Kaboom in .40 Beretta

[riddleofsteel]

I went shooting today with a friend from work. He has invited me on a hog hunt on his family's land in October so it seemed the least I could do to provide a place to sight in rifles. After a rather uneventful rifle shooting session he suggested shooting handguns. I was shooting some hot handloads in my .45 Colt 4 5/8" Blackhawk. He was shooting a Glock 23 at another target. When he came back to the shooting table I noticed he was loading the mag with soft round nose lead 180 grain .40 S&W ammo. I casually mentioned that it is generally accepted that soft lead bullets in a Glock is NOT a good idea. He shrugged off my advice and pulled out a .40 S&W Beretta. This to he loaded with the soft lead round nose ammo. I was looking at the box while he was shooting. The ammo was made by Lancer Ammo. It had Winchester brass and soft round nose lead bullets that you could dent with your finger nail. After about ten rounds I heard my friend cry out in pain. He brought me the pistol and the bar that runs between the trigger and the sear was blown almost all the way off! Only the hard rubber grips were preventing it from dropping off. The small spring that works the bar was broken and my friend's hand was powder burned. When we freed the slide It ejected a shell that was a classic Kaboom. The ENTIRE unsupported area of the shell was peeled back.
My friend seemed uninformed of what a Kaboom was and how close he had just come to injury. I gently tried to explain that this was what I was trying to tell him about soft lead bullets in his G23. However, I had no idea that the Beretta would Kaboom with this ammo. I just checked the Lancer site and they stated thier brass is "remanufactured" but I did not see them listing the kind of soft lead 180 grain .40 bullets that blew up today.
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[wis_sharpshooter]

Wow your friend is lucky, I would problay contact some one at both beretta and the ammo company to get there reaction to what happend.

[brimic]

Hi there, my first post here.


Was the pistol a Beretta 96?

I had the exact same thing happen to me with a beretta 92 a few years ago. Situation sounds exactly the same- trigger bar was blown 1/2 way out of the frame, right grip was bent back, powder burns and funny stinging feeling in my right hand, and a blast of hot gasses that hit me in the face, luckily I had eye protection on. As in your case, the brass was pealed back in the unsupported area of the extractor groove.

I was shooting remanufactured FMJ ammunition at the time, it was actually the 2 round out of the box that KB'd on me. There was nothing wrong with the pistol before that as I had fired approximately 100 through it earlier during an IDPA match- I had used factory ammunition then. I'm betting that the cause of the KB was an overcharge of powder, as the recoil and report was very substantial for a 9mm. I no longer trust remanufactured ammo and won't put any of it anywhere near one of my guns anymore.

The good news is that from my experience and probably yours as well, is that the pistol is very well engineered and protected the shooter from any serious harm. Also, I was able to put mine back together, took it to a gunsmith who checked it over and said that everything was ok. I've put at least 5000 rounds through it since without a hiccup.


As for the soft lead- I doubt that that would be the problem. I've shot hundreds of SWCs cast from W/Ws through my beretta- air cooled W/Ws are fairly soft and will scratch with a fingernail. Handguns don't produce enough velocity to cause leading with soft lead so long as its properly lubed- I regularly shoot W/W bullets in my 30-06s and 8mms between 1800-2000 fps with no leading. A bullet that is too hard and/or undersized causes much of the leadign problems. I would still heed the warnign about not shooting lead in Glocks however.