THE GLOCK LINE -------------- by Sgt. Chris Pollack Reprinted from "Police Magazine" Most of the new wave of auto pistols that have proven so popular for police work the past decade are not really new. The double-action trigger and slide-mounted decocking and safety lever were popularized by Walther in 1935. Smith and Wesson adapted the design to its first 9mm pistol in the early 1950s in response to the U.S. government's initial effort to replace the 1911 .45ACP. When the Army's plan to change to a 9mm fell through, S&W marketed the gun to the public as the Model 39. Three model generations later, the heritage of S&W's auto pistols is still obvious. Beretta has built pistols on the same basic open slide design for more than 50 years. The addition of a double-action trigger and Walther-style decocking lever produced the Model 92. The one new pistol in the past decade was so radically different in design and construction that it met with significant resistance from the very group that now so enthusiastically embraces it. When gun control advocates tried to stop importation of the Glock, falsely claiming it was a "terrorist" weapon undetectable by x-ray and airport security magnetometers, the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of Police Organizations and other police groups lobbied strongly for the legislation. The "Washington Post" called the Glock a gun only a terrorist could love. Fortunately, saner minds prevailed. Within the year, the Washington Metropolitan Police Department transitioned all their officers to the Glock pistol. Today, about 25 percent of Glock's domestic sales is to police agencies. (Glock also has about 40 percent of the lucrative American law-enforcement market - Ed.) Probably the biggest reason for the Glock pistol's advanced technology is that Austrian engineer and businessman Gaston Glock knew little about guns and a lot about plastics and manufacturing. He hired people who knew firearms design and set about, unhampered by conventional design limitations, to build a new gun. His second prototype was adopted by the Austrian army and is essentially the same gun sold today as the 9mm Glock Model 17. The frame or receiver of the Glock pistol is polymer (Glock prefers that word over plastic). On traditional auto pistol designs, the slide rides on rails that are machined as part of the frame. On the Glock those rails are two opposing pairs of carbide steel inserts that are permanently put into place during the polymer injection molding process. The steel slide does not contact the frame but rides on the carbide inserts. American buyers, including police, were initially suspicious of the durability of the polymer, expecting it to warp like a phonograph record in the sun. It does not. The Glock will function in temperatures from minus 40 to 392 degrees F. Like the venerable police revolver, the Glock has no safety or decocking lever to manipulate when firing. Police agencies adopting the Glock have viewed this as a plus since the transition training for officers accustomed to revolvers is simplified. Despite the absence of a lever to manipulate, the Glock pistol has three safeties. The trigger safety is a small lever protruding from the face of the trigger which must be depressed before the trigger will fire the gun. This is accomplished, without thought or effort, by the trigger finger in the normal firing position, but it ensures that the gun will not fire by incidental pressure on the trigger. The trigger finger must be in a firing position to cause a discharge. There are two more internal safeties. The firing-pin safety blocks the firing pin from moving forward unless the trigger is pulled completely to the rear. The drop safety prevents firing pin movement if the gun is dropped. Although generally categorized as a double-action pistol, the Glock is technically not. When the slide is operated manually or by firing the gun, the firing pin is partially held back by the sear. Pulling the trigger retracts the firing pin the rest of the way before the sear releases it to fire the round. One advantage of this system is that the trigger pull is absolutely consistent from shot to shot. Traditional double-action designs have a 12-pound, long pull for the first shot and a short four-pound pull for subsequent shots until the gun is uncocked. Other manufacturers have recently solved this problem of two distinctly different trigger pulls by offering double-action only (sometimes called trigger-action) pistols. The result is that every shot requires a long 12-pound pull. The Glock, on the other hand, originally came with a five-pound trigger pull. In response to police department requests, Glock also offers an eight-pound trigger. The New York State Police wanted to adopt the Glock, but they wanted a trigger that was more like the revolvers they carried. Glock introduced a new trigger spring that offered more constant resistance similar to the revolver. Called the New York trigger spring, when coupled with the five-pound sear, it offers an eight-pound trigger that feels more like the traditional revolver trigger pull. An additional benefit is that the trigger needs less travel to discharge the gun, so the distance from the back of the frame to the trigger face is no less than on double-action guns. Also, because the grip checkering is modeled into the frame during the manufacturing process, there are no separate grip panels to increase the girth of the gun. These two factors make a gun that better fits the average hand. People with small hands are able to get a more secure and consistent grip on the Glock than on other pistols with similar large magazine capacity. Depending on ammunition, Glock pistols will produce accuracy that ranges from acceptable (three inches at 25 yards) to outstanding. My Glock 21 turns in five-shot, hand-held groups under two inches at 25 yards with 200-grain .45ACP load produced by Black Hills Ammunition. The intrinsic accuracy of the guns is a product of the design and precise manufacturing tolerances. The practical accuracy, what the shooter is capable of doing with the gun, is enhanced by the design. For example, in addition to the grip size and trigger pull, the axis of the bore is lower and closer to the shooter's hand, in part because there is no external hammer. The recoiling slide has less leverage working against the hand during recoil, thereby allowing the shooter to dominate recoil and re-acquire his sight picture for a faster second shot. Another advantage touted by the manufacturer is that