The Truth about Glocks and Cast

[FergusonTO35]

Unless you have steel filings in your lube I wouldn't worry about anything scratching the bore.

[Tom W.]

Scratches add character......

[FergusonTO35]

I thought I would add an update to my Glock 19 shooting high. I bought a .215 high front sight from Hi Viz for it, the original is .165. The Hi Viz sight is steel and has interchangeable florescent light tubes, it was only $27.00 with free shipping from a vendor on Fleabay. This front sight finally got my 19 shooting dead on at 10 yards. I have the Glock adjustable rear sight, the correct elevation is four clicks up. I may eventually get a .200 tritium sight from Ameriglo for it which would match the size of the rear notch better and require less elevation. Still, this sight works great and is very easy to see. Replacement light tubes are only $2.00 or so, they light up surprisingly well as long as there is any kind of light in the area. Great product, I would recommend it to anyone.

[GONRA]

GONRA sez - We CANNOT get every bit of "sand" or "grit" out of the scrap lead we use,
no matter how carefully we flux, etc.

Pretty sure that bores of ultra shiney hammer forged barrels are SO SHINEY
that the smallest grit particle shows up big time.

[deerhunter1]

Well I am a new glock cast boolit shooter.

Went today and picked up some Hs6 powder and some primers. I already had purchased Lee dies and boolit mold.

For starters I loaded up some xtreme plates bullets for my first .40 S&W reloads. I shot 2 magazines full then moved on to the cast boolits. I loaded up 2 to start with, shot them then inspected for leading. Nothing, nada, clean! I then loaded a mags worth and fired it. I then disassembled the gun again and pushed a dry patch through only to find ....a clean barrel.

Pistol is a Glock 23 gen 3
Boolit is a 175 grain tc lee water dropped Ww
HS6 powder
And a happy shooter.


I have a ar500 target that will be here Monday that will get a bit of leading.

[FergusonTO35]

Sweet! What are you sizing them to and what lube?

[deerhunter1]

I am sizing to.402 and I am using LBT Blue for lube.

[FergusonTO35]

Thought I would let everyone know, the Glock OEM steel front sight works great on the 42. I put this sight on my pistol and immediately noticed a better sight picture, the larger dot really jumps out at you and fits the blocky rear notch better. On the range with factory FMJ and the Lee 356-102-2R she is dead on at 5 yards, about 1" high at 10 yards which I think is ideal. Love this pistol, might just have to get another one since the only thing better than a Glock 42 is two of them!!

[trebor44]

Many years ago when I bought my first Glock I heard all of the horror tales about Glocks and lead bullets. I found that low powered lead loads were not an issue if you cleaned your barrel and did not shoot jacketed before cleaning. Cast or commercial will not be an issue if you clean. Powder dictates what your groups are and at what distance. Yeah I have adjustable sights because I use three different barrels in my G23. But if you shoot only caliber and one type of bullet, as you all know the sights can be tuned to your preference. As an aside I had some awesome keyholes from commercial jacketed reloads. So I don't hesitate to shoot my own casts.

[FergusonTO35]

I use the Glock OEM adjustable sight on my 19. The Storm Lake barrel requires two clicks up in elevation compared to OEM.

[FergusonTO35]

I thought it would take this opportunity to make an important public service announcement:

[Jake70]

i thought it would take this opportunity to make an important public service announcement:

lmao! :d

[FergusonTO35]

Still carrying and thoroughly enjoying my Glock 42. I can't get over just what a great pistol this is. My Ruger LCP is nice but still just doesn't compare. I carry the Elsie when the situation requires something even smaller than the 42. If Glock ever makes an LCP size pistol I will buy it.

[Jon.Moore]

My 2 cents: Because I'm sure Glock can not assume that all cast bullets and swagged lead-- made by any and all bullet makers would be the same hardness-- they probably decided to go the safe route and say "no cast bullets" in any Glock! I started out shooting swagged bullets in my 357mag,, leaded the barrel terrible with a med load. The squished lead bullets were dead soft! Now my hard casties do not lead, yes I also shoot a Glock 17, no problems.. just my 2 cents...

[Walks]

I bought my first GLOCK, A 17 in 1988. In the 5 yrs I owned it I NEVER fired a single jacketed bullet in it. Only shot 1 load in it.
LYMAN 356402 sized .356 over 4.4 grs of BULLSEYE. Bullet weighs 118 grs cast of LINOTYPE. Cleaned it with HOPPES #9 and
10 passes of a bronze brush. Never any leading. Accuracy was 2-3 inches at 25yds. But damn that thing threw cases 25ft past
my right shoulder. If I shot it left-handed the cases hit my hat on the way by.

Bought a 23 when they came out about 1992, along with the only ammo available; 6 boxes FEDERAL 180 gr LEAD. Fired 2 boxes without a malfunction. When I got home I cleaned as normal. Checked the bbl for lead residue, MY GOD what a shock. No bright shiny bore here.
Nothing but grey lead. Used a LEWIS lead remover .38 with 2 patches to get the lead out. Those 4 remaining boxes of FED lead waited over 20+ years until I got a LONE WOLF bbl. Cast up some LYMAN 40143 out of LINOTYPE, weight 171 grs. Tried 5.6 grs of UNIQUE.
Shot FAN-FRICKIN-TASTIC. 1st 5 rounds into one hole! Next five opened it up to 3 inches. Maintained accuracy of 2.5-3 inched ever since.
When RCBS brought out their 40-180-FN I switched over to that.

