40 Glock starts to get leading in the bore. As the lead builds up, it reduces the space in the front of the chamber for the round. The round is kept from fully chambering, and if it happens to almost-but-not-quite close and still fire, there can be a problem. The case is in this instance even less supported than usual. The case wall exposed is even thinner than the thicker base and lets go.
Now, let us add one more insult to the problem. The reloader perhaps hasn’t paid attention to his loading, and on this particular round, the bullet has set back into the case. The setback has happened before, but the bore had been clean then. The grubby bore holding the action almost-but-not-quite closed has happened before, but not with setback. In both earlier instances, the gun survived. Not this time.
The violently jetting gases from the blown case hammer into plastic and gain additional leverage on steel that wouldn’t otherwise have to stand the pressure. The result is a trashed gun And since there are so many people predisposed to dislike Glocks, the results get published.
The solution is simple, and not at all expensive. If you really, really, don’t want to run the (astronomically small) risk, use factory 9mm ammo. Or, change your barrel to a cut-rifling barrel designed for lead, and stop worrying about it. 