How Glock Accessories Can Make You A Faster Shooter

By Kristen Baird


Almost all guns work on the same principle as a simple cannon. A cannon is no more than a sealed metal tube with an open end. The closed end has a small hole through which a length of flammable material, called a fuse, is threaded. At the closed end of the tube is placed a mixture of gunpowder (sulfur, potassium nitrate, and charcoal). The sealed end of the tube is called the breech and the open end is called the bore. The concept of Glock accessories will be easier to understand by knowing how all guns function.

When the fuse is lit, the gunpowder ignites, creating a large volume of very hot gas. The pressure on the cannon ball as a result of the gas is greater than the atmospheric pressure coming in through the open end, so it is propelled out of the tube at a high rate. Note that it is the momentum of the cannon ball (mass times acceleration) that causes the damage at the other end; the projectile itself does not ignite or explode.

The problem with early handguns was they could only fire one shot at a time, after which the operator would have to clean and reload the weapon in order to fire the next shot. Enter the revolver, which only had to be reloaded after every fifth or sixth shot. The bullets sat in a revolving chamber, which advanced one shot each time it was fired. The revolver came along in the 1800s.

Revolvers were nice, but people still couldn't kill each other quick enough. They needed the semi-automatic pistol. Instead of a revolving cylinder that only held six shots, pistols relied on bullets placed in carriers called magazines that were placed in the handle, or the butt, of the pistol. Larger pistols could hold as many as 15 bullets.

The pistol had the advantage of a lighter trigger action than the revolver, too. However, semi-automatic pistols had a disturbing tendency to jam at the most inopportune moments, something to which the revolver was not prone. Automatic pistols remedy this by feeding bullets into the chamber automatically.

The Glock is an example of a semi-automatic pistol. Designed by engineer Gaston Glock in the late 1970s, the Glock semi-automatic answered the needs of the Austrian army, in need of a new sidearm. Glock owned a company that had made a success out of manufacturing things like grenades and knives using plastic. He and his engineers got together and entered a design using a plastic frame and other parts made of steel.

Happy with Glock's design, the Austrian Ministry of Defense placed an initial order for 25,000 pistols. The Glock, available in all major calibers, is now America's favorite hand gun, with the 9 mm being the most popular. One of the main accessories for the weapon is the magazine, which has a higher capacity than other gun makers' magazines.

What makes the Glock magazine so interesting is the complete polarization between European and American users of the gun when it comes to whether or not the magazine should drop automatically onto the ground, sometimes partially loaded, or require the push of a button. In Europe, allowing the magazine to drop is not the done thing; in America, the magazine is almost considered disposable.




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