How Glock Accessories Can Make You A Better 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 trigger action in a pistol is also lighter than that of a revolver. The down side of the semi-auto pistol is that it has a capacity to jam, a feat that is nigh impossible for the revolver. Lastly, automatic pistols fire bullets automatically as soon as they load into the chamber.

The Glock is a semi-automatic pistol developed in the late 1970s by an Austrian engineer named Gaston Glock. The Austrian army found itself in need of a new sidearm and so invited manufacturers to submit designs in response to a 17-point request for proposals (RFP). Glock owned a manufacturing company and led a team of engineers and designers to put together a design incorporating a plastic frame as well as metallic components.

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.

In Europe, the magazine is designed not to just drop out of the weapon onto the ground partly loaded. It's not the done thing. The magazine comes out at the press of a button. American soldiers, on the other hand, don't like to waste time prying out a spent magazine, and prefer it to drop out of the weapon of its own accord.




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