It is kinda fun to roam the interwebs, looking at info and reports from others on the “vastly superior” 10mm guns, like the Tanfoglio guns and the various 1911 versions.
Some of the interesting and fun things listed about owning the Tanfoglio guns in the past are, the recommendation of replacing the recoil spring and guide rod immediately, cracking frames, cracking slides, bad magazines and then dealing with horrible or non existent customer service to fix these issues. All these things coming from what some people claim is a far better design than the Glock.
It's possible that some would characterize the Tanfo' as being a "vastly superior" gun than the Glock, but I would not. It's different, and most of the differences are advantages
from someone who cares about what I care about. Some of those same differences become disadvantages for people who care about other things.
It is funny to me to see people recycling the same anecdotes about a particular run or small set of runs of guns from Tanfoglio, and attributing those problems to the design.... while anecdotes about problem Glocks are treated as exceptions-that-prove-the-rule. There's a name for this particular fallacy, but I cannot recall it at the moment (still waiting for the coffee to kick in).
But since you brought up the subject, let's sort through a few of these things:
- Replacing the recoil spring immediately - This is a very common piece of advice and mostly based on a misunderstanding of the guns. Tanfo's are designed to have interchangeable top-ends that will work across calibers. You can get a 9mm top end (barrel, slide, and recoil assembly) and stick it on your 10mm or 45 frame. Change the magazines, and it will run and shoot as accurately as the original top-end. That's an intentional design feature (frankly, it's a more important feature in certain non-US markets where getting a new gun is a big deal, but getting a new top-end is not). However, the ejector (not extractor) is attached to the frame. So it has to be long enough to work with 9mm brass. 10mm is a lot longer than 9mm. That means that the ejector is applying force for quite a distance of the slide's stroke before the case clears the chamber and can pop free... so it flies a long way when it finally comes out. These things get spent cases clear! For people used to tuning ejection with recoil spring weight, this looks like an under-sprung gun. So they run out and find a 20lb spring to try to tame the ejection (which doesn't work, because the geometry still flings the cases into low orbit) and, often, induce reliability issues with everything but full power ammo. Anyone who is a really serious shooter is likely to spend time messing with spring weights to affect the feel of the cycling of the gun, the return of the sights, etc., but trying to use them to tune ejection in long-case Tanfo's is a fool's errand.
- Replacing the guide rod - Tanfo's are very popular competition guns (though not in the base Witness model - it's nearly always one of the upgraded models from their Witness Elite line, which has about a billion different models in it). Competition shooters put extremely high round counts through guns... often enough to eventually break all of them. Including Glocks (as a competitive shooter, I've seen plenty of Glocks fail and break - that's not a knock, that's what happens when you run things hard for a long time). People do various things to extend the life of competition guns. Depending on the fitment of the individual gun*, a point that can develop some peening/battering over many thousands or tens of thousands of rounds is the spot where the base of the guide rod sits against the frame. There are after-market guide rods available that have a slightly different geometry at this point and that can spread that load over a larger space. I have these in my guns.
- Cracking frames - The frames of Tanfo's often developed cracks right at the backside of the mag release. These were self-limiting and did nothing to the strength of the frame. Tanfoglio implemented a fix: they now make a relief cut right where the crack used to be! I got a frame crack in my first 10mm Tanfo' Match... EAA replaced it. And it had the relief cut. I find this all kind of humorous.
- Cracking slides - This happened. They had a bad batch of slides with messed up heat treatment, and they developed cracks right below the ejector port; these were all in the base model, not the Elite series. It happened over a decade ago. When I was looking at the first of the 10mm's I bought, I read the same stories. I decided to stick with guns from the Elite series (this was much closer in time to the issue). I've got many tens of thousands of rounds through 10mm Tanfo's. I have not cracked a slide. Is this a big deal for someone buying today? IDK, that's up to them.
- Bad magazines - That's really old news. Like many manufacturers, Tanfoglio uses an outside company for their magazines (really really common). They switched many, many years ago to MecGar. You could not find one of the old mags today if you tried unless you were rummaging through an old parts bin or an estate sale. I have dropped (often half-loaded) Tanfo-format MecGar tubes on the floor of indoor ranges a few hundred times over the past 5 years. They are exceedingly durable. I have run the same tubes long enough to have replaced the springs (I use aftermarket springs and followers and baseplates to get more capacity) many times. The magazines just last and last. I'm still waiting to have to retire my first "bad" mag tube.
- After having used Tanfoglios extensively in both competition and general-purpose shooting for several years now, I think I have a pretty good feel for the actual weak-points and problems of them. It's none of the stuff you read about on the general-gun-related internet. It's none of the things you listed. It's pretty funny how divorced from reality the little recycled tales from ~10-15 years ago are now.
I would not contend that the Tangfoglio's are "vastly superior" to the Glocks. There are pros and cons. I've shot both of them. I don't own stock in either company, and I don't have any branded merchandise from either company - my identity is not tied up with either one. If I were to attempt to put together a comparative listing of the pros and cons of each, I would break it out like this:
- GLOCK: Pros:
- Lower cost versus Elite-series Tanfoglios.
