01 février 2015

How Glock Accessories Can Make You A Faster Shooter

By Kristen Baird


The underlying principle behind all firearms, everything from cannons and muskets to shotguns, rifles and hand guns, is the same. Take a sealed metal tube with an opening at one end (called a bore), drill a hole in the sealed end (the breech) and pack it with gunpowder. Thread a flammable length of material called a fuse through the hole and into the gunpowder. Place a cannon ball on top of the gunpowder. Understand how this works and it will be easier to understand what Glock accessories are used for.

When the fuse is lit, the gunpowder ignites, creating a large volume of very hot gas. The pressure on the cannon ball as a result of the gas is greater than the atmospheric pressure coming in through the open end, so it is propelled out of the tube at a high rate. Note that it is the momentum of the cannon ball (mass times acceleration) that causes the damage at the other end; the projectile itself does not ignite or explode.

The disadvantage of early handguns was that they could fire only one shot at a time, after which the shooter had to clean and reload before firing the next shot. Next, came the revolver, which only needed to be reloaded after five or six shots had been fired. The ammunition, called bullets, rested in a revolving chamber until needed, when they advanced into the firing chamber.

Revolvers were great, but they still weren't fast enough. Enter the semi-automatic pistol. The revolving cylinder was replaced by a bullet-carrier called a magazine, that fit nicely into the butt, or handle, of the weapon. Larger magazines are had a capacity for up to 15 bullets.

The trigger action in a pistol is also lighter than that of a revolver. The down side of the semi-auto pistol is that it has a capacity to jam, a feat that is nigh impossible for the revolver. Lastly, automatic pistols fire bullets automatically as soon as they load into the chamber.

The Glock is an example of a semi-automatic pistol. Designed by engineer Gaston Glock in the late 1970s, the Glock semi-automatic answered the needs of the Austrian army, in need of a new sidearm. Glock owned a company that had made a success out of manufacturing things like grenades and knives using plastic. He and his engineers got together and entered a design using a plastic frame and other parts made of steel.

The Austrian Defense Ministry approved of the design and initially ordered 25,000 of the semi-automatic plastic pistols. Made in all major calibers, the Glock 9 mm has become America's most popular hand gun. One of the most important accessories for the weapon is the magazine. Glock magazines are designed to hold more ammunition than other gun designs.

In Europe, the magazine is designed not to just drop out of the weapon onto the ground partly loaded. It's not the done thing. The magazine comes out at the press of a button. American soldiers, on the other hand, don't like to waste time prying out a spent magazine, and prefer it to drop out of the weapon of its own accord.




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