Cheap Clone vs real Glock

[ilikegunspdx]

For what its worth. We run CJTC (WA State Criminal Justice Training Commission) qualifications weekly. I see a wide range of pistols come through for qualification each time. I cant recall anyone failing the qual. due to a Glock malfunctioning. I have seen a half dozen or so have to retake the qual. because their cheaper (and on occasion, more expensive) clone failed or malfunctioned and they were unable to recover. Its mostly fitment and small parts issues. Your mileage may vary of course.

Apparently Clint smith has had the same experience (although he talking about modified Glocks not specifically clones). And he has been a top trainer for what 40, 50 years?

FullSizeRender.mov

• ilikegunspdx
• Aug 6, 2022

 

[trevi]

I get the name brand reputation and quality and in no way advocating anyone buy a clone over a real Glock. Im primarily interested in whats the real world practical difference?

Lots of people modify their OEM Glocks with aftermarket parts with reliable results. The architecture is the same, the technology isnt complex.

This!!

 

[trevi]

To my knowledge I dont think Glocks are designed for +P ammo so Im not worried about that.

Most guns are not, their books tell you to use +p sparingly. A reason i like to buy EU made guns because they proof to 130%. My understanding, GLOCK stopped doing this.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

AIM Surplus has LEO trade-in Glocks for as low as $349.95 (21FS in .45 ACP) and $369.95 (17, Gen 3 in 9㎜ Luger). If my goal was some inexpensive Glocks to stash, I think I'd start there. But, admittedly, I'm no expert by any stretch on the Glock line or clones.

To me this makes WAY more sense than a clone. Kentucky gun co has 40 S&W with night sites for $319. I might get one just for giggles.

KYGUNCO

KY Gun Co is your one-stop online shop with the lowest prices for firearms, ammunition, accessories, parts, and outdoor essentials. We ship fast and easy around the country from our home locations in Kentucky, and are always ready to help.

www.kygunco.com

 

[zcap]

And tolerances, and how they are determined, is the big difference. I come from a manufacturing background and have seen this many times.

Glock has drawings on all their parts. All the drawings have tolerances. The tolerances are designed to allow all the parts to work together when they are all within their range. Tolerance stacking is when multiple parts are at the max end of their range, so that when assembled there is either the tightest possible fit or the loosest possible fit but the assembly (gun) will still work.

When you reverse-engineer an assembly, you disassemble it and measure everything. You don't have the luxury of the original parts drawings unless you have some serious industrial espionage at work. You have to make your own drawings and you GUESS at what the tolerances should be. If yo uare serious you get your hands on 10 of whatever you are copying and you average all the dimensions on each part and then STILL GUESS at what the proper range of size is. Then as you make your prototypes and test them, you redefine some of the parts sizes so that the gun actually runs and holds up over time.

Can this be done successfully? Of course. Springfield and Girsan have apparently done it with the High Power. Polytech in China did it somewhat successfully with the M1A. And Norinco has copied the Browning .22LR (I think it was them). (Note - the Miroku copies from Japan may have had the luxury of starting with the Browning drawings, which would have the original tolerances, or at least input from Browning engineers as they examined and measured prototypes).

But the problem is when you buy a copy, you don't know how far down the R&D road the manufacturer is and how the materials, heat treatment, and parts fit is going to hold up over time.

One should just know what they are getting into with these firearms copies, especially if one is considering being an early adopter.

Great insight. An acquaintance of mine manufactures a couple of Glock related products and has catalogued certain critical dimensions of a large number of OEM and clone parts. This dataset was used to estimate Glock's design spec as well as tolerance range distributions for each manufacturer's parts, with the idea being that he can have a high degree of confidence that his final design spec will fit, say 99.8% of OEM Gen 5 Glocks.

Based on this dataset, no Glock clone manufacturer has better (ie smaller) tolerance ranges for nearly any part than Glock. On the contrary, the measured ranges for most clone manufacturer's parts are generally several times that of Glock.

While larger tolerance ranges don't necessarily mean any *particular* clone build is unreliable, the combination of parts with wider ranges will have a higher probability of producing tolerance stacking that manifest in poor accuracy, degraded reliability, and in some cases even compromised safety (eg poor cruciform to striker lug engagement resulting in a binary trigger!).

This doesn't even get into material science, where Glock has decades of in-house experience in optimizing their material compositions to match their pistol design. As a recent example, the initial OZ9 design was cracking barrel lugs because Zev's steel lower transmits excess force that is absorbed in an OEM Glock via low glass fill polymer.

I can easily mod a Glock frame to enhance traction and ergonomics to my liking, but trying to alter a clone to be more reliable is a significantly more difficult proposition, and certainly not one with a positive expected economic outcome.

 

[billdeserthills]

How many rounds do you have thru them without a jam?

Would you rely on one to defend your life like EDC?

Maybe 300 rds thru each, lots of stoppages until the 200 round figure, then they smoothed out and quit jamming. Glock mags made a big difference

 

[Catfishmoon]

For what its worth. We run CJTC (WA State Criminal Justice Training Commission) qualifications weekly. I see a wide range of pistols come through for qualification each time. I cant recall anyone failing the qual. due to a Glock malfunctioning. I have seen a half dozen or so have to retake the qual. because their cheaper (and on occasion, more expensive) clone failed or malfunctioned and they were unable to recover. Its mostly fitment and small parts issues. Your mileage may vary of course.

