Sunday, January 18, 2015

How Glock Accessories Can Make You A Better Shooter

By Kristen Baird


The underlying principle behind all firearms, everything from cannons and muskets to shotguns, rifles and hand guns, is the same. Take a sealed metal tube with an opening at one end (called a bore), drill a hole in the sealed end (the breech) and pack it with gunpowder. Thread a flammable length of material called a fuse through the hole and into the gunpowder. Place a cannon ball on top of the gunpowder. Understand how this works and it will be easier to understand what Glock accessories are used for.

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 disadvantage of early handguns was that they could fire only one shot at a time, after which the shooter had to clean and reload before firing the next shot. Next, came the revolver, which only needed to be reloaded after five or six shots had been fired. The ammunition, called bullets, rested in a revolving chamber until needed, when they advanced into the firing chamber.

Revolvers were great, but people wanted to kill each other even faster. This is where the semi-automatic pistol comes in. In these devices, the ammunition sits in a holder called a magazine residing in the butt (handle) of the gun. Some of the larger magazines were capable of holding up to 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.

Today's Glock is a semi-automatic pistol and probably America's favorite hand gun. It was developed by a team of Austrian engineers and designers led by a man named Gaston Glock. Inspired by an open request from the Austrian army for designs of a new sidearm, the team came up with the Glock. Because the company was already making hand grenades out of plastic, the design team naturally incorporated the material into the new firearm.

The Austrian Defense Ministry approved of the design and initially ordered 25,000 of the semi-automatic plastic pistols. Made in all major calibers, the Glock 9 mm has become America's most popular hand gun. One of the most important accessories for the weapon is the magazine. Glock magazines are designed to hold more ammunition than other gun designs.

What is intriguing about the Glock magazine is the difference between those made for use in European military and law enforcement agencies, and the one preferred by American users. The practice of allowing the magazine to drop onto the ground is frowned upon by shooters in Europe, while the Americans insist on it.




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