What Makes Glocks So Special for LEO's

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kd7nqb

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Let me first start by Glocks are good weapons, I have nothing against them. I dont personally own one but still think they are quality weapons. My question is that everywhere I go 99% of LEO's carry Glocks.

Is there a specific reason why Glocks dominate the LEO world, and why we DONT see any of the other quality weapons? Where are the BHP's, XD's or even just a good solid 1911. Being that a fair number of LEO's are ex-millitary I would expect to see more Beretta's as well.

The only agency that I have been told does not use glocks as their standard at least on Oregon is Milwaukee PD which supposedly issues Kimbers as their duty gun.

Also to those LEO's out there how many of you had to purchase your own firearm and how many were agency provided. I know from LEO's and Ex-Leo's that I have spoken with seems like most of them are offered issued guns and will at least at some point opt to use their own, but most departments have an "approved list"
 
Is there a specific reason why Glocks dominate the LEO world, and why we DONT see any of the other quality weapons?
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They're CHEAP, lightweight, and reliable. Glock was the first to hit the marketplace with a poly DAO gun and priced them so low they pretty much cornered the LEO market. Right at the moment in history when LEO's were starting to feel badly out gunned by the bad guys on the street, Gaston Glock provided the perfect solution. Almost overnight, Glock went from a complete unknown to the best selling handgun in the world. Absolutely brilliant marketing strategy. Call it Glock Perfection.
 
Cheap, reliable, light, accurate, and durable. No one else really offers that combination, except for maybe the new M&P.
 
Affordable, lightweight, high capacity, mass produced, insanely reliable, chambered in potent calibers. All of the complaints we, as non-LEOs, have about Glocks, don't matter to departments.

I can't think of another handgun that has so many positives and so few negatives for the purposes of an LEO issued pistol.

1911s - half the capacity and not as reliable
Berettas - heavy
XDs or M&Ps - new to the scene, built specifically to rival Glocks. We'll see.
 
They're CHEAP and reliable. Glock was the first to hit the marketplace with a poly DAO gun and priced them so low they pretty much cornered the LEO market
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Thats what I was thinking but most LEO's own other firearms I guess I would expect to at least see SOME 1911's and others. Also now an XD sells for less than a glock even with the $100 LEO discount.
 
My personal opinion is that Glock came along at the right time and capitalized on a new technology.

Because other manufacturers were slow to catch up with the new technology (cough cough Smith and Wesson), Glock took over the Law enforcement market.***

The polymer pistol was revolutionary.
It's a simple, yet effective design.
Very rugged, much like the GI 1911's.
Easy-to-repair and replace parts.

The list goes on an on.

I think you'll see in the next few years, as other manufacturers play catch up (cough cough Smith and Wesson) with new and improved polymer products (cough cough M&P) with better ergonomics while maintaining dependability, that more agencies will experiment outside the Glock bubble.

In my area, county and city officials are issues Beretta 92 (to the best of my knowledge). State officials are still issued the Glock 22.

Just some thoughts.

I'm real anxious to see what kind of sillyness turns up in this thread though. That's not to say it isn't a good topic, because it is. Hopefully it won't turn into a Glock vs. xx free-for-all brawl.

***As an interesting side note, I watched a cool program on one of the learning channels (history, etc) the other night about how Smith and Wesson's board of directors basically said there was no way a "plastic" pistol would ever survive the industry. At that time, S&W (according to the show) accounted for 98% of Law Enforcement sidearms. The rest...as they say...is history. :):D
 
kd7nqb said:
Thats what I was thinking but most LEO's own other firearms I guess I would expect to at least see SOME 1911's and others. Also now an XD sells for less than a glock even with the $100 LEO discount.
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It's not entirely Glocks. My local Sheriff doesn't issue weapons, so there are deputies carrying 1911s. Lots of fed LEOs carry Sigs. My hometown counties carried H&Ks. Glocks do have the lion's share of the market, though, by far.
 
Parts are readily available and inexpensive; especially for mags. You just can't go wrong with a quality weapon at an affordable price.

I'd suggest you buy one, and join the dark side.
 
They are Accurate, reliable and virtually indestructible, light weight and high capicity. They are also one of the only guns that have gone through arduious torture tests and shoot perfectly. Not to mention they come in alomst every caliber and size, parts are readily available and they only have 34 parts total.

Thay are also less expensive to produce and cost less to LEO Departments.
 
Marketing.


Glock aggressively marketed to LE early on and gives departments unreal pricing.

They know that people want what the police carry. So they essentially give Glocks to police and then enjoy a large market share in the civilian market.

The fact that it is a quality product in addition to the low price is just icing on the cake for decision makers in police departments.
 
Dovetailed into the pricing structure were the buybacks of existing department weapons inventories. When you analyze it, they law enforcement agencies were given phenomenal deals. Deals that private buyers just couldn't obtain.

Kind makes you wonder whether those deals were entirely on the up and up. Not accusing anyone, just wondering out loud.

Maybe someone in government procurement could shed some light on it for us.
 
The LEOs don't decide which guns the department will issue, the bean counters do. Most LEOs I know do not like the Glocks that well. The bean counters love them for the $128.00 price AND a used gun buyback from Glock on whatever the department is replacing. Look on CDNNSPORTS for the "law enforcement trade ins Glock dumps there. The earlier poster was right on the mark, give the guns away to the LEO community and the rest of the gun buying public will flock to your store to buy the "cops choice" of pistols. You see the high four and low five hundred dollar figures these guns are bringing and have to stop to realize what the actual manufacturing costs are; I'm told the frames cost in the neighborhood of six or seven dollars to mould, slides are forged and machined at around forty dollars and the barrels about the same all told their costs are probably less than a hundred dollars each and they give the distributors twenty five or thirty off list to split with the actual retailer.
 
