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.

Lighting the fuse ignites the gunpowder, a mixture of charcoal, sulfur and potassium nitrate), which suddenly generates a huge volume of gas, exerting a tremendous amount of pressure on the cannon ball to fly out the bore of the metal tube. It is the product of the mass of the projectile and the acceleration due to the gas pressure that blasts the target to Kingdom Come. More portable firearms in the form of flintlock pistols evolved out of this same principle. Now, they use detonators instead of fuses.

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 they still weren't fast enough. Enter the semi-automatic pistol. The revolving cylinder was replaced by a bullet-carrier called a magazine, that fit nicely into the butt, or handle, of the weapon. Larger magazines are had a capacity for up to 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.

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 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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