Thursday, December 01, 2016

Glock 19L

I see over at Tam's place that NYPD is buing some Glock magazines.  Some yada-yada about blocking the magazine to 15 rounds.  Tam was asking if they were making a long-slide 19, by marrying a 17 slide to a 19 frame, but that ain't so.  Evidently what NYPD is doing is to have Glock make a batch of G17 mags blocked to hold 15 rounds.

Which makes absolutely no sense, unless it has something to do with state law.

If Gaston made a factory model and dubbed them the Glock 19L, he'd sell a metric butt-ton of them. Better that he'd make a run of G17 frames with G19 slides and call it the Glock 17 Commander. You'd still have 17 rounds of shooty goodness, but the shorter slide would make the pistol easier to conceal.

2 comments:

Tam said...

The reason for chopping a 17 grip to 19 length is to make it easier to conceal.

Carrying IWB, slide length makes no difference to concealability, since it's all down your trousers. In fact, even though I CCW a 19 at present, all my holsters are 17-length because the extra length of holster helps stabilize the pistol when carried IWB.

A 17-length frame with a 19-length barrel will give up shootability, muzzle velocity, and sight radius without any appreciable gain in concealability.

Ryan said...

Tam hit it. People have been doing this for awhile. They call them a 17/19. Suppose all it takes to make one is a hack saw and a willingness to risk messing up your gun.

Personally I don't get it. For me the only advantage of a 17 over a 19 is that having more grip makes the draw a little bit easier. That said holster choices address that issue.

I'll stick with the 19. Plan to get another one for a spare.