That LONE WOLF bbl has fixed the GLOCK SMILE PROBLEM too.

Just got my 1st LEE mold, A #401-175-TC. Looking forward to cooler/casting weather to give it a try.

When I got my Model 21 a year later, I ran nothing but LINOTYPE 230rn & 200longnose SWC.
Never a problem. Got a LONE WOLF bbl for that too.

[FergusonTO35]

My understanding is that the generation 1 and 2 Glock barrels were loose as a goose for reliability. They started tightening them up with generation 3. All my Glocks are generation 4 and they have as much case support as anything else I've seen. They shoot boolits just fine with the factory barrels as long as they are fat enough and have good lube, 'specially the 42. I do have Storm Lake tubes for the 19 and 26. They are not as sensitive to boolit diameter and very accurate, I think the 1:16 twist is best for boolits in 9mm.

[FergusonTO35]

Still shooting and carrying the Glock 42, it has to be my favorite carry pistol by far. The 42 is the only handgun I have ever owned that I can shoot really well without even trying. Just pull it out of the holster, put the big dot a little below what I want to hit, and have at it. I can actually shoot it better than my 26 and 19 or a single action revolver. As odd as it sounds, the super stiff trigger pull actually helps my accuracy. My fine motor skills are really poor and when shooting any gun with a light trigger I always pull shots one way or another. I think that the hard trigger causes me to use my gross motor skills to fire this pistol, the increased trigger pull effort goes into pressing the trigger rather than pulling the shot one way or another. I notice a similar effect with my Marlin lever actions.

[FergusonTO35]

I recently got a Fobus GL42ND holster for my 42 and have to say it is the most comfortable one I have ever tried. I try to buy USA holsters whenever possible but there just aren't very many for the 42. I tried the basic Blackhawk and found it uncomfortable. This Fobus is also not at all bulky unlike others I have tried.

[Patricklaw]

So as I’ve read this thread through the years, I’ve been pretty convinced that the stern warnings from Glock on the use of cast boolits in their guns were just a sign of great caution on the part of their legal team. After this weekend, I will tell you that if you get all the conditions right, you can, in fact, have a KB with cast boolits.

I was shooting a Gen 3, G22 that I purchase as one of a pair about four years ago. They were veterans of the local sheriff’s department. I gave one to my son and kept the other. Over the past couple years, my normal load has become this:

Lee TL401-175-SWC, usually COWW and PC’D with some combination of HF or Smoke’s powder atop 4.2 grains of Winchester AA Lite, ignited by a small pistol primer, CCI, Winchester or S&B. My log does not show that I chronoed it but about a year back I raised it from 4.0 to 4.2 when we notice that it was pretty tame compared to the factory ammo that a friend was shooting when we were together. This load leaves the barrel spotless, shoots well, and looks good.

Saturday, I was at the range with a bag of a different load. The boollet is a 180 grain cone, not TC. Not PC’s and some kind of traditional lube. I didn’t make them and don’t remember the exact diameter from when I loaded them a year ago last February. These were loaded before I increased the charge so, 4.0 grains, with a CCI 500 in pick up brass. I had a note in my log that these leaded pretty badly and I’d made a mental note not to shoot them in my Glocks but I had them with me so I loaded up. (I was going to save them for my P-16 40. They lead it up also but it hasn’t been much of a problem. )

I’m sure someone will ask about the choice of powder i.e. Winchester AA Lite. You’ll recall that we’ve had several waves of politically driven shortages over the past four or five or eight years. I encountered a deal on 12 pounds and since it was all I could get my hands on and it was only slightly faster than BE, but slower than Norma R1 at the top of the chart, I set about developing loads for my handguns.

Back to Saturday, I loaded up a couple mags and walked out to the line. I started knocking the plates back and forth on our dueling tree, switched to the second mag and about half way through I notice a sharp report with more recoil on that round. About a millisecond later I felt a searing pain in my right hand just behind the index (trigger) finger. I dropped the gun and grabbed my hand but outside of some black marks, it was undamaged. When I picked up the gun the extractor was gone, the back of the case was completely blown out and gone, and the magazine was intact though I can’t remember if it dropped or I dropped it. The barrel was terribly leaded. I hope the pictures help show what I’ve explain above.

We looked it over closely on the range. One of the guys is a department of corrections armorer and he’d have fixed it but the parts kit we had was Gen4 and missing the extractor. I brought it home and found I had an extractor. It looks like that was the only damage. There was a lot of lead in the barrel and last night when I cleaned it, I left it nice and wet so I could scrub it again this evening. I’ll save the final determination until the next range trip but it looks like I’ve escaped this one with just the extractor replacement.

Thoughts?

[FergusonTO35]

Hmm, that barrel looks pretty caked up but I gotta ask, is a double charge a possibility? Alot of folks say the .40 already suffers from pressure spikes, and your ammo used a very fast powder and boolits that were leading the bore pretty badly. The same thing could have happened if you were shooting a gun with regular rifling. There are certainly many instances of factory ammo kabooms in Glock .40's.