Bullet Choices

Mike swears that the next time I see him, he’ll have a firearm to bring to the range. Me, I put the odds at 30%. I truly thought I was attention-deficient until I started helping Mike shop for a pistol. Then I realized some people were out of my league. “What do you think about Glocks?” “The guy at the store wants to sell me a Taurus.” “Maybe I should get a frame for my Dan Wesson barrels.” Arggh. When did that start? Like two months ago?

I hope he’s for real this time. Mike has his own health-care staffing company, and I want to see him get rich, mainly so instead of waffling around like this, he’ll have the money to buy every gun he likes and get it over with.

I haven’t loaded any rounds for the 9mm yet. When I bought bullets for the .38 Super, I picked a size I also liked for the 9mm. Then I started reading about polygonal barrels. My bullets are hard, but they’re cast. No jackets. The Glock has a polygonal barrel, and some people believe you should not fire cast bullets through that type of rifling.

A normal barrel has raised ridges of metal inside it, spiraling from one end to the other. The bullets are gripped and turned by the ridges as they move. The inside of polygonal barrel is shaped like a polygon, in cross section. Also spiraled. Imagine the shape you would get if you put a hex nut in a soft tube and twisted it as you pulled it through. Sort of like that, except that I chose a hex nut as an example because it was familiar, not because barrels actually have six flat sides inside them. Wikipedia shows an eight-sided barrel as an illustration.

I don’t understand what goes on in a polygonal barrel that would make cast bullets a problem, but the theory is that lead will build up and obstruct things. In Glocks, like my 9mm and .40 caliber, the lead may build up in a way that prevents the shells from entering the chamber all the way, and then they may not be supported fully when they go off, and your gun explodes. This is known as “the Glock Kaboom.” It’s somewhat upsetting, as it instantly ruins your gun, and it may injure you. You can buy an aftermarket barrel to get around it.

There are those who say no polygonal barrel should be used with cast bullets. Others point out that some gunmakers who use polygonal barrels don’t advise against cast bullets. They say Glocks have a problem and other guns don’t, because of the way the chamber meets the barrel. And a lot of people shoot the brand of bullets I bought–Laser-Cast–with no problem.

So here I am with a pile of 9mm bullets I got at a good price. And I don’t know if I can use them. Something to think about, if you have Glocks and you reload.

Midway is having a pretty decent sale on jacketed bullets, so it’s possible to buy those and save the cast bullets for the .38 Super.

I’m surprised Glock hasn’t fixed the kaboom problem. If the theory about the chamber is right, and other manufacturers aren’t having the problem, it should be simple to remedy. And it harms the guns’ reputation. Imagine relying on a Glock to defend your life, while wondering if it was going to blow up in your hand. I’ll bet that’s extremely unlikely, since an intelligent person in a self-defense situation would probably use quality jacketed ammunition from a reputable manufacturer. But you still have to wonder.

I’m not sure what diameter bullets to get. I assume anything labeled 9mm will be fine, but there are choices within a range of three thousandths or so. Guess I’ll figure it out. I would hate to make reloads that degrade the accuracy of the Glock 26, which is usually a tack-driver.