Here is a rare occurrence. A KRISS Vector having an out of battery detonation.

Tyler Moore, sent me pictures of his Vector’s malfunction. Here is the brass that caused the problem.

According to Tyler on KRISSTALK.com:

Sooo, on my fifth round at the range this weekend, my vector failed to fully seat a round. This is not irregular, however, this time the thing fired! The charge blew the shell open, burning my hands. The pressure caused cracks on both sides of the lower receiver. I am dealing with Kriss now, they want me to send it in for warranty repair. The problem is with the one year warranty. What happens if this occurs again outside of the warranty? Should I ever even trust this gun again? Have any of you ever had this happen?

My Vector was purchased in 2010 and came with a lifetime warranty. Since KRISS updated their website, they changed the warranty from Lifetime to just one year. If you register your Vector on their website, the warranty is extended an additional year. This is not to be of any concern. Of the few malfunctions that people have been reporting on KRISSTALK.com, they have all been fixed by KRISS USA without issue.

If you look at the failure in the polymer housing below you can see the cracks. Tyler was lucky. This could have been worse. Just look at out of battery detonation in polymer handguns.

Here is a picture I took a while back when I removed my polymer lower housing to get it cerakoted. The lower polymer housing wraps around a steel skeleton.

It is a little bit hard to tell with the housing gone, but if you look at the steel skeleton, that empty void is where the buffer slider moves. In front of that is where the magazine would be. So other than the polymer housing, nothing else is supporting the magazine. So when the round detonated it took the path of least resistance and blew the magazine out. This is one reason why I no longer hold the Vector by the magwell. You can see Colion Noir and Jerry Miculek below. They use the magwell as a hand hold even though these shooters usually use a c-clamp grip when shooting an AR.

Just like an AR, it is not recommended to hold the weapon at the magwell in case of an out of battery detonation. You can actually control a Vector carbine by grabbing the shroud. I modified a free float and there are companies like Diamondhead USA that make a free float handguard for the Vector.

Now of course this only works with a Vector CBR. If you have a SDP or SBR this wouldnt work. You could use a vertical grip and that would be much more preferred than holding the magwell. In the case of the SDP, you cannot legally put a vertical grip on it, so I recommend using a modified AFG design. This way your hand is not wrapped around the magwell and you can control the barrel a bit more.

Back to Tyler’s Vector. You would be glad to know KRISS Arms fixed his Vector and all is good now. According to Tyler, they replaced the lower housing, hammer, and hammer spring.