I work at a range here in the Dallas area.  This past Sat (18 Mar), a customer was shooting his W99 in .40S&W.  He had fired several rounds and was shooting a few rounds weak (left) handed when it went k-boom.  We didn't hear anything out of the ordinary in the shop off the range and only knew it happened when he and several other shooters brought the pistol to the counter, along with two pieces of the upper right grip section, the rear portion of the extractor and the complete rear part of the case.  The rest of the case was still lodged in the chamber. This was Winchester factory ammo which he brought (not ours) and not reloads. The shooter was uninjured, but had he been shooting it with his right hand, he probably would have had some serious hand injuries.

Most of us that work here have many, many years experience (I have well over 50 years) and had not seen a k-boom involving a polymer frame.  We average about 2500 NEW shooters a year that use our range and have many members and returning customers, so we do see a lot of shooters and guns.

We advised the customer to 1) not do anything to the pistol (work the slide, take that case out of the chamber, etc.) just leave it as it was, 2) take lots of pictures, including close ups, from every angle of the pistol and ammunition with a digital camera 3) inlcude a card in every photo (as best could be done) which displayed the date, time, Model number, serial number and ammo lot number, 4) to call Winchester (Olin) 5) to call S&W (the US importer/support center for Walther products) and 5) to follow up the calls with e-mail and/or snail mail with a CD containing the photos.

This was NOT a matter of an unsupported section of the case blowing out.  The entire rim section of the case came off cleanly.  

Anyone else have a problem with their W99 or is this another event that adds to the issue of k-booms involving the .40S&W?

I seriously think it's Winchester...

Do you mean P99? Or was it a Smith&Wesson SW99?

I own a Walther P99 .40 myself.  So that doesn't sit the best with me, but then again that's the first time I've heard of a Walther going kablewy!

Sounds like an overcharged load.  I hope he wasn't harmed.

.

Do you think that the glock problem and this problem are both related to the ammo? Winchester may be overloading there powder charges....

Sorry, Had my tongue over my eye tooth and could see what I was typing. Yes, it was a Walther P99.  All I can do is repeat that it was Winchester (Olin) White Box (WalMart?) ammo. I did not check the ammo box, but since they were just practicing, it was probably the 180 gr load, but I am not sure.

We only made visual inspection of the pistol and made no effort to disassemble or otherwise dissect it lest we corrupt the "post mortem" that either Winchester and/or Walther (S&W) may want to do.

I guess it can happen to anyone.

Wow.

All this KaB00M stories make me leery of my Glock.  I guess I need to stick with steel pistols.

Quoted: Wow. All this KaB00M stories make me leery of my Glock.  I guess I need to stick with steel pistols.

You may have not noticed, but I said that this was the first polymer frame k-boom I have seen.  Since we opened our range in 1985, I have seen all kinds of steel and other alloy frames experience k-booms and some of them were on VERY expensive custom IPSC pistols.  With few exceptions, all were total losses.  Some parts (barrel, mag release, grip safety, etc.) were useable, but the frames were toast.

There are NO k-boom proof pistols (or revolvers).

I have a clear recollection of reading a similar post the last week or two where a semi-auto handgun round failed in an identical fashion – namely the entire head failing.

IIRC, this didn’t involve a ka-boom.  The shooter noticed the problem when he couldn’t chamber another round since a part of the original round was still in the chamber.

And I’m fairly certain that it was Winchester ammo.

I probably saw it at either Glocktalk.com or Sigforum.com.

To my infinite irritation, that’s about all I can remember.  

I have absolutely no recollection of caliber or the semi involved (though don’t think it was a Walther).

I know – this is pretty useless post on my part!!  

Maybe it’ll come to me.