You never said... How's your friends hand ?
Sure didn't like hearing this. The G32 is what I carry and shoot often.
You could be on to something about firing out of battery. I know that the crimp die in the Lee (3) die set puts pressure downward as it crimps and if a case just a few thousandths longer then the rest slips in, it will buckle the shoulder just enough that it won't chamber fully. Initially, I would find this a few times out of every 100 I would load. Going to the Lee factory crimp die using the collet type crimp, totally eliminated this possibility.
Going to answer both you and a couple other questions here.
Hand was stinging and numb for a while.
I've seen cases that have failed due to unsupported chamber/hot load but that wasn't at all what this looked like. A significant portion of the case was bulged outward approximately 1/16th of an inch with a clear even ring at the top of the bulge showing where the chamber had stopped the expansion. The only place the ring is interrupted is where the case failed at the unsupported portion.
This could be at least partially due to the ammo if that is what caused it to remain out of battery and/or if a more sensitive primer was used which would go off with a light OOB strike. That said, I'm still a bit queasy if the gun really did fire that far from being locked up.
I've been told that willingness to fire out of battery which was a problem some of the earlier generations of glocks reportedly had which led to some of glock's "manufacturer's upgrades". That said, I don't really know.
I'll get in touch with the owner and see if he can email me some pics.
Best,
Joe
ETA: the bulge/failure of the case looks almost exactly like the one on the upper right of this page:
The Gun Zone -- Glock 19 kB!
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