40 Fun Facts About Glock

Which European country is home to Glock, whose first pistol entered army service there in 1982?

Austria picked the newcomer over eight pistols from five established makers, even though its designer had never built a gun before.

Which 1990 action film spread the myth of a porcelain 'Glock 7' that airport X-ray machines cannot see?

Die Hard 2 got it all wrong: there is no Glock 7, and most of a real Glock's weight is steel, plain to see on any scanner.

Greenland's Sirius Dog Sled Patrol carries the 10mm Glock 20 as a last defence against which animals?

Polar bears proved too much for the patrol's older 9mm sidearms, so the Danish sled teams switched to the more potent 10mm Glock.

Early Glock pistols came in plastic cases widely nicknamed after which brand of kitchen containers?

Tupperware boxes at first had slots for 17 loose rounds beside the pistol, until US import rules forced Glock to remove them.

Which household product did Gaston Glock's company make in the 1960s, long before its first pistol?

Curtain rods came off a metal press in the family garage, and Glock's founder did not design or manufacture a firearm until he was 52 years old.

Where on a Glock pistol, which has no manual safety lever, is its only external safety built in?

The trigger holds a small inner lever that must be pressed first, so a Glock can be fired at once without the shooter flicking anything off.

What does an illegal 'Glock switch', a coin-sized part fitted to the back of the slide, make the pistol do?

Fire fully automatically, like a machine gun, which is how US law classes the switch itself, even one not yet fitted to a pistol.

The Glock 17 is widely said to take its number from Gaston Glock's seventeenth what?

Patent number 17 is the usual story; the magazine's 17 rounds is the rival theory, though later model numbers bear no relation to how many rounds they hold.

Which relative co-founded the Glock business with Gaston Glock in 1963 and later sued him for racketeering?

His wife, Helga, helped start the firm in 1963; after their divorce in 2011 she accused him of racketeering in a lawsuit that was dismissed in 2017.

With which unlikely weapon did a hired hitman attack Gaston Glock in a car park in 1999?

A rubber mallet was chosen to make the death look like an accident, but Glock fought back, punching his attacker until the man collapsed.

Which Glock model, sold only to military and police, is a true machine pistol with a selector lever?

G18 pistols can empty a 33-round magazine in under two seconds, which is why early versions had ported barrels to hold the muzzle down.

Which model, called the 'Compact' by its maker, is a reduced-size Glock 17 with a 15-round magazine?

G19 pistols also accept the longer magazines of the full-size model, and US special operations forces have carried a version as the Mk 27.

Which US federal agency's 2016 order for new 9mm Glocks shaped the fifth-generation pistols sold a year later?

The FBI asked for changes such as a grip without finger grooves, and those features reached the public in 2017 as Gen5.

Which veteran service pistol did the British Armed Forces begin replacing with the Glock 17 in 2013?

Browning Hi-Power pistols were retired over worries about their weight and external safety, and the Glock then beat six rival designs in trials.

Glock beat which American gunmaker to market in 1990 with pistols for that firm's own new .40 cartridge?

Smith & Wesson helped develop the .40 S&W, yet Glock announced its own pistols for the round a week before the American firm's Model 4006.

Which rival's P320 beat Glock's entry to become the US Army's new M17 service pistol in 2017?

SIG Sauer won a contract reported at $580 million, and Glock's formal protest against the award was denied later that year.

Which designer, whose name is on a famous German pistol, created the 9mm cartridge that the Glock 17 fires?

Georg Luger designed the round in 1901, and it is widely considered the most popular handgun cartridge of all.

The 'Parabellum' in the Glock 17's 9×19mm cartridge comes from a Latin motto about preparing for what?

War: the name comes from the Latin motto of the German arms maker DWM, which advises anyone who wants peace to get ready to fight.

Which animals were the focus of the performance centres the Glock family ran alongside its gun business?

Horses were the Glock family's other venture: its performance centre backed dressage world champions such as Edward Gal.

Which product did Glock supply to its home country's army in the 1970s, before it had made any firearm?

Field knives led towards the pistol: in 1980 Glock bought an injection-moulding machine to make their handles and sheaths in his garage workshop.

