Glocks

I went by Kenny's pawn Shop today. He had a selection of semi-automatics underneath the glass. The Llama was still gathering dust alongside the Taurus P92. Sharing the dust was the James Bond P99 Walther incarnation. That was a rather forgettable pistol after the movie hit the DVD sale rack. Along with the Walther Kenny did have several Glocks available though.

I confess that I am not a Glock fan. I respect their reliability, and they are certainly durable. They are accurate enough. I dislike the safety on the trigger. The whole idea seems silly to me. A gun ought not go off unless the trigger is pulled. So to make the gun safer through a mechanical means, it only follows that the mechanical safety be independent of the trigger.

Oh, I know that the safety being on the trigger supposedly makes it less likely to be forgotten about in a life threatening crisis. No argument there. It also makes the safety less likely to be effective if something accidentally enters the trigger guard and presses the trigger. By contrast, the 1911 uses the thumb's placement in the firing grip to disengage the safety. When combined with the necessity of pulling the Glock trigger in the field stripping process, I simply prefer another design.

I dislike the idea of plastic sights. In a gun as well engineered as the Glock, why it doesn't come from the factory with aluminum sights dovetailed front and rear is beyond me. I am not a 1911 fanatic that spits on the ground when Glocks are mentioned. I did own one at one time. A Glock 26. The plastic sights were a primary reason I traded it off.

In trained hands, the Glock is an amazingly competent fighting gun. In my hands, although the grip angle is similar to the Ruger MKII, it does not seem to fit well. As a result, I do not shoot the pistol as well as I feel I should be able to.

Now I know that I speak heresy to some of the most die hard brand disciples in combat pistoldom. I fully expect to hear from them in my comments here. Guys, I just shoot the 1911 faster and more accurately than the Glock. I do not find perfection in a shovelmaker's pistol. If you do, Glocks seem to be running around $425 to $450 used in my area, but Kenny has a Glock 26 with three magazines available for $379.