Good observations.
That is some real world comparisons regarding the question asked by the OP.

 

[MikeInOr]

I have built a couple P80's and ended up spending a bit more on them than an actual Glock. What I got in return is the exact pistols I wanted for a lot less than buying a genuine Glock and swapping all the parts out. My P80's have a life time warranty from the original manufacture... me! I learned a ton about the inner workings and what to do when something doesn't work right. The biggest thing I learned about Glocks is that they are simple but there are much better designs out there. The second thing I learned is that Glocks are WAY over priced for you get.

On both my G27 clone and G19 clone I worked through the actions and got them functioning smoothly before the first shot and both have not had any jams or malfunctions. I have near a thousand rounds of 40 S&W through the G27 and a few hundred rounds of 9mm through the G27. On the G19 I only have about 400 rounds of 9mm through it. All rounds are handloads which is also what I carry in all my guns for self defense.

I have shot many genuine Glocks but never owned one. I like my P80's better than OEM Glocks. The G27 has a real nice trigger in it. The G19 has a cheap spongey trigger in it that Glock would be proud of, I am still working on this trigger.

If you want to buy a Glock... buy a Glock! If you want to build your own and are mechanically inclined... go for it! If you can't visualize how parts fit and function together building a 80% Glock might not be your thing. I firmly believe that 80% Glocks are so easy to build it should not be legal to do so. They aren't like a 80% 1911's that takes some actual machining skill to build. I have built Lego sets that were more challenging than a P80.

I prefer my plastic Springfield pistols to Glocks, I even prefer them to my home built P80's. The one thing I can't do with my Springfield pistols is use the collection of Glock magazines I have for my PCC's in them.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

AIM Surplus has LEO trade-in Glocks for as low as $349.95 (21FS in .45 ACP) and $369.95 (17, Gen 3 in 9㎜ Luger). If my goal was some inexpensive Glocks to stash, I think I'd start there. But, admittedly, I'm no expert by any stretch on the Glock line or clones.

I went to buy one at aim surplus but they charge over $18 tax. I've never had to pay tax on a gun before in OR and there is no way to get rid of it.

In their faqs it says,

Q: What states are your currently collecting sales tax for?
A: Currently we must collect sales tax for the following states: AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, ND, NE, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.

so why the hell are they charging me tax i wonder? weird.

 

[solv3nt]

To me this makes WAY more sense than a clone. Kentucky gun co has 40 S&W with night sites for $319. I might get one just for giggles.

KYGUNCO

KY Gun Co is your one-stop online shop with the lowest prices for firearms, ammunition, accessories, parts, and outdoor essentials. We ship fast and easy around the country from our home locations in Kentucky, and are always ready to help.

www.kygunco.com

Aim has the G22 Gen3 for $279 and the Gen4 for $269.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

Aim has the G22 Gen3 for $279 and the Gen4 for $269.

I know that is what I tried to order but $18.20 in tax.

 

[solv3nt]

I know that is what I tried to order but $18.20 in tax.

What tax? What's the shipping price?

 

[ilikegunspdx]

What tax? What's the shipping price?

see post #69 re tax

shipping a little under $31

so it ends up same price as kentucky gun co. (about $15 over kentucky actually with that damn tax)

 

[Jcon268]

I know that is what I tried to order but $18.20 in tax.

Did you ever live somewhere else? If so it might be stuck on that to where you have to create a different account. I had an issue at Lanbo's where I had an old order saved in my cart and came back several years later and it wouldn't delete those items. However, the items wouldn't actually show up in my cart at checkout but it would affect my freight cost. Created a new account, problem fixed.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

What tax? What's the shipping price?

weird after about 10 minutes of fermenting on the place order screen the tax disappeared. SO anyway I ordered it. I have a Shotpile of glock braces (and other braces) leftover after i got the usW for my g34. Since its same frame size any of those will work. Cool that braces are legal again. I think it was $318 or $314 shipped with insurance. Thats .22 polymer plinker $.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

Random place to put this but if anyone is interested here are lb ft of energy at the muzzle using federal ammo and buffalo bore. Just some representative ones I picked off the ballistics chart at ballistics 101. I was looking at what I probably shoot for range ammo (Fe federal) and their 10mm is so downloaded it's less than 40 s&w. Been years since I shot glock .40 but I liked the one I shot.

9mm federal 364 fpe, buffalo bore 500

.40 fed 468, buff 582

10mm fed 424, buff 728

 

[CountryGent]

I have to confess, the trade-in in .45 ACP crossed my mind. Why? Wackiness, of course: the .50 GI conversion kit works with said. But, I'll be good. At least on this front.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

I have to confess, the trade-in in .45 ACP crossed my mind. Why? Wackiness, of course: the .50 GI conversion kit works with said. But, I'll be good. At least on this front.

Wackiness is good. Wackiness that results in a much more accurate and better recoil recovery firearm while not messing with the internals is very very good!

small-2.jpg

• ilikegunspdx
• May 14, 2023

10mm

FullSizeRender.MOV

• ilikegunspdx
• Jan 11, 2024

 

[mkelly1128]

I guess you could call PSA Dagger a cheap clone but the products are solid. I have several friends with their handguns and AR's. They love them enough that I just ordered one too. They also carry a Lifetime warranty. I think they're a company worth following for things in the future.

 

[Booger_Hook]

ORW in Tigard has Gen 4 Glock 22s (LE trade ins) for $250.00