Tales From the Glock Armorer’s School

Every so often the concept I have too much information stuck in my brain strikes me and I have to let some of it leak out. I don’t want to die with all of it and not have passed along at least some of it. That and I am forgetting at least two or three things daily and only learn one a day at best.

I am going to tell a few Glock stories from the Armorer’s School. You may already know some- but I’ll bet you don’t know them all. I went to the Armorer’s School years back twice, and am always amazed at the engineering side of the Glock pistols.

They are as elegant and sexy in my mind as my favorite toolbox hammer. You probably have a favorite hammer. It is nearly impossible to wear out a hammer, and if you pick up one hammer, you know how to run pretty much all hammers. Just like Glocks. Oh, and if you pick up a Glock out of your toolbox you can pretty much depend upon that sumbitch is going to work when you need it.

Up front, I am not a raving Glock fan claiming it is “Perfection” and is infallible. But I will relate they are an amazing bit of engineering made by Gaston Glock- a guy who knew about polymer plastics, not guns. He decided to bid on Austrian Military and Police pistol contracts and hired some gun guys to work with his polymer guys to design a gun. The rest is of course is history.

I first read about Glocks in Soldier of Fortune Magazine way back in 1986,when Peter Kokalis found them and said they were the best combat pistol in the world- which no one in America had heard of yet. Within 6 months of G17s coming to America I had one. What a world of difference it made. At the time I was a fed agent in Los Angeles carrying a large frame Dan Wesson revolver with two speed loaders – 18 total rounds. On the weekend I would put that revolver aside and stuff the G17 with 17 rounds in my jeans. Viola! With a spare mag it was a 34 rd load out in an era where the bad guys were all into AK-47s.

So later in life, I went to the Glock Armorer’s School a couple of times, and learned amazing stuff about Gaston’s baby. For starters, there are only 33 parts, and the entire thing can be stripped down to bare frame with a “Glock Tool” or a punch or a drill bit. Everything pushes out quite easily and if you can take one apart you can take them all apart. Back in the day, you were given a copy of Armorer’s manual. Now you can still buy one, or get a digital copy or look up any Glock procedure on a go-zillion Youtube clips.

The slide of every Glock pistol starts out as a single bar of steel. It goes into a machine for about an hour and a half and emerges as a fully cut and drilled out slide. It is untouched by human hands in the process. All the cutting and forming is done inside the precise machine. How precise? The cutting tools machine have lasers beamed across the cutting edges. If the cutting tool is even slightly dull or out of spec, the laser registers it and turns off the machine. A new cutter is put in and the machine is turned back on. Every resulting slide is the same as every other slide measured into zillionth of an inch.

Some people complain about the nitride finish on Glocks. Well you can actually wear some of it off but you can’t wear out what’s underneath it. They take the finished out of the machine slide and expose it to a magical chemical process known as “Tenifer” which penetrates the bare metal a few microns to harden the steel and make it corrosion resistant to a level similar to stainless steel-then they put the black finish on top. It had a Rockwell Hardness just below diamond. Yes you could use a Glock slide to hammer nails. (Please do not use your Glock to hammer nails- it will be the worst and most expensive hammer you ever use in addition to the most dangerous- go get a real hammer.) To grind on the slide you need a diamond impregnated file. I have never had to grind on one. I have replaced some ejectors and springs but no major surgery. If it is bad, call customer service.

Now I have read Glock has moved away from Tenifer and uses some type of salt bath to penetrate the raw steel to the same effect (more Eco Friendly.) Either way it is a tough cookie.

The Polymer story remains of course an amazing history making frame. Glocks changed the course of all modern designs when they proved you could make and mass produce a polymer frame and did not need a hard steel or aluminum frame. The Glock polymer is a blend, and is not just plain old plastic. It is stronger than steel by weight. They showed the fledgling armorers pictures and told stories about detonations inside the frame.

