Glock vs 1911: Why Glock is the best gun for you… and everybody else.

Hello Fernando,

  Hope you're doing well in Ireland my friend. 

  I couldn't get my comment to work on the blog so I thought I'd drop a quick note in response to your comment in your M&P post about how people should just save time and "get a Glock" cuz it's the best fighting handgun around. Umm, maybe not. :-)

  I posted a thread on www.whenshtf.com entitled "Why I HATE the Glock" and really stirred things up. Basically  I opined the reason Glucks aren't for everyone is their grip angle closely resembles a length of 2x4 in comfort and their "safety" is on the friggin trigger! 

I know, the mind is the ultimate safety, but maybe John Browning and Gaston Glock both knew people were likely to be dumb with weapons but just came at the problem from two different angles. JMB put active safeties on to keep people from shooting themselves in the ass, GG put a passive safety on so people wouldn't forget to undo them.

If you read Glock; the rise of America's pistol by Paul M. Barrett, it explains that's exactly why GG built the Glock the way it is; he couldn't remember to swip off a safety on a P-38 he carried and figured no one else could either.

So those are the two reasons I love my 1911; grip angle and safeties. Oh and it's much better looking than a Glock.  :-D  No, I don't think they're for everyone, but if someone is willing to learn more about their gun than just which end the bullets come out, I think the 1911 beats Glock, IMHO. 

You get a chance, check out our forum. Lotsa good people and discussions, good info too. I can also recommend a thread I posted "the 1911 is it's own toolbox". Good article on stuff I never knew.

  Have a blessed day, sir!

William

Never send a Glock to do a 1911's job.

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Hello William,

Thanks for your email. You make some interesting points. They are wrong, but still interesting. Just messing with you, we all have our opinions and I appreciate the debate so thanks for making yours heard. 

A Norinco 1911 was actually the first big bore handgun I ever owned and learned to shoot well. That Norinco was of course perfectly reliable until I put a few $1000 into it, made it ¼”  more accurate at 25 yards and messed its reliability. A few thousand dollars more, including a fancy finish, nice grips and a bunch of very expensive magazines it was almost as reliable as it had been out of the box. My advice definitely is, if your 1911 works well, don’t mess with it! 1911s aren’t Glocks, you cant just drop a part in it and expect it to fit and work. It wont. A lot of tweaking and filing, polishing and buffing is needed to make parts fit and work well.

I believe that the old saying “Beware of the man with only on gun” is true. I learned to shoot that gun well, took my first defensive shooting classes with it.

Eventually I realized that other shooters taking the classes that had twice as much ammo in their magazines clearly had an edge on firepower. I told myself “I’m firing a manly .45, not some puny 9mm!”. Well, there was also the matter about those ugly Glocks being lighter, less prone to failure, more likely to keep working when dropped in the dirt and mud during some of the drills. Eventually I gave up and went first with a Bersa Thunder 9, which I will say was better than trying to keep up with Glocks with my 1911, and finally I got myself a Glock.

Sure, at first the trigger felt like a toy compared to the Chip McCormick trigger I had in my 1911, and the groups at 25 yards spread just a tad, but other than that it was lighter, still very accurate, had more ammo and was easier to reload fast. The 1911 is all I had known, so for months I would still try to disengage a safety on the Glock that wasn’t there anymore. Not a problem, the Glock didn’t seem to mind. 

Eventually I “learned” the Glock just like I had learned the 1911. The grip wasn’t a problem for me, I liked it straight away much better than the 1911 slab feeling and the Glock gen 4 is even better. The Glock pointed more naturally and I appreciated the lower bore axis. My 1911 hadnt been “melted” or dehorned so I also learned to appreciate the lack of sharp edges in the Glock. My hands felt much better after 10 hour long classes and training sessions.

Every now and then someone would show up with a 1911, some more expensive than others but all of them having the same shortcomings I have noticed. They would fail more often, the slight accuracy advantage wouldn’t be noticeable in those guns that may have had it, but the slower reloading and magazine capacity limit sure was.

Up until the Glock showed up, the 1911 was king of the hill. You had some great double action autos already but you could still make a case for the single action 45. But when the Glock came into the picture it marked a clear end of the 1911 era as the king of combat handguns. Everything a 1911 does, there’s a Glock in some caliber, bigger and with more capacity even, that does it just as good or noticeably better.

I’ve taken several men and women to the range for the first time. I cant think of one that didn’t do his or her best with the Glock rather than any other handgun. If we take into account durability, reliability, simplicity, accuracy, capacity, availability of parts and accessories and ease of repair, no other gun beats it and that is why most law enforcement and defensive shooting experts use it.

The 1911 I will keep for my kids when they grow older. It belonged to my father so it has sentimental value as well. But when it comes to a reliable tool for defense, the Glock will be my choice in handguns until something better shows up.
FerFAL