Glock Talk: Of Magazine Extensions, CCW and Glock 'Generations'

So here we go:

I actually happen to have some experience with the Glock 26. Having buddys who will loan you a gun for awhile to check it out is a pretty cool thing.

-Magazine extensions. I am pretty negative about these. For a concealment angle they make the gun print more. Yes they hold more bullets. Probably a bigger issue in single stack guns than the double stack baby Glocks. At 10+1 they are in a reasonable decent capacity group already. Also if an additional half inch or so of grip will be easily concealed I would probably be carrying my trusty Glock 19.

‘It gives you something to rest your pinky on’. If you are going to get into the subcompact range of handguns you have to get used to a pinky finger floating. It isn’t needed for accuracy. The benefit for recoil management is negligible in the cartridges (usually .38 special, .380 and 9mm) typically used for these subcompact CCW type guns.

Personally I might have a couple of magazines with an extension on them but would likely keep 3/4 of my G26 mags in their standard configuration. Since I would likely just carry a larger handgun if a larger grip would work in a situation I am inclined to carry a G26 with a flat bottomed mag.

-”Just carry a Glock 19 all the time.” Somewhere around half the time I carry a G 19 but that doesn’t work for the other half. It doesn’t fit with clothing I will be wearing and or non permissive environments where it is socially and/ or legally not acceptable to have a handgun printing all over the place.

In this area I own the Ruger lcp. I probably messed up getting it because its so convenient and not optimal. Buying it lead to using it a lot. If I had it to do over I should have bought something in the beefier end of the subcompact arena first.

Clothing and social/ legal situations as well as a perceived threat dictate which guns will fit. So to some degree it does depend on your own unique situation. I won’t strait call everyone who says they EDC a Glock 19 a liar. Some are certainly telling the truth. Some others carry a Glock 19 when they carry but they don’t carry that much. Carrying a Glock 100% of the time that you CC an average of 60 days a year isn’t the same thing as carrying one every day.

Other folks are strait bullshitting. Several years ago I heard an anecdote that “If anyone says they carry a 1911 every day ask to see it, right now. Almost without exception there will be a bullshit excuse about why their 1911 is in the truck or their nightstand. They are either carrying a little .380/.38 or nothing.” In fairness to 1911 guys the same can be said of other full sized pistols.

It is worth noting that concealed carry isn’t a binary thing, more of a range of grey. If on one side you have a gun that is covered (lets call that 1) but blatantly obvious and on the other you have one that is truly concealed such that it would escape a watchful eye (lets call that 10). The guy who says “Of course you can carry a full sized/ compact handgun every day, I wear it under a t shirt” is leaning pretty hard towards the ‘covered’ side of things. Me wearing the same t shirt with a subcompact handgun is leaning more towards the truly concealed side. So in many cases people are talking apples and oranges in terms of concealed carry.

-Of Glock Generations

Sticking to a generation for parts compatibility makes sense especially if you plan to have a few though I’m not super worried about it.

I am currently a Gen 3 guy. Honestly I sat out Gen 4 because it didn’t really change anything useful for me. Gen 5 on the other hand has some nice features and the redesigned barrel could be handy. After they get the bugs worked out in them I will likely buy a pair of them. At this point my trusty Gen 3 Glock will get a good cleaning then take the deep sleep in a cache somewhere.

So those are my thoughts on that.