My favorite was the Chicago cop (of course it was Chicago!) who was up nort’ in the woods. Threw his Glock pistol in the cabin pizza oven to hide it before going to town. Returning with left over pizza and a tank full of beer, our hero turned on the pizza oven to be used to warm up the remaining pizza. Some time later the oven went boom. We got to see the pictures. Three rounds detonated inside the frame. The frame did not burst. It was all swollen and distorted, but it contained the entire explosion. That is my kind of polymer.

Glock uses the same polymer to make their magazines. They have a steel liner, but the body and base is polymer. They are amazingly rugged compared to metal mags. Several good companies are now making Glock compatible mags, but Glocks remain the best in the market. I have been having success with some Amend 2 mags the last two year and a couple of Magpuls-but if I take a Glock anywhere but the range I have original Glock magazines in it.

How about the barrel? Glock has made some minor changes to the barrel design over the years, but it is still essentially the same construction since the 1980s. Again a single piece of steel goes into a machine and little tiny gnomes with hammers beat the steel into shape. This compacts the molecules and makes the steel denser than a tree hugging commie liberal.

How good is this hammer forging? Well as the story goes, the Beverly Hills Gun Club (the real one, not the one in Bev Hills Cop 2) had a G17 as a rental gun, and they kept records of how many rounds with through it over the years. When that gun had fired 1 million documented rounds Glock bought it back and put it in their own museum. Now they did have to replace a couple of ejectors and springs over the years, but it was still original slide, frame and barrel, and the barrel still shot within factory accuracy specs after one million rounds. That is how good hammer forged barrels are. You can get aftermarket barrels that may be more accurate and better with reloaded ammo, but that original Glock barrel will out last you and your heirs.

You have probably heard about all the torture tests Glock pistols have survived. I hope you don’t have to go that far in your service use, but here is a very simple piece of advice on lubrication. The Glock teachers advised we needed only 5 drops of oil on the working parts. 5 is the number. Not 6, not 7, just 5. One drop on each of the four steel rails embedded in the frame, and the last drop on the steel cruciform or cross where it rubs up against the trigger bar. That’s it. It will run and run and run- clean and dirty.

An even more amazing item, was the instructors told us if you can’t figure out how to apply the five drops, then just skip it. It will still run. I have been to a lot of high volume shooting schools and even my prized Sigs start hiccupping with about 1,000 rds downrange and no cleaning. They need to be cleaned and lubed to stay 100% dependable. The Glocks in the class are tossed aside like hammers and will continue to go on and on.

Here is another great Glock trivia piece -yes they shoot underwater. (WARNING: Please do not try this at home. Cautionary tale to follow.)

For some reason Glock was involved with their guns shooting underwater, and they worked. U.S. Coast Guard asked if they could work better underwater, and Glock came out with two upgraded polymer cups that wrap around the striker (firing pin). These cups each have a tiny hole in them, and this lets water through when the striker goes back in forth in the channel- so they shoot better when used by adventurers underwater! The cups used to sell for about fifty cents and you can install them with no detriment to the gun and then if you happen to be in the water and need to shoot it…yeah what ever. I found them as Maritime Spring Cups over at the Glock Store for $15 now. I blame the liberals for the price increase.

Now , here is the tale of why you don’t rush out and try out your underwater Glock legend like two Armorer’s School students did in the hotel pool after hours. Apparently they took turns shooting them off in the pool and swimming over and picking up the expended but intact bullets. The story goes that the students came back to class the next day telling all about their experiment! But they were both pissing blood. Yes, holding the guns at waist level under the water exposed their naughty bits to a lot of unanticipated compression/concussion. So don’t. Just don’t OK? Physics. Not just a good I idea- it’s the law.

The markets have been flooded with Glock-like products the past few years which try to capture or match original Glock factory parts or exceed them. From 80% complete frames to tiny springs to even entire Glock-ish production pistols are big sellers. Knock your socks off. But one piece of advice I will pass along from the Armorer’s School, if you are replacing pieces and your gun doesn’t work any more- go back and put original Glock factory parts in it. They work and more than one major retailer sells replacement items which are grossly out of spec.