Glock Innovation

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John Travis

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It's been a while since I started a technical thread, and I had a little time on my hands this fine evening, so...


But, first a disclaimer. This is for educational purposes only and is in no way a Glock bashing thread, nor is it intended to bolster any arguments for any other design. I don't care for them very much, but my reasons are largely personal and have no place in a purely technical discussion. It's a successful platform. No more needs to be said on that count.

We've also seen the word "Innovation" tossed about a lot when Glocks are the topic. Innovation is defined by Merriam-Webster as the implementation or creation of a new idea or thing.

Okay. So, what about the Glock is innovative? Other than its relatively low cost of production...what is new? What does the Glock have that no pistol before it had?

The short, simple answer is...nothing.

Everything that you see on the Glock has been seen in and on other pistols before. Even the trigger safety was seen on the first generation Iver Johnson break-top "Owl Head" revolvers.

This is not to denigrate Herr Glock's pistol. All designers borrow from others that came before them...even the late, great J. Mose Browning. One only need look closely at a Model 92 or 94 Winchester carbine to see the influence of Christian Sharps' link/lever actuated falling block, and when he gave us the 1885 Winchester High Wall, it was apparent that about the only real difference between that one and the Sharps was the hammer location.

So, about the only innovation is that Gaston's engineers incorporated all those ideas into one pistol along with the use of sheet metal stampings for most of the lockwork in order to hold down the costs.

Let's look at all the things that Gaston borrowed and when and where they first appeared. To keep it simple, I won't go back any further than 1900.

Detachable box magazine and slide/breechblock...Model 1900 Colt.

Locked breech/short recoil operation...1900 Colt.

Frame mounted push-button magazine release...1903 Luger.

Slide lock on empty...Model 1905 Colt.

Striker fired...1903 Luger.

Staged striker...1907 Roth-Steyr.

Tilting barrel locking system...1909. 1910. and 1911 Colt.

Lower barrel lug camming block with frame mounted cross member for engaging and disengaging the barrel from the slide...P-35/High Power.

Integral barrel and feed ramps...P-35/High Power.

"Recoil" spring captive between barrel and slide...P-35/High Power.

Double column staggered round magazine with single feed position...P-35/High Power.

Polymer frame...Heckler & Koch.

So, there's nothing new under the sun and there's really nothing innovative.

Finally...the infamous trigger widget as seen on the aforementioned Owl Head revolver.

Cheers!

JT

TriggerWidget.JPG
 
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Their marketing approach must be pretty good. Maybe *innovative*? Because they sell the snot out of them.

Hackathorn and Vickers stood side by side at a three day class a few years ago at Woody’s and said for all their training they had done all over the world, they saw by far more Glocks than any other brand. By a large margin.
 
An interesting topic for sure and (hopefully) it will refrain from bashing. And for the record I am bit of a Flock fanboi.
From a technical standpoint I agree very little “new” under the sun as far as the design the key is Glock put all those things you mentioned together which in itself is innovative.
From a production side I think Glock was one of the first (if not the first) firearms manufacture to implement modern manufacturing techniques, not only with CNC machinery but statistical measurement techniques to get the quantity reputation they have earned.
 
fieldgrade said:
Their marketing approach must be pretty good. Maybe *innovative*? Because they sell the snot out of them.

Hackathorn and Vickers stood side by side at a three day class a few years ago at Woody’s and said for all their training they had done all over the world, they saw by far more Glocks than any other brand. By a large margin.
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Marketing and price point.
 
keepcalmandcarryon said:
From a production side I think Glock was one of the first (if not the first) firearms manufacture to implement modern manufacturing techniques,
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I was referring to the gun itself...not how it's made...but I believe that H&K beat'em to it on a few of those.
 
John Travis said:
Yes it is. Do you know why?
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I remember reading somewhere it was designed that way to keep manufacturing costs as low as possible. Blocks are cheaper to produce than more intricately machined stuff.
The same article also said he didnt adapt an existing manufacturing facility to produce his design, but created his own manufacturing process that was designed to further reduce costs in the long term.
Because of those reasons, thats why theyve looked much the same across the decades.