The LEOs don't decide which guns the department will issue, the bean counters do. Most LEOs I know do not like the Glocks that well. The bean counters love them for the $128.00 price AND a used gun buyback from Glock on whatever the department is replacing. Look on CDNNSPORTS for the "law enforcement trade ins Glock dumps there. The earlier poster was right on the mark, give the guns away to the LEO community and the rest of the gun buying public will flock to your store to buy the "cops choice" of pistols. You see the high four and low five hundred dollar figures these guns are bringing and have to stop to realize what the actual manufacturing costs are; I'm told the frames cost in the neighborhood of six or seven dollars to mould, slides are forged and machined at around forty dollars and the barrels about the same all told their costs are probably less than a hundred dollars each and they give the distributors twenty five or thirty off list to split with the actual retailer.
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BINGO!
 
I think the most amusing part of the Glock saga is that Gaston positioned his company to replace the then-ubiquitous S&W duty revolvers in police hands with his double stack revolver replacement.

And then just like those moribund revo manufacturers, he rested on his laurels and let inertia set in. Now it is the Glock line that looks seriously dated. Not as dated as wheelguns for police or military service, but definitely now a generation of fresh thinking behind the times.

Where the Glock line was once revolutionary, it is now sorely long in the tooth. It sports outmoded ergonomics when all of the major competitors have had to set themselves to the task of building the better cop gun. Now detachable backstraps, rounded trigger guards, ambidextrious controls, and no finger grooves are the order of the day, along with the choice of a manual safety or not, the Glock dominance is being steadily eroded.

I love capitalism, just look at how discredited Windows has become, when the system is hilariously mentioned in the same breath as the word "innovative." Glock is headed towards firearm self parody if Gaston lets it by standing pat in the face of more nimble competition.
 
Don't forget that Glock sells their guns as "safe action" pistols. Most people believe that they are the safest guns out there. For most cops who only shoot once a year, and are not nearly as skilled as they want us civilians to believe. The Glocks are as close to idiot proof as you can get for a pistol. Even though they are carried by a lot of extremely qualified people, there is a lot of novices that carry them for a living. Just about every cop you talk to will tell you about some one in their department that has had a accidental discharge with one of these guns. They generally involve someone having their finger on the trigger when they holster their weapon. Marketing has done wonders for this basic firearm. I am a fan of them for a few instances, my SO has my G-20C in her nightstand. She only has to rack the slide and pull the trigger........ pretty easy, at night she can switch on it's light. I don't worry about a mag change with 15 rounds of 10mm. Almost as easy as a wheel gun. It's a great gun for the lemmings of the world.

Next subject, a lot of LE in Texas have their choice of sidearm. I see 1911's, M-9s and most of all the popular stuff out there. Texas Rangers carry the SIG, due to a...........don't laugh...............bean counter decision.
 
I've read that one of the original attractions for the Glock "safe action" was that it came closest to duplicating the double-action-only manual of arms that the police departments had imposed on their revolver users. So the transition to Glock autoloaders involved a minimum of retraining, and kept a relatively long, relatively heavy trigger pull that the departments decided they needed to cut down on "accidental" discharges that resulted in lawsuits. Of course autoloaders require malfunction clearance drills that revolvers don't, but Glock's legendary reliability made those a largely academic exercise that officers had to demonstrate but not (or at least only rarely) use when the chips were down.

Simplicity of training/transition sold the bureaucrats, and cheap sold the bean counters. A pretty powerful one-two punch. And once they were in place, the offer-you-can't-refuse trade in deals tended to keep departments locked to Glock.

Personally, I like the Glock mechanism and reliability, but dislike the grip angle enough to not buy one. Am considering the M&P, but if Glock came out with a second line that had a more upright grip angle I'd be all over it in a heartbeat. Even if I couldn't get one for under $200.
 
1. $

2. Reliable.

3. $

4. Effective.

5. $

6. Marketing and incentives to LE agencies.

7. $

and

8. $

Mike
 
I've read that one of the original attractions for the Glock "safe action" was that it came closest to duplicating the double-action-only manual of arms that the police departments had imposed on their revolver users.
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I'm glad you brought that up as I was going to. Lots of reasons already mentioned including price, marketing, and such. But one of the key reasons was the gun was designed to operate in the same way as the revolvers that most LEO's were issued at the time of Glock's inception.

cc
 
When you think about it, that a Glock only takes a trigger pull to operate, for good or ill, as a selling feature, evokes this guy:

CavemanGeico4.gif


And doesn't speak well to the average intelligence or trainability of cops.

Oook, ook. Fire like wheelgun!!!

Dude, look what the monolith taught me! No external safeties!

2001-ape-bones-bg.jpg
 
I carry a glock because they work, they're light and impervious to the elements. I used to carry a SIG and still believe they are great guns.

Most of the other cops I know are carrying Glocks and like me paid for their own and used to carry something else.

Price had no influence on my decision, glock's reliablility, accuracy, weight and rust resistance did. Not to mention how easy and quick they are to detail strip. Plus the magazines are dirt cheap, can be found anywhere and the big gun mags work in the compact guns making for a nice system for uniiform and back up guns.
 
Thats what I was thinking but most LEO's own other firearms I guess I would expect to at least see SOME 1911's and others.

Everything has alreday been said about Glocks. Many agencies don't allow singlae action autos like the 1911 as the powers that make decisions feel they are not safe.
 
I could have purchased a Glock 21 through the dept for around $400 with night sights and 3 mags, if they were $128 I'd be carrying several. Anyway, my choice (for MY money) is a HK USPc. When the Glock guys are screwing around with malfunctions at the range my HK just keeps on running and putting the rounds right where I point it.
 
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