Today’s feature comes to us from our companion service, Shooting News Weekly.
The gunosphere has been all aflutter since the rumors were confirmed that GLOCK is discontinuing almost all of its current models. The Austrian pistol maker will begin shipping its new V series pistols on December 1. This move coincided, of course, with the imposition of California’s GLOCK ban law that prohibits ““machinegun-convertible pistols.” While the law doesn’t explicitly target GLOCK, it was clearly written to ban the company’s pistols because of the proliferation of illegal switches that criminals buyand/or print in order to enable their stock semi-automatic handguns to fire fully automatically.
The internet then proceeded to do what the internet so often does…it rustled up an ill-informed mob of outraged, pitchfork-wielding keyboard bangers who blamed GLOCK for capitulating or caving in to California’s hoplophobic lawmakers. Many tossed them into the same ash heap of firearm ignominy with Bill Ruger’s 10-round capacity limit and Smith & Wesson’s “Hillary hole.”
As with so many things that provoke online ire, the reality ain’t quite that simple. California’s ban was signed into law a couple of weeks ago. GLOCK didn’t just rejigger its incredibly successful 40-year-old design in that time because of the what the once Golden State did. If you know anything about the design work and engineering necessary for that, you know that isn’t possible.
This move is something that had to have been brewing for years. We’ve been writing about the spread of illegal full-auto conversion switches since at least 2019. The issue obviously reached a point where GLOCK made the business decision that the growing legal threats and expense outweigh the effort and cost involved in making the design change.
There’s much more than just California happening here. There’s a coordinated legal assault on the company under way by anti-gun cities and states (New Jersey, Minnesota, Maryland, Seattle, Chicago, Baltimore, to name a few) that culminated earlier this month in the California ban. GLOCK is facing lawsuits over the alleged ease with which their pistols can be illegally altered using illegally obtained or produced switches.
The redesign wasn’t forced by the loss of sales in California, of which there aren’t many since only Gen3 GLOCKs are legal for sale in the state. It was forced by the scope and cost of the lawfare campaign being waged against the company.
We’ve also gotten some more information about what’s coming from GLOCK that confirms some of the speculation that’s been flying around the intertubes since the news broke.
Someone who’s in a very good position to know tells us the new V Series pistols will, in fact, begin hitting stores in December as GLOCK promised. GLOCK’s announcement indicates they won’t be offering MOS optics-ready versions of their most popular guns like the G17 and G19. We’re told that isn’t going to happen at all.
As the company says, they’re making this move “to align with upcoming changes.” We’re told that means Gen6 pistols that will be introduced “soon,” possibly as early as the SHOT Show in January. The Gen6 models will be “optics compatible.” Given that almost everyone wants pistol optics these days, does that mean all Gen6 models will ship with the MOS system? Will GLOCK roll out some kind of new ultra-super-duper universally compatible mounting system? We don’t know. Stay tuned.
Again, as we and others have pointed out, there are a lot of consequences involved in making a change this drastic. GLOCK has built its brand and reputation around reliability and simplicity of design. You don’t just jeopardize that without a very good reason.
A typical GLOCK has only about 35 parts to it. Compare that to a 1911 that has well over 100 parts. That design simplicity has made GLOCK basically an open source platform with pluses and minuses. That kind of simplicity is why there are so many non-GLOCK GLOCK makes and models out there along with a huge aftermarket ecosystem of parts available to customize your GLOCK brand GLOCK if you so choose. Then again, that kind of simplicity has also made it easier to gin up an illegal modification like full-auto switches.
The birth of the V Series means a lot is going to change. Not only will GLOCK have to re-prove to many newly skeptical gun buyers that the V guns are as bulletproof and reliable as the pre-V models, but a lot of those aftermarket options won’t work any more. It will take the market time to catch up and adjust to the new design.
And it’s not as if there aren’t other options out there. Companies like Lone Wolf, PSA, ZEV, Shadow Systems, ZRO Delta and many more will continue to offer very good options based on the previous architecture that gun buyers have come to know and love.
In short, GLOCK is living through interesting times. What they have going for them is the valuable brand equity and reputation for reliability they’ve built over the last 40 years. That’s going to be more than enough for a lot of gun buyers to keep choosing their products, redesign or not.
If we had to bet, we’d lay pretty good money that the new guns will be an evolutionary change rather than a revolutionary one and will maintain most of what makes a GLOCK a GLOCK, reliability and all. But we’re from Missouri and as someone once wisely advised, we’ll trust, but we’re going to verify.
— Dan Zimmerman
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