A History of The Glock Pistol

Glock is the preferred firearm used by Terrence Lappe, founder of Terry’s Angels LLC. He and his team use Glock 44 model firearms for the Beginners Group Handgun Shooting Lesson (To schedule a lesson with Terrence and his team click https://terrysangelsllc.com/book/). Terry’s Angels LLC also does Private 1-on-1 Repeat Customers’ Training, Private Rifle Shooting (beginners and advanced), Private 1-on-1 Shotgun Shooting Lessons, and Firearms Care and Cleaning Lessons.  

Glock and the Austrian Military 

Gaston Glock is an Austrian engineer who founded his company Glock Ges.m.b.H in 1963. In the early years of his company, he produced injection molding parts and components. In the 1970’s Glock started producing products for the Austrian military. He started fabricating knives, grenade casings, and machine gun belt links.  

Glock was tasked by the Austrian Military to design a service pistol to meet their needs in the early 1980’s. His polymer frame and SAFE ACTION system revolutionized the modern handguns we are familiar with today. The pistol he created was implemented as the service pistol for the Austrian Army in 1983. This pistol passed every rigorous test out there for handgun use. It has a high-capacity magazine, lightweight materials, consistent trigger pull, and a hammer-forged barrel, which was a must for the Austrian Army’s high standards.

His design for his pistol was based on using the least number of parts necessary. This cut down on the pistol’s complexity. And made it a more durable, reliable, and an easier to maintain automatic handgun than ones that came before. Today’s Glock is made up of an average of 35 parts depending on the model.  

United States Market 

In 1986, the company opened its US Headquarters in Smyrna, Georgia. The Glock pistol soon evolved into multiple sizes and different calibers. This versatility made it a perfect military and law enforcement service pistol for the US Market. Because of its simplicity and reliability alone, it is now used by 65% of the federal, state, and local agencies in the United States.  

From Law Enforcement agencies to Hollywood films, Glock was the weapon of choice. The marketing of this handgun was taken to lengths never seen before for a firearm. The Glock pistol became its own entity so to speak. Everyone was talking about its ease of use, durability, reliability, and maintainability. Without any social media around in the 80’s, word of mouth and a great marketing campaign brought this handgun to the pinnacle of firearms. And to this day, more than 30 years later, Glock is stronger than ever in the US Market and continues to excel.