I think thats what I remember the article saying.
 
John Travis said:
I was referring to the gun itself...not how it's made...but I believe that H&K beat'em to it on a few of those.
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I disagree with this. I was around when Glock hit the market and at that time standard procedure if you wanted a reliable, accurate automatic you bought a new Colt and immediately took it to a gunsmith to get it ”dehorned”, barrel bushing fitted, feed ramp polished and slide rails tightened. Suddenly there is a pistol on the market that you buy and just shoot. Doesn’t jam, is accurate and affordable. THAT is innovation!
 
keepcalmandcarryon said:
I disagree with this. I was around when Glock hit the market and at that time standard procedure if you wanted a reliable, accurate automatic you bought a new Colt and immediately took it to a gunsmith to get it ”dehorned”, barrel bushing fitted, feed ramp polished and slide rails tightened. Suddenly there is a pistol on the market that you buy and just shoot. Doesn’t jam, is accurate and affordable. THAT is innovation!
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Weren’t there CZ’s, Beretta’s, Sig’s and HK’s at that time too? Colt was never the only choice was it?
 
John Travis said:
Innovation is defined by Merriam-Webster as the implementation or creation of a new idea or thing.
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Was it not a new idea to combine all those features and manufacturing process into one pistol?

It was not an exact copy of anything made to date. So once completed, wasn’t it a new thing?

I understand your argument (or at least I think I do) about Glock did not develop each idea from scratch. And there were other manufactures using similar techniques years, and years ago. But to be technical, once Glock finished and patented his work. It was a new thing, no matter how we feel. Which meets Merriam-Webster definition of innovation.
 
CZfool68 said:
Weren’t there CZ’s, Beretta’s, Sig’s and HK’s at that time too? Colt was never the only choice was it?
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It was the striker-fired dependability of the glock. We were tired of DA/SA, tired of guns that took 30 minutes to clean cause all of the nooks and crannies (sig, beretta, hk), and the polymer mags are still hella stout. PDs were starting to frown on SAO. And, the 17s were lighter too.
I forgot, the others (especially p-series Sig) would rust in a minute if you didn't keep them wiped down.
 
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It wasn’t innovation, so much as a price and timing from what I understand. At least, that’s how it’s presented here. Following the 1986 Miami shootout, Glock was just at the right place, right time to pump out a ton of higher-capacity, affordable, semi-autos that went bang when you wanted it to.

I’ll put in a half-hearted plug for that book I linked. I’m not a Glock fan by any means, but I found that one to be a fascinating read.

And for what it’s worth, I guess putting all those features you’ve listed together in a single offering and doing it well might have counted as innovation enough.
 
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keepcalmandcarryon said:
. I was around when Glock hit the market and at that time standard procedure if you wanted a reliable, accurate automatic you bought a new Colt and immediately took it to a gunsmith to get it ”dehorned”, barrel bushing fitted, feed ramp polished and slide rails tightened.
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But you must not have been around back in the day before Glock hit the market. I've owned several new and untouched Colts that didn't need any of that stuff you mentioned. Springfleids too. They were reliable and accurate out of the box because they were built to spec and included proper magazines. While it was once true that the barrel ramps often had to be opened up for hollow points...a practice called "throating"that actually came from the AMU to get them to feed SWCs...It was included as standard starting with the introduction of the Series 80 Colts.

And, I've never polished a feed ramp in my life. Either the ramp geometry is right, in which case it doesn't need any attention...or it's wrong, in which case polishing generally won't help. Generally, feed ramp polishing should be avoided unless you have the equipment and the expertise to do it correctly. With the hand built customs and semi-custom, it's done because it's expected...not because it's necessary.

