I discovered Calico is still in business. They managed to survive the hi-cap magazine ban. So I gave them a call.
While they have never heard of the exact failure mode I had, they said that with the older bolt design (which my gun has), they have seen a few rare cases of the gun firing out of battery as the bolt is closing. As Armed Canadian pointed out the bolt was damaged when the shell ruptured. For around $100 they’ll repair the bolt and upgrade it to the current design. If I ship them the whole gun they’ll clear the barrel, inspect everything, and test fire it.
The people in charge of the gun club where the accident occurred are interested in what happened, so I’m going to do a little show and tell there (any maybe give them my eyeglass lens to stick up on the bulletin board), and then I’ll probably ship the gun off to Calico.
are calico still making new weapons? at anything like reasonable prices?
Yes, They said they’re in full production of the civilian versions again. List price for the 9mm guns is somewhere around $800.
I currently have 3 Calicos.
1 carbine and 2 pistols, one of which I bought from my brother a few years ago for $100.
He also gave me an extra 50 round mag, 2 extra firing pins and a set of springs for the bolt assembly.
His also exploded while firing soon after he bought it.
It blew the mag off, and into pieces, and broke the bolt as well.
The company answer at the time was that they had a batch of bolts not heat treated properly.
They replaced the bolt with a new one, fixed the broken mag and gave him an extra as compensation for the trouble.
No troubles since with any of these weapons, and we fired thousands of rounds through them.
Have you had any experience with them multiple firing?
I have found that with anything less than 124 grain rounds, I routinely get 3 round bursts before it kicks the bolt back far enough to engage it. Kinda spooked me the first couple times but now I like it.
I avoid anything under 124 unless I actually am looking for the practice on “burst” mode.
I for one am going to buy a bunch more magazines before the Dem’s make them illegal to buy again.
Might invest in more barrels, bolts, firing pins, springs etc. as well.
I am glad I bought them years ago when I bought my pistol with an extra mag for under $375!!
Wish I had bought 10 so I could sell them at today’s prices!