Reload gone wrong? Glock destroyed, deforming hand injury

[Bang]

I do not use a powder measure, although I have one. For pistol, I use a dipper made of a brass case with a copper wire soldered to it, marked to identify the load.

Dipped and bump--settled, accuracy is +/- .1 I do a ten percent check on the dipped accuracy on a balance beam to verify.

The brass stands in one holding tray, and gets transferred to another tray after charged. The funnel is on the case to be charged, case is charged, funnel is moved to the next empty case, charged case is moved to the other holding tray, establishing and maintaining a visual check on the progress. Final inspection before bullet seating is also accomplished by eyeball.
More to avoid a squib load than a doubled charge, but that too.

When I was young and had the usual distractions, reloading was done in a space away from the house activities. These days it's just me and the wife, she in the living room and me in my "den". The den is where case prep, hand-priming and powder charging occurs. Out in the shop is where press stages happen.

Rifle cartridges are all weighed by balance scale...cases sorted by weight, powder weighed to exact as possible with a pointer/graduated scale system. Transfer from one (empties) holding tray to (charged cases) holding tray same as for pistol.

I knew a couple of guys who loaded "hot". I have never seen the need to put the strain on the gun, and hot usually equates to loss of accuracy.

Sitting here rambling and converting rambling to a post. Felt the need, to say reloading/hand loading is not dangerous. it is a not a random "something could go wrong" activity. It isn't rocket science that can fail from a bird strike.

[frankski]

I feel safer shooting my own reloads (as I did this morning with some moderately heavy .357s) than driving on I95 with morons drifting from lane to lane while texting. In the first situation, I manage the risks and am self reliant. In the latter, I'm vulnerable to stupid people.

[Daycrawler]

Hopefully, it's because you're in some sort of emergency services field and not a serial body snatcher.

You Sir are correct!

[streaker69]

You Sir are correct!

You're a serial body snatcher?

[glc]

That only makes sense if you make your own guns too, so you don't have to worry about a manufacturing defect from a factory made gun.

......or a factory squib load. They happen too.

[MT1]

Maybe someone has already mentioned this, I didn't read every post since yesterday. The entire upper assembly (barrel, slide, ejection port...) all looks to be intact. If this was a double charge I'd expect those areas to be severely damaged. Once a round goes into battery and a double powder charge is initiated, the muzzle or entire barrel usually split because the force of the combustion cannot escape fast enough. The focal point of the damage looks like it was from the backstrap all the way to the trigger guard. This places the point of failure too low for a squib or double charge.

If you ask me based on the injury and pistol damage it looks like the pistol and hand were shot by a second shooter, maybe a rifle. If the failure was internal to the Glock, that thing was loaded with more than just pistol ammo. If this is the case it looks like it was booby trapped with an IED or something other than smokeless powder was loaded in the cases. I've seen more than my fair share of ammo cook off in IED blasts and typical pistol ammo has a very low explosive level. You can get hit by a 9mm round during a cook off, provided it is not in a barrel allowing pressure build up, and the round won't even break skin.

Bottom line.... I'm calling bullshit on the story.

[Yoder]

I had a squib once with my Glock 17. Bullet was stuck halfway down the barrel. I didn't realize it and fired another round behind it. It broke the spring on the slide release and bulged the barrel. That's it. I think this was a double charge. I load on a progressive with a powder cop die. I also have a light mounted on the press and I look in each case. Holy shit that guy's hand was bad.

[streaker69]

Could this have been a squib followed by a double charge? If he was reloading, maybe something happened that one load missed it's charge, and that charge went into the next round.

[RockIsland]

Could this have been a squib followed by a double charge? If he was reloading, maybe something happened that one load missed it's charge, and that charge went into the next round.

If you didn't waste your time doing other things instead of reloading, you would already know the answer to this.

[frankski]

Maybe he was lighting farts?