Glock KaBOOM! - Follow-up

Email from Evil Bill about the unfortunate demise of his "Pelican Gun":

Pictures of the kaboom. [attached to the email]

Jerry, you said you thought you saw something fall out of the gun? It was half of the locking lug. Or at least that is what's missing!

The "earth shattering kaboom"( I like Marvin the Martian quotes) didn't even flatten the primer much. Case has no cracks, not even a blown primer. It would sure be interesting to see a slo-mo of the kaboom---I still haven't figured out how the barrel jumped forward to allow the locking lug to go up, over and behind the locking block.

As near as I can tell damages are: Barrel, slide, locking block, locking block pin. Also think it sheared a screw on the Docter sight diode mount, but I think I have a spare.

Frame, comp, trigger components, mag release, recoil spring/guide rod, all the internal slide pieces look OK. Heck---I might beat the slide back into shape and use it on a steel gun. It's only bulged an eight inch or so, and the cracks aren't too bad.

Bill

In a later email:

Jerry, Got out the magnifying glass and a good light and checked the bore on the split barrel. I can see a ring in the barrel just past the second blow hole from bullet #1. Also a chunk of bullet jacket lodged in the crack just toward the chamber from the ring. Guessing that the jacket is from bullet #2. Neither bullet stayed in the bore. Evidently one of them impacted the target I was aiming at when the kaboom occurred?
That would explain the number of holes in targets.

The most important thing is that Evil Bill was not injured by this mishap. The only physical effect he found was a small black spot on his trigger finger; I can only guess that it was caused by exhaust gases (read: powder residue) blasted downward through the trigger port of the frame.

It bears repeating that, so far, there is no evidence that the KaBOOM! was caused by a structural weakness of the ammunition, the cartridge/caliber, or of the pistol.

We searched the ground in front of the shooting position to see if we could find evidence of a squib. We were looking for a bullet or bullet fragments. There were some jacket fragments within a few feet of 'ground zero', but we couldn't determine that they were even of recent origin, let alone related to this incident.

I remain unconvinced of the 'squib' theory, but I can offer no more likely explanation.

I have loaded the pictures to Jerry the Geek's Online Shooting Gallery, you can view them here.

Other KaBOOM! Links:

The Original KaBOOM! from August, 2006.

Dean Speir on the KaBOOM! Phenomenon, The Gun Zone, Glock kB! FAQ v1.35

It's only fair to point out that, even though Evil Bill zeroed the last of six stages in this match (match results here), he ended up 11th overall out of 64 shooters, and first B-Open.

In case you are persuaded by the earlier reporting, here is what Evil Bill's Penguin Gun typically looks like when shooting a stage: