quick range trip: Glock 44 vs. some not Glocks

Jayne

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A friend bought a Glock 44 yesterday and put 300 rounds through it with pretty good results, especially since most of it was Thunderbolt.

Today we took it to the range again to test with an assortment of ammo and against a few other common 22s, an M&P22 Compact and a Ruger 22/45. The ammo selection:

glock44_test_1.jpg

The contenders:

glock44_test_2.jpg

The Ruger and the M&P are both suppressor hosts owned by myself and the non-G44 owner, but we didn't bother with that since the Glock doesn't play that way. We did test a bunch of standard velocity and subsonic rounds since we both run that 95% of the time.

We didn't write a bunch of stuff down or test for accuracy, we just wanted to see if the G44's claim to reliability was true.

The unanimous decision at the end of the day was that the M&P22 is more reliable across ALL the ammo used, but the G44 is way more Glock like. Since the 3 of us are all Glock shooters we all appreciated how it felt like a Glock. It's also got more recoil than the M&P or the Ruger but that's actually a good thing for us. It 'feels' more like a G19 with that extra recoil. It's obviously no where near the same as a 9mm, but it's better than we expected.

There were a lot of light strikes with the G44. A lot. Sometimes 50% or more of a mag would not fire on the first hit. I was adding insult to injury there by loading those once struck rounds into a mag and firing them out of my pistol. :) We did run into a half dozen that were legitimately duds; they wouldn't go off after 3 hits in different guns in different spots on the rim. We pulled one open and it seemed to be filled with more brass shavings than powder.

This particular G44 really, really liked the thunderbolts. Ran very well with them, and did OK with the CCI Standard Velocity stuff. As long as supply is good and you can get what you want in terms of ammo it should be possible to keep the G44 running well and potentially running with a can with the CCI std vel. If the .22lr supply starts to dry up and you find yourself having to run whatever random crap you can find, the M&P is the clear winner.
 
WOW I've had very different experiences that you with these pistols. I had a M&P, could not get a complete mag to run with that thing... ever. I tried every kind of ammo know to man, I finally gave up and traded it for a S&W victory. Very nice gun! My wife took her conceal carry class with the M&P, she had to call me to bring my Buckmark just so she could finish the class. Well anyway, I got my Glock 44 last week and the first day I ran about 300 rounds through it with 3 light strikes, next day finished the box ( 525 rounds of bulk Federal) with two more light strikes. This weekend I picked up some more ammo this past weekend, Blazer, CCI standard velocity, and some CCI suppressor. Over this weekend, while setting up some nights sights I probably shot close to 800-1000 more shots without any issues. Was it the Federal ammo? Or just a break in period?
 
Is the G44 firing pin the same design as the center-fire models or is it traditional?

It looks like a normal glock striker setup with a little extra bit to get to the rim instead of the center of the cartridge. The trigger mechanism looks the same as the rest.
 
Or just a break in period?

It had 300 rounds through it before we started the testing, one would think that's enough 'break in'.

It wasn't happy with a variety of ammo, not just the federal.

I think light strikes are just going to be this thing's game. There is only so much energy you can put into that striker with a 'normal' trigger weight doing the work. I suppose if someone wanted an NY-weight trigger in their Glock it would help the reliability.
 
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