10 things you may not know about Glock
Sure, you carry and love your polymer framed G-gun often and love taking it to the range. While you may know the firearm inside and out, there may be some trivia about Glocks themselves that you may not know.
We decided to bring ten little known tidbits about yours and ours favorite modern safe action pistol out in public. Many of these factoids grace the page of Paul Barrett’s landmark work on the gun and its inventor, Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun, published in 2012.
Without further delay:
1. When designing his first handgun, Mr. Glock carried around a Walther P-38 military pistol in his pants pocket for two weeks. This led to his guns to have a minimum of surface controls since he could not remember whether he had the DA/SA Walther on ‘safe’ or not.
2. Glock had been invited to send his gun to the US Army pistol trials in 1984 to compete against Colt, S&W, SIG, and others for the US military’s next service pistol to replace the venerable Colt 1911. Glock declined because he could not come up with 35 test guns to meet the specs in time for the trails. The Beretta Model 92, as the M9 pistol, was adopted after these trials and is the standard issue handgun to the military today.
3. Gaston Glock is a naturalist and enjoys taking vigorous morning swims, sans suit. This often happens in the near frozen lakes in Austria around his home where Jack Frost is known to bite more than your nose.
4. Glock’s first products for the Austrian military were survival knives, not guns.
5. The Glock 17, the first successful polymer framed pistol, was designed by Gaston Glock between 1980 and 1982. The name of Glock’s pistol comes not from it’s 17-round magazine capacity but from being Gaston Glock’s 17th patented invention. His previous inventions range from kitchen equipment to improvements on curtain rods.
Read the rest in my column at Glock Forum.com