Accidentally bought a Glock.

bow503 · Aug 28, 2013

BDA.45 said:
View attachment 69139
Here ya go Brutus!

Glock 1911! Now if they made one in 9mm and took glock 17 mags, I would totally be interested!

Sgt Nambu · Aug 28, 2013

Stomper said:
As an owner of a 1911 (who carried one for 8yrs.) and an owner of a Glock-30

I declare this thread is officially....

It will never end, Stomper, never! Six danged pages, wow!

Sgt Nambu · Aug 28, 2013

DieselScout said:
I am blaming it on auto-correct on my phone. Regardless, I should've quit while I was ahead.

Is that a Glock auto-correct? Was the AP free?

RBid · Aug 28, 2013

unklekippy said:
Of course it's all in fun. No one would really take a Glock over the greatest sidearm ever, would they?

And we do know exactly how Cooper felt about the Glock. He died in 2006, not 1964, like York. Cooper was clear that the Glock couldn't ever take the place of the 1911 and of course he was correct.

If anybody takes the time to read Cooper' stuff written from about 1993 on, they will see that the guy has been predicting the future with startling accuracy.

I still would take the advice of guys that have been there. Guys that study it are great, but guys that do it are the real deal.

I would also argue that we do know who the deadliest men in American history are. The current special forces guys will be anonymous for now, but we know who Jim Cirillo, "Jelly" Bryce, Frank Hamer, Jose "Pepe" Llulla, Charley Askins Jr., Carlos Hathcock(who opted for NO sidearm), Audie Murphy and so many others are.

One final argument. All the special forces guys I've ever met(believe it or not, you'd be surprised at how many) carried either high end 1911's or Sig's. I saw H&K .45's, but only one Glock and it was a 22 that the user claimed killed 4 Haji's in a dark house in Fallujah. My son was 8 at the time and tried to trade him his 22lr for what he called "The War Glock".

I like Glocks. By the time I am done I will own a 20, 22 and 30. I would never trade any of my 1911's for a Glock, but it's still apples & oranges.

You make a lot of good points, but I want to make some equally valid counter points, and I want to clarify where I'm coming from. My position is not "Glock > 1911", or "1911 > Glock". I am, and have been for some time, a "there are many right answers" guy. Depending on a number of factors, including ammuntion available, environment, access to maintenance/armorer, primary weapon platform, etc, I can easily see why guys might choose one pistol over another.

Now to some of the counter points...

I have a very healthy respect for Col Cooper, but I don't care if he disliked Glocks any more than I care that Paul Howe recommends Glock over 1911. While certain guys definitely understand all things tactical better than even a lot of other top thinkers, that isn't the same as being infallible. Cooper was also the guy credited with the scout rifle concept in the not too distant past, and was a Weaver proponent. Clearly, some of his ideas were timeless, while the world has moved beyond some of his other ideas. Again, I have tremendous respect for Cooper. His discussions on mindset and conditions of awareness will always be foundational, and his studies of real world defensive encounters deserve more press than they have received (example: avg reaction time of a bad guy when their victim failed to respond as anticipated).

You reference "guys who study", seemingly in connection to the names of trainers that I brought up. All of those names are "been there/done that" guys, not just students.

Larry Vickers -- Delta operator and Delta instructor
Chris Costa -- Coast Guard tactical LE/anti drug groups, Red Team participant
Travis Haley -- Force Recon Marine, private contractor with Blackwater
Kyle Defoor -- Navy SEAL & sniper w/ Bronze Star for Valor
Jason Falla -- Australian SASR & Green Beret qualified
Kyle Lamb -- SF & Delta
Mike Pannone -- Marine Recon, Army SF, member of selected JSOC elements

Those are guys who did it, AND study.

You make a point about knowing who the deadliest men in American history are, but the fact is that their names will be old information by the time we learn about them. That's simply how things work. First comes the "doing", then a common period of hush hush for safety reasons, then word gets out. Consequently, we may learn who many of them are, but will often do so late enough in the game that they may not be part of current trends or climate within the ranks.

As far as what guys who have a choice are carrying goes... Sure. Yes. There are a lot of 1911s and Sigs running around. There's also a Ranger regiment carrying Glock 19s, and a bunch of Delta guys carrying Glock 22s instead of 1911s, while the buzz always seems to be that SEALs are carrying 1911s or HK 45s instead of Mk 25s when they get a chance. There tend to be reasons for each item's selection. 45s are obviously very popular choices when guys are stuck with FMJ and expect close quarters interaction. 9mm sidearms tend to gain value when guys have to travel on foot over goat trails and the like, and may need to transition at intermediate distances. Still other guys value capacity over diameter, even in CQB.

The point of all of this is that a variety of similarly expert individuals are making a variety of equally valid decisions.

Even more importantly, the unsexy truth of hardware selection is that the most critical features of any good choice are: 1) reliability and 2) that the firearm simply doesn't get in the way, because mindset and skill set are more critical than pistol features.