Ugly but dependable: The Glocks

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A future article. Comments welcomed!

John

It's an exceptional individual who can design a handgun from scratch with no previous firearms experience, and in only six months. It's an exceptional individual who could then guide his design from the drawing boards to worldwide acceptance and usage in less than a decade. And when one of that man's trusted associates contracts for his murder and he defeats his attacker with his bare hands? That's exceptional also, particularly for a "senior citizen." That man was, and is, Austria's Gaston Glock. His innovative semiautomatic handguns surely qualify as modern classic handguns.

Engineer Gaston Glock founded Glock Gesellschaft GmbH in Deutsch-Wagram, near Vienna, in 1963. The company started out as a manufacturer of curtain rods. Glock moved his business into military items in the 1970s, making machine gun belts, practice hand grenades, plastic magazines, field knives and entrenching tools, primarily for the Austrian Army. Then, to his surprise, a number of firearms manufacturers asked him if he'd be willing to manufacture their pistols at his factory. Inquiring as to why, he discovered that the Austrian government was to test new pistols as possible replacements for their aging stocks of P.38s. And the pistol or pistols selected must be made in Austria! Glock set himself a challenge: design and make a pistol that could compete and win the competition. Glock himself admits that at that time, he didn't know the difference between a semiauto and a revolver. But he was smart and a quick learner. He and his design staff studied every available design extant. And in six months, they had a working prototype – the Glock 17, so named because it was his 17th patent. To make a long story short, the Austrian Army adopted the Glock 17 9mm pistol in 1982 and the Norwegian Army followed suit two years later. From those beginnings, the Glock attracted worldwide attention and employment as a police and military weapon. Today the Glock empire is worldwide, making an immense variety of pistols of similar design in many different calibers. American police, in particular, favor Glocks above all other makes. With parts made in Austria, Glock's factory in Smyrna, Georgia assembles Glock pistols for distribution in the United States.

Although little in the original Glock design is entirely new, the combination of design features produced a pistol with many advantages. The grip frame is made from a highly secret blend of polymers, offering strength, light weight, durability and flexibility. There are no guide rails in the frame, only small metal inserts that engage the slide rails. Glocks utilize the time-honored Browning cammed tilt-barrel design, with a block around the chamber serving to lock the barrel into the ejection port. A recoil spring under the barrel returns the slide to battery following recoil. Making the gun striker-fired eliminates complexity and gives a bore line close to the top of the hand, keeping muzzle flip to a minimum. There are no external controls other than a slide release and a magazine release button. Glocks utilize what the company chooses to call a "safe action." Retracting the slide and releasing it cocks the striker partially. Pulling the trigger then fully cocks the striker and releases it. There is no manual safety. There are, however, three automatic safeties. One is a blocking lever in the trigger, where the trigger must be pulled deliberately to deactivate it. There is also a drop safety and a striker block safety that deactivates only when the trigger is pulled fully to the rear. Trigger pull weight is consistent from shot to shot, and can be changed easily by substituting a single part. A loaded Glock is always ready to go simply by pulling the trigger. There's not much to remember except that. Keep your finger off the trigger and the gun is safe. Pull the trigger and the gun goes bang. If you believe in the adages that the best safety is between your ears and that simpler is better, then the Glock shines.

The barrel has polygonal rifling, giving better bore sealing, velocity and accuracy. The slide and a number of other parts are given a Tenifer finish, and then Parkerized. This gives rust resistance better than stainless steel. The surface hardness is very close to that of a diamond. The magazines, except for one model, are double stack. They feature a polymer outer body with steel inserts. Field stripping is accomplished easily in seconds. There are now quite a number of models in most popular calibers. Glock even introduced a .40 S&W pistol before Smith & Wesson, the originator of the cartridge! The pistol illustrated is a Glock 21 in .45 ACP, made in 1998. The only alterations made to it were the installation of a factory extended slide release and the substitution of metal-framed tritium night sights for the factory plastic sights. This 14-shot powerhouse is totally reliable with anything it's fed and quite accurate. One caution, though. With polygonal rifling, the factory warns not to use lead bullets. Leading will accumulate in the bore, which could result in very high pressures.

You may have wondered about the assassination attempt to which I referred earlier. It seems that one of Gaston Glock's associates, one handling the bulk of the company's finances, was embezzling large sums of money. Glock was tipped to this man's activities, and when the man found that Glock knew, he contracted for an assassin. The assassin was to bludgeon Glock to death while the associate momentarily distracted him. The thug attacked Glock, but Glock fended him off, knocking the man out with his bare fists. A man to be reckoned with in many ways, Glock saw to it that both men were immediately prosecuted. They are serving extended jail sentences following their convictions.

Gaston Glock is now in his late seventies, still vital and vigorously leading his company, which has become a powerhouse in the handgun world. A strong believer in gun rights, he went toe to toe with the Clinton administration over its efforts to bureaucratically control the gun industry with burdensome "feel good" restrictions. He will undoubtedly react similarly to any future anti-gun rights endeavors. As he's proved before, he will not cave to misguided politicians.

