Does anyone know what grade of steel Glock uses? I know the barrel is cold hammer forged and bbl/slide are tenifer treated to Rockwell of about 63. Is the steel stainless, carbon steel, etc and what grade (ie: 4140 chrome-moly)?

Thanks in advance.

I was told by someone I consider a very reliable sourse (an engineering physists who works in the defense industry) that they use a low carbon steel as it is very easy to work. Then they harden the crap out of it to make it wear. He says this hardening process (the so called Tenifer) is difficult to control and sometimes gets carried away resulting an a very hard, brittle part. It is his belief that the reported KB problems with Glocks stem in part from these over hardened parts (primarily barrels). The problem is worse in the 40 simply because the chamber walls are thinest in this model.

I brought this up once on Glock Talk and would have been crusified if they could have gotten ahold of me. You can take it for what it's worth or start the flames. Whatever...

The metal of the barrel has little or nothing to do with kB's. Any gun can kB in certai circumstances.

The Glock with it's partially unsupported barrel in the 6 o'clock postion (to aid in feeding) is possibly more prone to a kB is the pressures is high enough.

If you shoot lead, and do not clean out the barrel properly you will raise pressure. You you shoot a really hot load you will increase pressure.

I have seen heard a few first hand accounts of kB's. One involved a 1911 type gun, the other was a Glock. The Glock was shooting major power factor 9mm rounds (done on purpose for whatever reason). The gun kB'ed twice. The shooters top web of his hand had a deep tissue bruise. The gun after 2 kB's was fine.

For those that don't know in IPSC pistol competition shooters strive to make their reloads make "major power factor". Which is bullet weight x feet per second/1000. Major power factor is 165. It can be done in the 9mm for the the compensated open division guns. This particular gun that kB'ed was not a open gun, but a regular glock 34 with no compensator. It did have a fully supported aftermarket barrel (barstow). Just goes to show that the partially unsupported barrel is a factor, but not the only factor in a kB.