Much of the claim of unreliable pistols came from Colt's early Series 70 days...what I refer to as their dark days...when they were having labor problems and losing their experienced people through retirement or quitting, but that was all pretty well resolved by 1976 and they were back on track.

As for the production machinery, H&K made extensive use of CNC's predecessor...NC machining...and they had a sterling reputation for toughness and reliability.
 
Average Joe said:
Was it not a new idea to combine all those features and manufacturing process into one pistol?
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I alluded to that as about the only real innovation, but I was referrting to the ideas themselves...not their implementation. It's rather like saying that Ford locating their distributor at the front of their new 260-302 V8 engine as opposed to Chevrolet's location at the rear was an innovation.
 
Mitch Rapp said:
I remember reading somewhere it was designed that way to keep manufacturing costs as low as possible. Blocks are cheaper to produce than more intricately machined stuff.
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That's a big part of it, but the real cost-saving move was removing the necessary two forward locking lugs from the barrel and slide and using just the one forward of the chamber. In order to handle the recoil forces and shearing stresses placed on the lugs, the old, curved slides required three. When two were removed, that had to be compensated for...so the slide was made square to widen the lug and spread those stresses over a wider area.
 
Catfish said:
What about the interchangeable backstrap? Is that new?
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not even. they started that in gen4 - 2010
even among close peers, H&K had already been doing that for about 5yrs on the P30, springfield was doing it for a couple years in the xdm, and walther had been doing it for over 10 years in the P99.
 
What makes one baker, chef, musician, artist, poet better or more innovative than another? Do they not all use the same ingredients, notes, colors and words? Is their innovation not in the way they use their "ingredients" with subtle changes in the way they are combined to make a greater whole? A piano only has 88 keys. For some it's beautiful magic. For some it's just noise.


I've been working on Glock triggers and have been surprised on all that's going on in that seemingly simple piece of stamped metal, the trigger bar. It's a cocker. sear, disconnect and multiple safeties all timed just so, depending on it's position during it's travel in relation to other parts. I have no fear in dropping a Glock design pistol because of that very design. Can't say the same for others.
<cough, SIG>
;)
 
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I think one of the things that helped Mr. Glock was that he knew nothing about firearms when he came up with the G17. He was making curtain rods before the G17.

The G17 was innovative and controversial, too. I remember the media saying that it was plastic and would go undetected through metal detectors. They were saying that there would be gloom, doom, and mayhem in the streets. Once the G17, and a little later the G19, became very successful, nearly all of the other manufacturers got innovative and started making black, plastic, striker fired guns. It seems that everyone has a Glock copy now. Some manufacturer's new guns are even designed to use Glock magazines.
 
CZfool68 said:
Weren’t there CZ’s, Beretta’s, Sig’s and HK’s at that time too? Colt was never the only choice was it?
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If you wanted a centerfire autoloader Colt 1911 pattern was the top choice. S&W autoloaders were around but not popular outside of police department. I think this was due to being 9mm which was not popular at the time, they were regarded as inaccurate and the DA/SA trigger not great. Beretta 92’s had a better reputation for quality and accuracy but a chunky monkey. HK had the P7, a great pistol but VERY expensive and very hard to come by.
It would be interesting to compare the Glock, S&W 59, Beretta 92 side by side and do a retro 80’s “shootout”. I would think you would find the Glock the “winner” by a wide margin.
 
Luggage? That punk pulled a Glock 7 on me. You know what that is? It's a porcelain gun made in Germany. It doesn't show up on your airport X-ray machines here and it costs more than what you make in a month!

The Glock 7 is a fictional 9mm pistol supposedly made entirely out of porcelain that apparently appears in Die Hard 2. Rather than constructing custom guns to portray the pistol, first generation Glock 17s were used as a stand-in. Since then the scene has gained notoriety among fans of the film, who often use the scene as an inside joke because of the string of Glock inaccuracies Bruce Willis said about it. Despite this, this was one of Glock's first film appearances and the blatant fallacies about Glocks contributed to a rise in popularity and sales for the company.
 
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