Square slides?

Partly just style, but also a slide for a given caliber has to have a given weight (mass) if it is not to batter itself and the frame. One way to add mass to any rounded object without adding size is to fill in the corners, and the square slide does that.

Jim

Designing for cheap manufacturing. Much cheaper to mill cut a square than a contoured surface.

Greg528iT said:

Designing for cheap manufacturing. Much cheaper to mill cut a square than a contoured surface.

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+1
Glock wasn't all that innovative on the GUN side
rather on the production side.

There is a major trade off, ever see a glock CC holster, square doesn't hide that well.
BUT glocks aren't really sold to that crowd anyways.

Shadow 7D When was the last time you saw glock come out with something like a LCP
Or a Nano...
rather they make baby glocks for fanboys...

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When was the last time you read the ATF's "Factoring Criteria for Weapons"?
http://www.atf.gov/forms/download/atf-f-5330-5.pdf


Glock is over 500,000 firearms behind.....they don't really need more models to slow down production.

Interesting thread. I've always thought the glock would conceal much better with a rounded slide.

SIG-Sauer actually pioneered the squared chamber shoulder lockup with the P220 in the 1970s, not Glock. This is easier to machine and fit than conventional locking lugs.

The Croations did similar with the HS-2000/XD but the XDm has a different profile.

SIG-Sauer actually pioneered the squared chamber shoulder lockup with the P220 in the 1970s, not Glock. This is easier to machine and fit than conventional locking lugs.

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Bingo.

Rounded slides require radial locking lugs. Radial lugs engage horizontally between 10 and 2...which doesn't provide a lot of surface area to keep the slide and barrel from separating unless multiple lugs are used. The squared slide and single massive lug equals or exceeds the locking area.

In all tilt-barrel designs, the barrel lugs engage vertically, but they lock horizontally in opposition under shearing forces.

chamber shoulder lockup

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Note that the rounded slide/radial lug arrangement also has a chamber shoulder lockup. It's the first lug wall...the one without a space behind it. Being more supported, and having maximum vertical engagement, it's the strongest one of the three...while the other tilt-barrel Browning designs lose a little vertical depth in the slide with each progressive lug. i.e. The #2 lug vertically engages with about 90% of the depth of the first lug. #3 loses an additional 10%. (These figures are approximate.)

It's also simpler...read cheaper/faster...to manufacture when there's only one lug to worry about meeting spec.

Let's keep this one purely technical.

Thanks.

1911Tuner said:

Let's keep this one purely technical.

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If only that were possible. If the word "Glock" appears, the thread goes Fanboy vs Basher in a heartbeat.

Just mill the square barstock, round a corner or two and skip the gross re-contouring. Lowered the production cost and created a "new" look. And the rest, as they say, is history.

If only that were possible

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Oh, most assuredly possible. Go and look.

Let's continue.

Interesting thread. I've always thought the glock would conceal much better with a rounded slide.

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It would...a little...but rounding the slide would necessarily reduce the width of the single locking lug...which would weaken the breech. You can have a round-topped slide with multiple radial lugs, or a square slide with a single massive lug. Pick one.

SIG did so not to reduce milling in the 220, true, but it is more of a product of the slide construction. The slide was stamped (though folded is the current description), and it is just plain impractical to round a slide and mill lugs when your goal is to stamp its shape. The question is did the single large lug lead to the folded slide or the folded slide necessitated the use of a square lug? Either way, Glock copied it 7 years after SIG introduced it and so it is hardly original on the Glock - indeed nothing is original on the Glock - all features were pioneered by other companies in other pistols. Of course, Glock combined the features into a single pistol, and so the Glock was the first, you could argue, to do it all at the same time. It is, in short, an example of the best that Browning, SIG, Hk, Lee, and others created over more than 100 years.

The squared-slide profile is popular, but there are many designs that do not use it. They are all solid, rugged, and reliable.

An observation from someone working in a different industry... Glock is the Apple of the firearms world: less about innovating anything, but more about putting it all together and marketing it well. The result is the same too--massive overall success, massive profitability (compared to other innovators), industry dominance, and a fervent group of followers who are, well, fervent nonetheless.

This has proven very popular, with many, if not most, newer guns using it.

This has proven very popular, with many, if not most, newer guns using it.

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Yep. A lot easier and simpler to attain the same breech strength. It's a little tricky to get three lugs to bear the brunt of the recoil forces equally when three barrel lugs have to meet three slide lugs. There are six linear distances that have to coincide instead of two.

And this is also where the single massive lug has an advantage over three radial lugs in terms of strength...and where the Glock fans can reasonably argue that their choice is superior to the 1911.

If the three radial lugs aren't equalized...and few mass-produced 1911s meet that criteria...then the breech strength is not only lessened...longevity is also compromised.

Even if the three are equalized, and have maximum vertical engagement, the load is concentrated on a narrower area...between 10 and 2...while the single square lug's load is dispersed over the entire width of the lug. Advantage: Glock

Finally...from a manufacturing standpoint...it's simpler, faster, and cheaper to machine squares than contours.

I still prefer the 1911 because of the trigger and because I can't wrap my hand around a Glock to save me outta torment, but that's a matter of personal preference and thus has no place in a technical discussion.

Wasn't this first done by Petter with a pistol he designed for the French in the 1930s?

And now for the real answer. The squareness of the Glock slide is the result of the true genius of the Austrian engineers who designed the pistol. A square slide is much easier to grip with the weak hand for cycling the slide.

Whoever posted that the Glocks are not sold to the CCW "crowd" is just babbling incoherently.

One way to add mass to any rounded object without adding size is to fill in the corners, and the square slide does that.

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(playing lay-engineer here, but) I agree with JimK on this. A Glock is half plastic, or there about. They use squaty slides to have a low bore axis. The squaty slide need mass. Squared slides add mass. Most of the other brands of plastic pistols have rounded slides but have a higher bore axis.

Kind of like that old science question: How many gallons of water can fit in a cubic foot container?

7.4

I think it would be interesting to compare slide weights of a Glock and it's closest clone, a Caracal, and see the difference. The Caracal is slightly rounded. I'd bet Caracal adds a tad more to the length, or something, to get more mass.

I thought P220 was designed by SIG and Sig-Sauer for the Swiss Army and then manfactured by Sig-Sauer. Does Sig-Sauer now get all the credit?


"A square slide is much easier to grip with the weak hand for cycling the slide."

I suppose if your hand is weak it might be a useful development. For all the folks I've ever known it's a non-issue.

I suppose if your hand is weak it might be a useful development. For all the folks I've ever known it's a non-issue.

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You OBVIOUSLY missed the point.

Hentown, the squared slide was the genius of Swiss engineers, not Austrian. Glock had nothing to do with the design other than copying it.