I'm not saying they can't have a catastrophic failure, they just don't blow apart like that. All the guns I've seen that have failed like that have, at the most, a split barrel /chamber and some bulges in a few areas. The problem the Army was having that led to the "exploding Beretta" myth were with American license and French built slides which didn't have the same grade metal as the original Italian models, and so a few during testing snapped at the locking lugs. The entirety of the slide didn't fly off and come apart from the barrel assembly like in S&Ws fictional KB, but, from the locking lugs back, the slide just broke off. If you really think about it, the entire slide couldn't come back and off the gun (especially while letting the barrel escape and fall forward or in any other direction) because the slide is still attached to the barrel which is still linked into the frame by the takedown lever. Short of a simultaneous rail and takedown lever failure, the slide won't come off like that, and even if it does, the barrel will still be in the slide.
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