the police armorer's job is greatly simplified, requiring only that he identify the malfunctioning part and replace it with a new one. Parts drop in and require no fitting. The Glock armorer's tool kit is a pin punch; a nail will suffice if the punch is not available. A sight adjustment tool for moving the fixed sights is also available. The optional adjustable sight is a little fragile for a duty gun. Three-dot night sights are another option. The Glock has only 33 parts, the fewest by a wide margin of any of the popular police auto-pistols. The Glock police armorer's course takes one day, although that may increase to two days to allow range time. Other firearms manufacturers courses run from three days to one week. At one Glock school I attended, students disassembled guns in the classroom, exchanged parts and re-assembled the guns that were then taken to the firing range. All worked flawlessly. Glock pistols routinely pass 10,000-round tests, and individual guns have functioned for literally hundreds of thousands of rounds with only minor parts replacement. The durability of the polymer frame is matched by Glock's proprietary metal finish called Tenifer. It is so corrosion and abrasion resistant that it will actually abrade hardened steel. Glock armorer instructors routinely use the slide to file down the point of a punch to prove Tenifer's strength. While test firing the full-auto Glock 18 pistol, when it got too hot to hold, we would run it under the faucet to cool it off, then return to firing. Although this has been done hundreds of times, there was no corrosion. I have never seen a Glock rust. The Glock pistol began with the Austrian army's quest for a new service pistol, and has grown, in response primarily to the American market, to the point that a listing of the various models is helpful. The Glock 17 is a full-sized 9mm pistol with a 4.5-inch barrel and 17-round magazine. The model number and magazine capacity are only coincidental. Gaston Glock numbered his products in the order of their development. His first pistol just happened to be product number 17. The 17L is a long-slide version of the 17 with a six-inch barrel designed for competition. Seldom encountered in the U.S., the Glock 18 is a full-auto, selective-fire version of the 17 with a slightly longer barrel. Developed for Austrian anti-terrorist units who wanted a concealable machine pistol, it has a selector switch for semi- or full-auto on the left rear of the slide where it is easily manipulated by the thumb. With a cyclic rate of about 1100 rounds per minute, it is a fistful of firepower for the expert only, and it is available only to police agencies. Individual sales are prohibited by federal regulation. The 9mm Glock 19 is a slightly smaller version of the Model 17. With a four-inch barrel and a grip shortened by a quarter of an inch, the 19 was designed for the American police market to fulfill the concept of one gun for uniform and plainclothes. It does not fit very small hands any better than the larger gun because the grip diameter and trigger reach are the same. When it became apparent that the FBI was going to adopt a 10mm pistol, Glock determined that it would get in on the trend. Although it was also obvious that S&W was going to get the FBI contract, Glock aimed for the rest of the market with the Model 20. The Bureau specifically excluded Glock from consideration by writing bid requests that required an external decocking lever. Glock faced a similar problem with the U.S. Army's Joint Service Pistol Project specification that the gun had to be capable of delivering a second firing pin blow to the primer by simply pulling the trigger a second time, a facility of questionable value, but it effectively eliminated the Glock and assured the government of a traditional, 50-year-old design. The Glock 20 is a larger gun and a quarter-pound heavier than the 9mm's. Although there is a similarity, it does not feel exactly the same as the 9mm gun in your hand. Despite the Bureau's adoption of the 10mm, not too many police departments have been inclined to follow. For the agency or individual wanting a gun designed to handle the full power 10mm, though, the Glock 20 is a good choice. Gaston Glock resisted the pleas of .45ACP fans to build a .45. He probably would not have relented if it had not been for the 10mm. Once he had a prototype capable of handling the higher pressures of the 10mm, there was no reason not to chamber the same gun in .45. Ironically, the Model 21 .45ACP will probably outsell the 10mm. It is the first gun that would tempt a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the Colt auto to give up his 1911. The trigger pull is clean and consistent, magazine capacity is 13 rounds, and accuracy is excellent. It generates enthusiasm among people who are not the least impressed by the latest "wondernine" and who refer to double-action autos as "crunchentickers." When Smith & Wesson announced the .40 S&W cartridge two years ago, the marketability of the concept was apparent to Glock. The FBI specified a 10mm cartridge loaded down to a velocity of 950 feet per second with a 180-grain bullet. The significance of the sub-sonic load was that it could be made in a shorter cartridge with lower pressures than the full-power 10mm, and it could be chambered in a 9mm-size gun. Development of the Models 20 and 21 was temporarily shelved in favor of the .40 S&W caliber guns. Police agencies who already knew and liked the Glock design in 9mm lined up to get the new models in .40 caliber even before they were available. Although the 9mm is the biggest seller, the .40 S&W is a popular alternative. The Glock 22 is the .44 caliber gun with critical exterior dimensions identical to the Glock 17 9mm. The Glock 23 is a .40 caliber gun the same size as the Model 19. Glock has sold more than 300,000 pistols, a great many of them to individual officers and police departments. Development of new products promises to be of continued interest to police. In the future, look for a carbine firing pistol ammo and utilizing Glock pistol magazines as a companion long arm for agencies already using Glock pistols. A truly compact and concealable .380 safe-action pistol would make a good back-up gun for law enforcement. Also look for at least some production to be done in the United States. For more info or a free Glock brochure, contact your local dealer, or write or call Glock, Inc. Glock, Inc. P.O. Box 369 Smyrna, GA 30081 Phone: (404) 432-1202 Fax: (404) 433-8719 Telex: 543353 Glock Atl UD