Glocks have been subjected to grueling tests by just about everyone. Salt water, sand, mud, freezing, and extreme heat have all been applied in attempts to stop them from functioning. But like the proverbial Timex® watches, they just keep working. Many have been fired multi-thousands of rounds without a bobble. Neither reliability nor longevity should ever be an issue to the owner. Police officers bet their lives on Glocks daily and military units worldwide also rely on them.

I admit that Glock pistols are ugly. But by gosh, they work. They go "bang" every time the trigger is pulled with no fuss and no bother. If a gun is a tool, then a Glock is one of the best ones. That makes Glocks modern classics!

(c) 2013 JLM
 
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Great article! I think you hit all the high points. FYI, the Washington State Patrol was conducting firearms tests in the mid '80s for the replacement of the venerable Model 28. Wondernines were the order of the day. I worked with two of the guys on the evaluation team, and both leaned heavily toward the Glock 17. The Beretta 92 won out, partly because nobody trusted a plastic gun and partly because they had the military contract.

4th paragraph, last sentence, you might want to change "leading to" to "resulting in higher pressures". There is an appearance of redunancy between "leading" of the barrel and "leading" to higher pressures.

Thanks for giving us a shot to review!
 
A second-generation G22 was the only autoloader I ever owned that never, ever had any kind of failure. A G19 did once, but I believe that was bad ammo.

I don't own any handguns except Smith & Wesson revolvers these days, but I liked the two Glocks I owned and found them very easy to shoot.

Another fine article, John.
 
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4th paragraph, last sentence, you might want to change "leading to" to "resulting in higher pressures". There is an appearance of redunancy between "leading" of the barrel and "leading" to higher pressures.

Thanks for giving us a shot to review!

Good point - the apparent redundancy was corrected!:D

John
 
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I don't care much for Glocks but I do respect them as a good product. They are easy and cheap to produce but instead of selling them at a very low price the manufacturer puts the money into multiple levels of quality control to insure a "lemon" rarely gets shipped. Its hard to keep continued high quality production because machinery gets worn, cutters and drill bits get dull, dies get out of spec, workers get sick, and people are simply "human" and make mistakes. Glock has a system that repeatedly checks quality and dimensions of parts and assembly to insure that a sub-standard gun is discovered and corrected before it reaches a customer. There is nothing amazing or revolutionary about the pistols design. The company has achieved the optimum balance of: a good design/customer service/marketing/quality/and parts availability for a reasonable price.
 
Really nice well written article. I used to own a second generation Glock 17 and yes it was ugly but its reliabity more than made up for its uglyness.
 
I was not aware that Glock didn't recommend lead bullets.

I have an M&P9 and it fits my hand really well. I set out to buy a Glock for a carry gun but the trigger guard rests on the knuckle of my middle finger.
 
A good article, I carry a G19 now almost every day, I switch off with a 442 and a S&W model 19.
 
Thanks John, great article. My brother is the armorer for his department and he has to go through recurrent training from Glock every so often. When they switched from 22s to 23s as their duty weapon, I was able to acquire a Model 22 at a very good price. It appears to have been administrator's weapon because it looks almost brand new with almost no wear on the feed ramp. Plus since he's been through the training several times, he gave me a Glock issued armorer's manual along with the gun. The Model 22 is too big for concealed carry so I added a light under the barrel and it sits right by my bed. Yep, it's ugly as sin but loaded with Speer Gold Dot's, it's going to ruin an intruder's day.

CW
 
Glock 21 for HD and Glock 36 for CC (when I'm not carrying my Kahr), Darned fine guns.
 
I read that because most lead bullets are larger than jacketed bullets, they can cause higher pressures. .45 ACP lead is usually .452 vs .451 for jacketed. I have also read on the Glock forum that some shoot lead anyway without problems.

I put a Wilson barrel in my 21 because most of my reloads are lead. I prefer to be cautious and it does shoot smaller groups for me.
 
interesting article i enjoyed learning a little of the backstory on gaston glock
ive only fired a glock on one occaison. at an indoor range i traded guns with guy in the lane beside me for a round, i had to lean over and ask him where the safety was .he just said "it should shoot,pull the trigger".
so i tried again and bang! the trigger was just so much heavier than i was used to, that i thought a safety must be on!
not bashing the glocks, only giving my initial impression of the one piece i tried.
ive read so much good about them, and even the worst that the glock haters have to say is that they are ugly. i think i need to try one again.
 
Shooting IPSC in the late 1980's I was a died in the wool 1911 guy. One of the local shooters had a new Glock 17 and we kidded him about it.
However, as the monthly matches went on, I saw that it never jammed, and he had 18 rounds and therefore less reloads than us 1911 guys.
I got one, shot it in some competitions, and did well with it.
I've since owned a few, and carried a Glock 19 in both Iraq and Afghanistan and never felt under-gunned.
I carried a Glock 36 in .45 ACP for a few years as a concealed carry gun here at home, but sold it and currently carry a Gen 4 Model 19.
I respect the gun highly.
 
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