Glock 20's Blowing up?

[w squared]

I'm on my second Gen 4 Glock 20 - I sold the first one and then bought a replacement when I moved from Texas back to Canada. Both of them have eaten everything I've fed them without a hiccup. To be fair that's just been LAX hardball for practice ammo and the Underwood 180 grain 1300 FPS load.

I've spent a lot of time and money on modern semi-auto pistols, and what I'll tell you is that the Glock is the Toyota of the firearms world. Bland, devoid of personality, not as high performing as some other firearms....but they have a cult following because they just plain work, even if you aren't very nice to them.

Based on my experience I would be hesitant to put a bunch of cast lead rounds (more than 100) through a Glock factory barrel. Coincidentally, 100 rounds is the number that my personal fuss-ass-ness tells me that I want to run through a pistol before I decide that a particular combination of round and pistol meets my requirements for "serious social purposes". Oddly enough, every single Glock I have ever owned has digested every single factory load I have ever fed it for all of those 100 rounds without even a hiccup or burp. Just like Toyotas, Glocks are boring and reliable.

If you're really worried about it, slap an inexpensive (used?) aftermarket barrel with conventional rifling into your G20, shoot the 100 rounds of your desired bear load through it to verify function, and call 'er good.

 

[cobbc03]

I've put roughly 500 rounds through my 20, without any issues. I have never heard about any blowing up, and my guess would be its either reloads with too much pressure, or a possible squib. As for the guy not getting them to function reliably, I've heard they need at least a recoil spring upgrade to handle the 220 grain buffalo bore rounds. If its too much for the recoil spring, it 100% makes sense that it would have failures to feed or eject correctly. You could go with 200 rain buffalo bore and will be fine, or could get an aftermarket spring and barrel and shoot the 220s. I don't think there is any downside shooting a 200 compared to a 220.

 

[grfox92]

Thabks every one for all the advice. Much appreciated.

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[BRTreedogs]

So this is what cured me of 2nd hand ammo.
Glock also says to never shoot reloads.
Assumption was a double charge.
Its a Glock 22
It blew the mag completely out and cracked the frame as well.
It been repaired by glock at my expense and I have full faith in it.
It was my fault for running faulty ammo.
Just glad I still have my fingers and eyes.

 

[KChunter71]

I trust my g20 and you will too

 

[Rockwell]

How is shooting .40 hard on the gun?

For the most part it's not, one may get some exaggerated wear on the extractor after many rounds as the case ends up head spacing off the extractor but generally minimal to none. A replacement extractor is cheap if an issue arises. Recommended to clean the barrel after 40 use prior to switching back to shooting 10mm.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I have 3 glock 20s, I've been shooting them for about 10 years now and never once had one blow up on me. I have a few KKM barrels and have shot plenty of underwood and buffalo bore 220g ammo through them with zero issues.

 

[brad407210]

It's hard to see, but if you look at the top of the case as it sits in this picture you'll notice the bottom 1/4 or so bulges up, this was a new piece of starline brass shot with a book load using 180 gr Hornady XTP out of a stock barrel. When you drop a loaded case in some of the stock Glock 40 or 10mm barrels you'll see this area is exposed and relies on the brass instead of a barrel to contain the pressure which causes the bulge. Normal resizing dies don't go down far enough to squeeze this back in so I think that was causing my jambs when I tried reloading depending on how the case was rotated. There is a "Bulge Buster" die that removes this, but the intent of that die is to use it on 10mm or 40 s&w brass shot out of a Glock and make it feed into other guns with supported chambers. If you use that on brass and repeatedly fire it out of Glocks you will weaken that area of the case and get a rupture. I just quit trying to load 10mm and went to factory ammo so I don't need to solve this puzzle or wonder if my reloads will work. I bought a fully supported 40s&w barrel conversion for $100 so I reload 40's to practice during the year then I run a couple boxes of "cheap" factory 10mm through it before I start carrying it in the fall for practicing the heavier recoil then a box with the expensive bear loads I'll carry in it hunting to make sure the feed well. When I'm carrying my Glock 20SF I feel confident it will work if I needed it and I'm lucky enough to actually place a slug in the correct spot.

