the late 1980s, the 17L with 6-inch barrel. This gun had a light 3.5-pound trigger pull, a pound and a half lighter than the standard gun. Other trigger options were also made available. New York State Police said they’d adopt the gun, but only if Glock made it with a heavier trigger. Thus was born the New York Trigger, which brought the pull weight up to roughly 8 pounds. NYSP adopted the Glock 17 so equipped, and their troopers carry it to this day.
1990 was a pivotal year for Glock. They announced their big-frame model, the Glock 20 in 10mm, the caliber expected to sweep law enforcement after the FBI’s recent announcement of adopting the S&W Model 1076 in that caliber. The gun was quickly adapted to .45 ACP. In January of that same year at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, Smith & Wesson and Winchester jointly announced the development of the .40 S&W cartridge. Gaston Glock returned home with ammo samples and very quickly the standard Glock was reinforced to handle the more powerful cartridge with its faster slide velocity. Within the year, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division had adopted the full size Glock 22 in that caliber and proven it on the street, and others were ordering the compact Glock 23.
Different magazines add to the Glock’s versatility. Left, a short-bottom nine round magazine for maximum concealment; right, 10-round mag with little finger placement support. Both are for the Glock 30 .45 auto.
In 1993, after a gunman with a 9mm murdered a young NYC cop while he was reloading his mandated six-shot revolver, the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association at last prevailed over management and NYPD reluctantly went to the auto. All new recruits would have to purchase a 9mm instead of a .38, and in-service officers could buy one if they wanted. NYPD had always required their personnel to buy their own guns. Three double-action-only 16-shooters were authorized: the SIG P226 DAO, the S&W Model 5946, and the Glock 19. The Glock was by far the lightest and most compact for off duty and plainclothes carry, and by far the least expensive; it became first choice by such an overwhelming margin that many observers around the country thought NYPD had standardized on the Glock.
In the mid-1990s, the company found another huge success with their baby Glocks. The size of snubby .38s with twice the firepower and more controllability, the babies shot as well as the big ones. They were dubbed G26 in 9mm and G27 in .40 caliber. Slightly larger compacts were offered in 10mm Auto and .45 Auto, the Glocks 29 and 30 respectively. When a groundswell of popularity emerged in police circles for the powerful and accurate .357 SIG cartridge, Glock offered that chambering through the line as Model 31 (full size), Model 32 (compact) and Model 33 (subcompact).
The company didn’t stop there. Integral recoil reduction ports were offered, creating a factory compensated gun in either compact or full size. These kept the same model numbers as the base guns, but with the suffix “C”. The firm also introduced the “Tactical/Practical” series. Midway in length between full size and long-slide, they were exactly the length of the old Colt Government Model. This suited the .40 caliber G35 well for the Production class in IPSC shooting (where that caliber barely “made major”), and the 9mm G34 perfectly for Stock Service Pistol class in IDPA, where Dave Sevigny has used one to win repeated national championships. A number of departments from Nashua, NH to Kerrville, TX have made the Glock 35 the standard issue duty pistol, usually with a retrofit of a New York trigger.
By the turn of the 21st century, the Glock pistol dominated the American law enforcement market to the tune of roughly 65 percent.
Top, the Glock 27 holds 10 rounds of .40 S&W ammo; bottom, NAA Guardian holds 7 rounds of .380 ACP. Which would you choose?
Modifying the Glock
The pistol comes from the factory with what the company calls a “standard” trigger, which uses an S-shaped spring to connect the trigger to the unique cruciform sear plate. (The “Tactical/Practical” comes with a 3.5-pound trigger, like the long-slide 9mm 17L and .40 G24 models.) Supposedly delivering 5 pounds of pull, the standard trigger generally weighs out to about 5.5 pounds. Most civilian shooters leave it as is, as do many police departments including Washington, D.C. Metro, the Illinois State Police, and the FBI.
Many, including this writer, have followed the lead of the NYSP and gone with the original weight New York Trigger, now known as the NY-1. The intention of this design was to mitigate accidental discharges caused by human error. There is some three-eighths of an inch of travel from when the Glock trigger is at rest and ready to when it reaches its rearmost point and discharges the pistol. On the standard set-up, it feels like a Mauser military rifle trigger with a long, light take-up and then about a tenth of an inch of firm resistance before the shot is fired. When human beings are in danger, their inborn survival mechanism triggers a number of physiological changes, one of which is vasoconstriction. That is, blood flow is shunted away from the extremities and into the body’s core and the major muscle groups. This is why frightened Caucasians are seen to turn ghostly pale, and it is why frightened people become clumsy and lose tactile sensation in their fingers under stress. In such a situation, it is feared that if the finger has erroneously strayed to the trigger prematurely, the shooter won’t be able to feel it taking up trigger slack until too late.
The advantage of the NY-1 trigger is that it offers a very firm resistance to the trigger finger from the very beginning of the pull, a resistance so strong it probably will be palpable to the shooter even in a vasoconstricted state. This means a lot more than merely 3 pounds additional pull weight. (The NY-1 increases the pull to a nominal 8 pounds, which usually measures out to more like 7.75 pounds.) This, plus excellent training, allows NYSP and other departments to have an excellent safety record with these guns.
New York City Police Department initially put some 600 Glocks in the field among specially assigned personnel, ranging from Homicide detectives to the Missing Persons unit. These first guns had the standard 5-pound triggers, and after a spate of accidental discharges, the Firearms Training Unit mandated an even heavier trigger than the State Police had. Thus was born the NY-2 trigger module, also called the New York Plus. This brought the pull up to a stated 12 pounds, which usually measures about 11.5 pounds on a well broken-in Glock.
This writer personally thinks the NY-2 passes the point of diminishing returns by making the trigger harder to control in rapid fire. Like many, I actually shoot better with the NY-1 at 8 pounds than with the standard pull.
The reason is that the different design gives a cleaner “trigger break” as the shot goes off, and the heavier spring better resists “backlash.”
Finally, I’ve found as an instructor that the little S-spring on the standard trigger system is the one weak link in an otherwise ingenious and robust mechanism. I see several break a year. The NY module that replaces that spring is much sturdier and I’ve personally never seen one break. For all these reasons, I have the NY-1 in every Glock that I carry, and strongly recommend it for any Glock carried for duty or defense.
Atop some models sits the other weak link: plastic sights. Retrofit steel sights (the Heinie unit is particularly good) or metal night sights with Tritium inserts that can be ordered on the gun from the factory solve this problem. There is the rare breakage of locking blocks, but that is no more common than cracked locking blocks on Berettas or cracked frames on SIGs, Colts, etc. The finest machines can break when they are used hard and long, and it is no reflection on the product. Outfit your Glock with an NY-1 trigger and good steel sights, and there’s nothing left on it that’s likely to break.
The Appeal of the Glock
This gun is simple. Most armorer’s courses (in which you are taught by the factory to repair the guns) take a week. Glock’s takes one day. The pistol has only 30- some components. Almost all armorer’s operations can be done with a 3/32-inch punch. You do need a screwdriver to remove the magazine release button.
There