I had a VERY early Glock 17, pencil barrel and all. AAB prefix serial early! Drop free mags didn't exist early!!!! IIRC I bought it in '92 but it could have been '93. At any rate it was one of the first couple thousand in the country.
I bought it used, from a cop who said he shot it quite a bit in the 2 or 3 years he had it. It matched his duty gun but if he shot this one he wouldn't have to clean his issue weapon or wear it out and worry about reliability he said. He bought it from a police academy in FL, according to him it was a range gun for them for about 6 years that they gave to recruits that needed a gun. It was HEAVILY used, like BEAT used. The slide was nearly polished steel, very little blue left and the barrel had NO blue left on it where it runs in the slide. Between me and my buddies we put over 35K rounds through it in a year and a half without a single hitch that wasn't plain and simple a bad round. I would conservatively say that gun had 75K through it judging from the wear I saw while I had it and more likely WAY over 100K. It routinely went 2-3K rounds between cleanings, and did over 3K rounds in one single day with 5 of us shooting. Not one drop of oil, not one bit of care, nothing but full mags stuffed in it and expected to run and it did. I bought it on a whim, the price was right and the gun magazines were still frothing at the mouth about Glocks so me being MR 1911 had the perfect opportunity to prove them wrong. I tried, and that is all I can say. The miserable pile of plastic ran perfectly, never ever before or since have I seen a handgun so utterly reliable and that includes revolvers. Accuracy was not so good though. 6" at 25 yards was about all it would do, maybe 5" with a super shooter and ammo it really liked but it just wasn't anything you could brag on for sure. I sold it and continued with my 5 or 6 1911's that would all do 3" at 25 yards easily and I REGRET IT TO THIS DAY!!!! That was a fine fighting handgun if ever there was one, and I let it go.
Currently I have a third gen G22 that I recieved as a gift. It was very lightly used and currently the log shows a little over 3K rounds through it without a bobble, nothing zero zip nada not one single bobble. It is VASTLY more accurate than my 17 was, this one will do 3" at 25 yards without working too hard. It has a LOT more power than the 9mm had, and that is a little consolation, and it just plain works.
For the most part I am now that I have grown up and played with most all the toys a S&W wheelgun guy, the last 7 or 8 guns I have bought have been S&W wheelguns even and I have more than a few now. Blued steel and walnut hand fitted by real men is what makes the world go around. Wheelguns work everytime on time, accurate and powerful. That said if I was going to go to a bad place and needed to pick a gun my G22 with nearly 3 cylinders full of ammunition as powerful if not more powerful than 357 Magnum and dead solid reliable would get picked. My model 19 Smith and a Para P14 I have a good deal of money in are the only things even close in trust.
Pray for the AWB to end and the Glock haters to keep at it, I am very selfishly looking for lower prices and demand so I can pick up a 17, 19, 23 and a 29 as cheaply as possible. The single stack models have no real interest for me when a Commander 1911 is available.