 

[kid44]

Some of that sounds to me like some guys are trying to turn their Glocks into something they are not,
that being magnum revolvers.

 

[Rockwell]

A barrel swap solves the bulging if one is intent on shooting hot loads and reloading, solves the lead issues as well but at the expense of having to buy a fully supported barrel. If one were in bad country I'd likely just run stock with the underwoods and know you have the reliability you should be able to count on, but for everything else a fully supported barrel is well worth the money and the peace of mind.

 

[Sobrbiker]

How is shooting .40 hard on the gun?

Shorter case, only head spacing by being held by extractor=carbon/projectile material buildup in the chamber neck where the proper (longer) neck is actually headspaced=excessive neck tension when the 10mm case does go in=higher pressure=bad things (especially when everyone demands “nuclear” 10mm heavy loads).

If my sane loads of 200grWFNGC at 1250fps aren’t gonna get the job done, I doubt highly that a “nuclear” (I hate that word, but it’s all the social media 10mm resurgence newbies ever talk about, and probably the reason that all of a sudden I’m hearing threads like this talking about guns that have been solid performers for decades now suffering failures) load is gonna kill it any deader (or be more conducive to better/more practice, which is what really separates saving your bacon when the chips are down vs a noisy death).

 

[NevadaZielmeister]

I know alot of you guys carry these guns and will probably comment that you have never had an issue with yours....but there has to be something to it. There is just too many claims on this topic.

You will find problems with any gun. But what you will not see if someone being honest (with the exception of the one on this thread) regarding hot loads. Too many people wanna tweak the crap out of their guns. They are just stupid. Don't listen to them.

Glocks are preferred for many reasons. They are simply and they shoot well.

Don't worry and enjoy the G20. You can trust it.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Some of that sounds to me like some guys are trying to turn their Glocks into something they are not,
that being magnum revolvers.

Zero % of people are trying to do that.

 

[Huntindog45]

there are hundreds of thousand of glock 20s in circulation. i am guesssing if you look up any gun that has that many out there you will find a certain percentage of failures

 

[grfox92]

there are hundreds of thousand of glock 20s in circulation. i am guesssing if you look up any gun that has that many out there you will find a certain percentage of failures

I was curious as to how many they have sold.If there are hundreds of thousands out there and it was a legitimate problem there would be 10s of thousands of blown up Glock 20s to see.

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[Huntindog45]

I was curious as to how many they have sold.If there are hundreds of thousands out there and it was a legitimate problem there would be 10s of thousands of blown up Glock 20s to see.

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i said that kind of off the cuff.. now i am curious what the actual number is. because it is a 10 mm and not the more popular 40 or 9 mm i doubt it is actually hundreds of thousands as i said earlier. that was a little over the top

 

[hodgeman]

After messing with dozens of Glocks since the early 90s, I've only seen 3 that were blown up.

1 G22 shooting reloads gone horribly wrong.

2 G20s shooting the same brand of "high performance factory ammo".

Glock makes a great product, and I have no doubt had all three of these folks been shooting regular old ammo there'd never been an issue.

 

[kid44]

there are hundreds of thousand of glock 20s in circulation. i am guesssing if you look up any gun that has that many out there you will find a certain percentage of failures

Yes, I would agree, but I would imagine some of the failures may be "owner inflicted" , possibly due to "if the manual says this powder charge is max, a little more couldn't hurt". Just my opinion.

 

[Shraggs]

Stock G20 sf. Gen 4, trigger slightly polished.

hundreds of practice ammo
Four different human defense boxes
2 Underwood 140 pentrator, I think it is
2 Underwood of the hunter version
2 Underwood 200 hardcast
2 Underwood 220 hardcast
2 BB 220 hardcast

not a single gun failure.

had one Underwood round not go bang, but it feed and ejected fine. That’s why I ordered more Underwood to try and duplicate, but haven’t. I consider that an ammo issue

for bears I like the 200 Underwood HD and the 140 penetrators best in my gun. Data in bears doesn’t exist yet for the 140 penetrators, but I like what I’ve read and theatrical expectations.

 

[kid44]

I trust my g20 and you will too

Why would I trust your G20?