What trade name does Glock give its three built-in mechanisms that guard against an accidental discharge?

Safe Action means all three devices switch themselves back on the moment the shooter lets go, with no lever to remember.

Which 1988 US law grew out of a public scare over the plastic-framed Glock 17?

The Undetectable Firearms Act ended up banning only guns with less than half a Glock's metal content, so the pistol that inspired it stayed legal.

Which German maker's VP70 was the first polymer-framed pistol, 12 years before the Glock 17?

Heckler & Koch got there first, and its VP70 could even fire three-round bursts once a shoulder stock was clipped on.

Which generation of Glock pistols, introduced in 1998, added finger grooves and an accessory rail to the frame?

Third-generation frames gained the rail for lights and lasers, but the finger grooves did not last: Glock left them off again when it launched Gen5.

Which subcompact 9mm model, introduced in 1995 for concealed carry, is nicknamed the 'Baby Glock'?

G26 grips have room for only two fingers, yet the little pistol accepts the magazines of its full-size 9mm relatives.

What does the 'GAP' stand for in .45 GAP, a short cartridge created to match the performance of the .45 ACP?

Glock Auto Pistol rounds were the first cartridge to carry the company's name, and they let a big-bore handgun share the frame size of a 9mm.

Which NATO country's armed forces adopted the Glock 17 in 1985, three years before Sweden did?

Norway tested the pistol jointly with Sweden for two years, and the results earned the Glock 17 a NATO stock number.

Which country's armed forces began replacing their MAC Mle 1950 pistols with the Glock 17 Gen 5 in 2020?

France ordered a version made specially for its forces, choosing it over the HS2000 and the CZ P-10 in the final selection round.

The Glock 44, launched in 2019, was the company's first production pistol in which rimfire calibre?

.22 Long Rifle made this the odd one out mechanically: it runs on simple blowback instead of the locked breech of nearly every other Glock.

What does a Glock pistol use in place of an external hammer to set off each cartridge?

A striker does the job, and unusually the shooter's own pull finishes cocking it, which lightens the load on the recoil spring.

Which elite counter-terrorism unit asked Glock in the 1980s to build a machine-pistol version of its sidearm?

EKO Cobra, a police tactical unit, got its wish in 1986, and Glock also used the punishing design to stress-test its own components.

In which town, the site of an 1809 Napoleonic battle, was the Glock company founded in 1963?

Deutsch-Wagram became the company's headquarters, on the ground where Napoleon's army fought Archduke Charles in the Battle of Wagram.

Which industry supplied Gaston Glock's earliest employees, who were experienced in producing polymer parts?

Camera making gave his first hires their feel for precise plastic parts, and his first pistol took only about a year to design and produce.

Which part of the first US-bound Glocks is said to have been redesigned over a weekend to satisfy import rules?

The rear sight had to be adjustable to score enough import points, and the rushed part, nicknamed the weekend sight, was prone to breaking.

Which rival maker's GB pistol was expected to win the 1982 army contract that went to the Glock 17?

Steyr Mannlicher had counted on the order for its GB, but the plastic-framed newcomer upset those hopes, and the GB later lost a US military trial too.

On Glock pistols made after 2002, which part doubles as a loaded-chamber indicator that the shooter can feel?

The extractor was reshaped so that a metal edge stands slightly proud of the slide whenever a cartridge is chambered, allowing a check by touch alone.

What colour is the frame of a Glock 'T' training pistol, which is adapted to fire Simunition practice rounds?

Blue frames mark the pistols that fire practice rounds, while bright red ones mark dummies that cannot fire at all.

Glock's optional vented spring cups are designed to let the pistol fire immediately after which ordeal?

Being submerged in water can flood the firing pin channel, so the cups have extra openings that let the liquid escape around them.

Instead of cut lands and grooves, classic hammer-forged Glock barrels have which smooth-sided type of rifling?

Polygonal bores made bullets difficult to match to one barrel, a forensic problem eased when the Gen5 barrel began leaving clearer marks.

Which army designation for Glock's first pistol in 1982 was revived as the name of a 2020 retro edition?

P80 stands for Pistole 80, and the 2020 throwback edition copied the original first-generation frame down to its stippling.