Glock: The Gun That Dominates Over All of the Competition?

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

Gaston Glock credits his success in handgun design to his lack of knowledge about handguns.

The Glock 17 outfits dozens of armies and hundreds of police forces worldwide. U.S. Army Rangers and Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command use the compact version, the Glock 19, and U.S. Special Forces—including the shadowy Delta Force—carry the .40 Smith & Wesson–caliber Glock 22.

For much of the mid-twentieth century, handgun development was in a period of stagnation. The development of the semiautomatic pistol had ushered in a new weapon that, although more complex than a revolver, had a higher ammunition capacity. Quickly adopted by armies around the world, the steel-framed semiautomatic reigned for decades. Then, in the 1980s, something came along that disrupted the firearms industry: the Glock handgun. Today it’s carried by armies worldwide, from the U.S. Army Rangers to the British Armed Forces.

(This first appeared in late 2017.)

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The story of the Glock began in February 1980, when the Austrian army was looking to replace antiquated, World War II–era Walther P-38 handguns with something new. Gaston Glock, an Austrian citizen who ran a small business producing field knives and blades for the Austrian Army, overheard a conversation between two Austrian Army colonels and learned the Army was in the process of searching for a new pistol. According to Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun, Glock asked the minister of defense whether or not his shop could compete, and the answer was, “Yes, why not?”