- Common availability of replacement parts and magazines in brick-and-mortar stores and lots of in-stock holster choices.
- Excellent customer service in the event of a warranty issue, at least in terms of repairing or replacing the gun.
- Lower weight for carrying, if you care about carrying weight.
- Easy to work on yourself, thanks to tight tolerances and loose clearances.
- Adequate mechanical accuracy... some like aftermarket barrels.
- Adequate chamber support in later generations.
- Tolerant of mud or other foreign material.
- No external safety if you dislike safeties.
- More slide to grab if you like to grab slides overhand.
- Can get one pre-milled for a red-dot (MOS model?).
- Assuming nothing out-of-spec, extremely reliable.
- Cons:
- Trigger cannot be made as good as a hammer-fired gun.
- Lighter weight for shooting, if you care about shooting with speed - truly effective recoil control requires very high grip force.
- No external safety, if you like safeties.
- Mediocre sights, but readily replaced at fairly low cost.
- Adequate mechanical accuracy... some like aftermarket barrels.
- Adequate chamber support in later generations. Still a little hard on brass for repeated use.
- Factory barrel = no bare lead, maybe, if you care about shooting bare lead bullets.
- TANFOGLIO/WITNESS: Pros:
- Trigger generally good OOB, can be made exceptional (very close to high-end 1911 quality).
- Heavier steel frame makes for lots of stability in aiming and recoil management.
- Very mechanically accurate, particularly in Elite series... built with competitive shooters in mind.
- Better sights OOB in most cases.
- Replaceable grip panels means easier time adjusting fit of gun to individual.
- Excellent chamber support... as long as the long-toss the gun puts on the brass doesn't lose it, the brass will last a long time!
- Italian manufacturing mindset. Fitment can be extremely fine/tight on the guns, particularly the Elite series.
- Really excellent aftermarket support from about 3 companies... little or no junk aftermarket stuff. It's almost all good, because it's almost all from serious competitive shooters.
- Assuming the gun is set up correctly, extremely reliable.
- Cons
- Italian manufacturing mindset. Fitment can be a little different from gun-to-gun. Not the wild west of 1911's where everything has to be "fitted" and nothing drops in, but not consistently a lego kit like Glocks.
- A little harder to work on (more pins to drive, fiddly bits, etc.) than Glocks. Nothing crazy, but detail stripping to the bare frame and reassembling is not something to do in the 30 minutes before or after you go to the range. Field stripping as easy as anything else.
- Heavier weight for carry, if you care about carry weight. Heavy steel frame is heavy.
- Has a safety, if you dislike safeties.
- Slide-in-frame design, which helps with accuracy, means overhand racking is tough, if you rack overhand.
- The adjustable rear sights on the Elite models are not hugely durable when combined with serious recoil. You do have to pay attention to them, use a bit of locktite to keep them from losing the elevation setting, etc.
- There aren't a million aftermarket companies... just a few good ones. And none of it, or the mags, or the standard parts, are likely to be in your local stores. You'll have to buy that stuff online.
- Customer service runs through the importer, EAA. They're better than they used to be, but it's not like Glock.
That's how I'd handicap things. I may have forgotten an item or two. As I think is obvious, a lot of the pros and cons of each are things that any individual
may or may not care about. As someone who is primarily a competitive shooter, I care a
lot about how a gun actually shoots. I care about the trigger, I care about the barrel, I care about durability. I care about reliability. I don't mind making adjustments to get things reliable and correct, but once something is "in trim" I expect it to run 100% for long stretches. I don't care much about carry weight, even with guns I am carrying (and I have often carried a Tanfoglio Match in 10mm). I like external safeties. I don't care about brick-and-mortar availability of parts. I don't care about how a gun runs after it has been submerged in a mud puddle for 3 hours. But that's all just me. Other people care about other things. In this case, arguing that one is inherently "superior" to the other seems misplaced. It's like arguing whether a pickup truck is "superior" to a sports car.**
But lots of people seem to get so invested in their choice of guns that it becomes part of their identity, and it becomes important to "win" discussions about what is "better." Pointing to sales figures isn't really relevant, either, and is especially ironic in a thread about 10mm. After all, we all know that 9mm guns outsell 10mm's by orders of magnitude... if we thought sales figure "success" was an indicator of actual superiority, we ought to just close down this thread and go back to discussing 124 versus 147 grain 9mm projectiles.
As a final note, it appears the OP has selected a Glock. That is a solid choice. I hope and expect he will enjoy it. They are solid guns. I have shot 20's and 29's (not a 40 yet), and was not displeased with them. If only they could be had with a hammer and safety and steel frame, I'd probably buy one myself.
* This
is one of the things that Glocks have as something of an advantage over the Tanfoglio platform, though not specific to 10mm. Glock holds tolerances pretty tight, and also designs a good amount of clearance into their guns (sort of the AK approach). So the fitment of individual guns is generally going to be about the same. Much less chance of getting a Glock that is an individual example that is especially bad (or good). They're generally going to be pretty consistent, barring some defect.
** To be clear, I think there
are plenty of guns that are basically junk, or have little going for them but low price. I just don't think that's applicable to this particular comparison.
You sure have a lot of strong opinions about guns you have never even shot.
