...and now THIS

[wyntrout]

When working with at NEAR MAX loads... all things are not equal. IF you are using the SAME cases, primers, powder and bullets... seating depth, crimp, etc., then things might be expected to be equal, but there are variations in all of those things and many work towards confining the powder into a smaller space... compressing it and causing higher case pressures! "Recipes" for hand-loading ammo are not exact and cases vary quite a bit... lengthening with high pressure loads. The stretching of brass cases changes the capacity and you have a LOT of NON-uniformity!

A WHOLE .2 grains below MAX for a given load IS NOT a safe margin any time!

Wynn

[Bongo Boy]

A WHOLE .2 grains below MAX for a given load IS NOT a safe margin any time!

...and I'd have a hard time arguing with you, given I'm the guy with the blown up gun.

You're right--the outcome of these variables not under control could look like this possibility:



On the left, the quality of the load process you think you're running. On the right, the quality of the load process you actually have.

[wyntrout]

I don't doubt that the backplate was "defective"... a bad casting with a defect. There are forces that come to bear on the backplate, though the plastic guide rod wouldn't seem capable of passing force from the striker, there is blowback from around the striker pin hole and on occasion I've made stills from video showing flaming bits of something coming from around the slide and out the rear... which I pointed out was a good reason for wearing ballistic eye protection... as in 2mm-thick Lexan shooting glasses!

Wynn

[Bawanna]

This looks more like that DD and AA conversation going on in another thread but I agree .2 grains isn't much of a margin no matter how you look at it.

[Bongo Boy]

Thank goodness that's over with...at least for now. She's back in the saddle again..



...and I was lucky enough to process a box of handloads through it today and it did just mahva-lous.



So, to tally up the parts that have been broken and replaced, we have:

1) Slide (cracked)
2) Barrel (blowed up)
3) Extractor (MIA when we blew the barrel)
4) Mag release (broken)
5) Back plate (broken)

Should I be thinking about a different EDC?

[MikeyKahr]

Re: ...and now THIS

She sure is sweet. Trouble, yes, but she is a lady.

[Bongo Boy]

Indeed, and although I've never said this before, also the finest all-steel DAO sub-compact single-stack 40 caliber handgun ever designed and manufactured in Wor'sta.

[Ikeo74]

I hate to be the first one to say it, but I think all your troubles are due to your reloads being faulty. Something is wrong, you are getting over pressure reloads in my opinion. Maybe your powder scale if off or your are not setting your measurer correctly. I think you are still going to have more problems. The next blow out may seriously injure you. So far you have been lucky. Don't push your luck. My advice is, do not shoot any more reloads until you have another experianced reloader safety check all your equipment and verify that you are doing proper steps in your reloading. Sorry, but that's my opinion. There have been too many problems for it to be only the gun. Shoot only factory ammo until you determine what the problem is.

[wyntrout]

I'm definitely loving my polymer version... Mag-na-ported P40. I still need to upgrade the sights, though. I was going to be out after dark tonight, so I took my PowerTac Cadet along.

I keep thinking about a Glock 23C with the HD NS... orange ones this time. I want a Gen 4, though... one more mag and the adjustable backstrap. I'm thinking 13+1+13 instead of my present 6+1+7... if'n I think the added concealable firepower might be needed. My XD45 is just a CANNON!

I switched from 165-gr GD's to 180-gr GDSB's and I ordered some 180-gr Bonded Remington Golden Sabers. It's been three weeks or so since I ordered those and I hope they'll be shipping them in the next few days! I'm still hoping one of those will be less pyrotechnic with the porting. The lowest flash so far was with the Winchester 165-gr PDX1.

Wynn

[Bongo Boy]

I hate to be the first one to say it, but I think all your troubles are due to your reloads being faulty. Something is wrong, you are getting over pressure reloads in my opinion. Maybe your powder scale if off or your are not setting your measurer correctly. I think you are still going to have more problems. The next blow out may seriously injure you. So far you have been lucky. Don't push your luck. My advice is, do not shoot any more reloads until you have another experianced reloader safety check all your equipment and verify that you are doing proper steps in your reloading. Sorry, but that's my opinion. There have been too many problems for it to be only the gun. Shoot only factory ammo until you determine what the problem is.

It is AMAZING that, just last night I thought the same thing--regarding my digital scale. Specifically with another load I did for 10mm that was well under any maximum, yet it just felt like a significant load. I didn't check my scales though, just thinking this was so unlikely. Your opinion is a logical and reasonable one--it NEVER occurred to me is all this time.

Until I read your post...then I thought well, could be.

Just now I put the calibration mass on the scales and they are reading light (of course--which other way could they possibly be?), and not just a little bit. No. They're reading light by 0.038 grams.

That's 0.6 grains. Thanks...you got me off my ass to actually check and may very well have saved me from my gross stupidity.

While none of the loads I've chrono'd have shown velocities outside the expected range (for published loads), it's been at least 6 months, if not longer, since I chrono'd anything. I could have been running this way for months, and probably was.

Did I say, "Thanks!" ?

[MikeyKahr]

Re: ...and now THIS

Way to go Ikeo74! Thanks for saving Bongo Boy's life.

[Ikeo74]

Good Luck in the next loading session. I would pull everything already loaded up and check or re-do it. (unless you have hundreds made up) then you will need a plan B. I have a digital scale and a balance scale. The balance scale has never been wrong unless I set it wrong, so I check my loads on both to scales to verify my charges.
If you inadvertantly loaded 165 gr bullets instead of 135 gr bullets in some loads you will have an overcharge there too. Those you can weigh to sort out and see if any are 30 gr too heavy. Stay Safe, Ikeo74

[Bongo Boy]

Well, I'm definitely getting a backup scale for an occassional double-check. Who'd have thought you'd need to ever calibrate a $65 digital POS scale that's been running in 80F and 15F environments sitting on a workbench in a garage? Hmmm, the crap they build these days.

Lucky me, I have only a dozen rounds of 10mm ass-busters I can pull, but I think I have a box and a half of the 40SW Longshot loads still. I'll pull a random sample and share with the Kahr team here what I think they actually weigh now. I'm thinking those loads I swore up and down were .2 gr under max will now turn out to be 0.4 over--around 12.0 gr of Longshot under 135 gr bullets.

Little wonder I have a desk drawer full of broken gun parts. BIG wonder, however, that I still have 10 fingers. Arrogance and pride...not good traits in a handloader.

[wyntrout]

A good spare part to have is an extractor. Any overpressure events are likely to toss that to parts unknown. I lost 3 with 3 different pistols... all Kahr 9mm... at the range. I only found ONE... and that one was weird because I cleaned out the shooting station, got permission to walk the INDOOR range and look for the danged thing without luck. As I was packing up to leave, I saw the danged thing on the floor at my feet!! I don't know where the heck it had been, but it was okay. I did lose the front pin, though, because I shot at least once more before I realized the extractor was GONE! By that point, the spring was hanging out.

All of the 9mm extractors seem to be interchangeable. Only the P380 parts are specific to it. The .45 rear pins are a wee bit larger in diameter. The .40 and .45 extractors have marks on the extractors to identify them... 4 for .40 and two dimples for .45. I posted pictures of those.



I think that I can attribute ALL of my extractor blowouts to the weak cases on one particular brand of commercially reloaded 9mm 124-gr FMJ by Craig. The cases were "AMER C" and ruptured at the same points.

Anyhow, I carry all of the parts for extractors and their springs and pins. I stopped testing those rounds after it blew the extractor from my K9!

Wynn

[KoolBreeze]

How accurate is your calibration weight? Is it traceable to NIST?