pen or pencil will come flying out of the barrel with enough force to cause a cut or nasty eye damage! Also in both of these tests, you’ll need an empty magazine in place if the pistol has a magazine disconnector safety.
To make sure that the magazine disconnector safety is operating, remove the magazine from the empty pistol, point it in a safe direction, and pull the trigger. If the hammer falls, the disconnector device either is not working or has been disconnected.
A sloppily fitted auto pistol is not likely to deliver much in the way of accuracy. Bring the slide forward on the empty gun, put the tip of a finger in the muzzle, and wiggle it around. If it’s tight, it bodes well for accuracy. If it slops around a lot, the opposite can be expected. With the slide still forward, bring a thumb to the back of the barrel where it is exposed at the ejection port, and press downward. If it gives a lot, that tells you that the rear lockup isn’t as solid as you’ll need for really good accuracy. In either of these measurements, it’s hard to explain how much play is too much. Try this test with some guns of known accuracy, and you’ll quickly develop a “feel” for what is and is not what you’re looking for with that particular make and model.
Summary
Well-selected “pre-owned” handguns are an excellent value. Firearms are the ultimate “durable goods.” How many people do you know who drive their grandfather’s car or keep the family food supply in their grandmother’s ice box? Probably not too many. But if you start asking, you’ll be amazed how many people you know still cherish their grandparents’ firearms.
It’s no trick at all to find a perfectly functional combat handgun, revolver or auto, on the second-hand shelf at half the price of a new one. That leaves you more money for ammo, training, skill-building…and enjoying the life and the people you bought that gun to protect.
…and release the thumb safety. If hammer stays motionless as shown, that portion of the mechanism is in good working order. If hammer falls at this point, gun is DANGEROUSLY damaged!
C HAPTER T HREE Modern Paradigms
The Glock
Gaston Glock had made a fortune producing assorted polymer items at his factory in Austria. His reputation was such that more than one firearms company soon approached him to make a polymer pistol frame. Being (a) a manufacturer, (b) a businessman, (c) a designer, and (d) smarter than hell, it occurred to him that he could design his own gun to manufacture. He set his design team to work, giving them a clean sheet of paper.
In the early 1980s, there was little new under the sun in the form of handguns. The most high-tech auto pistols were largely refinements of older designs. For example: take the 1950 Beretta service pistol, add on a 1930s vintage Walther-type hammer-drop safety and a 1908 vintage Luger magazine release, and you had the “new” Beretta. But what came off the Glock drawing board was something new indeed.
It looked like something out of Star Trek. It was sleek, with a raked back grip angle that could be compared to a Luger or a Ruger only in the angle, not in the shape. It was square at front and back. It had no hammer, inside or out; the pistol was striker fired. The polymer frame, plus a design created from the ground up for economy of manufacture, ensured under-bidding of the competition. The other makers’ guns carried 14 to 16 rounds of 9mm Parabellum, but this one carried 18. The trigger pull was very controllable, and consistent from first shot to last. More importantly, the thing worked with utter reliability and survived torture tests.
In the Glock light-weight, compactness, controllability and power come together in the author’s favorite of the breed, the .45 caliber Glock 30. This one holds the short 9-round magazine designed for maximum concealment.
It wasn’t the first “plastic gun.” Heckler and Koch had pioneered that more than a decade before, with plastic framed P9S and VP70Z lines, only to be met with poor sales. No one predicted success, figuring that the Austrian army’s adoption of the pistol was merely a sign of chauvenism.
It is doubtful that any greater underestimation was ever made in the world of the handgun.
The Glock’s entry into the American handgun marketplace was nothing less than stunning. The American branch of the firm, Glock USA, was established in Smyrna, GA. A couple of guys who knew the marketplace were on board: Bob Gates, late of Smith & Wesson, and Carl Walter.
Author appreciates “shootability” of Glocks. He used this G17 to win High Senior and 2nd Master at 1999 New England Regional IDPA Championships, placing just behind national champ Tom Yost.
A number of signs in the marketing heavens were in alignment, and this confluence of the stars would make Glock the biggest success story in firearms in the latter half of the 20th century.
American police chiefs still clung tenaciously to their service revolvers. Unique among police equipment, the revolver had not changed materially since the turn of the century. Uniforms were better, the cars had modernized along with the rest of America, communications were state of the art, and even handcuffs had improved and been streamlined. But if you went to a police museum, you would find that only two things had gone basically unchanged since the dawn of the 20th century: the police whistle, and the police service revolver.
Patrolmen’s unions and well-versed police instructors were clamoring for autoloaders. For years, the chiefs had put off these requests with stock answers. “Automatics jam.” “Our guys won’t remember to take the safeties off when they draw to fire in self-defense.” “They’re too complicated.” “Automatics cock themselves and go off too easily after the first shot.”
Meanwhile, instructors were chanting the old military mantra, “Keep it simple, stupid.” Any auto adopted by most of them would have to be simple, indeed.
Enter the Glock.
It endured torture tests for thousands of rounds. Buried in sand and mud and frozen in ice, it was plucked out, shaken off, and fired. It worked. Sand and mud and ice chips flew along with the spent casings, but the guns worked. One adventuresome police squad deliberately dropped a loaded Glock from a helicopter at an altitude of 300 feet. The gun did not go off. When it was retrieved, though one sight was chipped, it fired perfectly.
Safety? There was no manual safety per se. All safeties were internal and passive. “Point gun, pull trigger,” just like the revolver. When BATF declared the Glock pistol to be double-action only in design, the argument about cocked guns being dangerous went out the window, too.
The Glock 17 holds 18 rounds of 9mm Parabellum in a pre-ban magazine. This specimen has Glock’s oversize slide release and Heinie sights.
The first pistol was the Glock 17, so called because it was Gaston Glock’s 17th specific design. It became the flagship of a fast-expanding fleet. Though Glock would later describe it as “full size,” it was actually smaller than a Model 1911 or a Beretta 92, more comparable in overall length to a Colt Lightweight Commander, and it weighed even less.
Next came the even smaller Glock 19 with its 4-inch barrel. The 16-shot 9mm was roughly the overall dimensions and weight of a Colt Detective Special with 2-inch barrel that held only six rounds of .38 Special. At the other end