Originally Posted by
GJM
Here is my take on this topic.
In years past, polymer guns were not nearly as refined, and generally had less usable triggers and less accuracy than the metal guns. The military and many LE organizations used metal guns.
Today things have changed, and with the Gen 5 guns, Glock now makes guns that eject vigorously, are accurate, have usable stock triggers, and with BOLD sights can be literally taken out of the box and put into service. For 90 percent of EDC use, a person could be well served with a Glock 43X, and for 90 percent of LE use, with a Glock 45/45 MOS. Besides hardware, the Glock costs less, is easier to maintain, and easier to accessorize. For basic level shooting, the Glock is easier to teach. The combination of all these factors — cost/maintenance/accessories/training has put a hurt on metal guns for LE and non-enthusiast citizen use.
At the same time that the Glock has taken over the LE and non-enthusiast EDC markets, metal guns have become a performance/enthusiast product, and continued to develop, although that market is much smaller than for LE and common EDC. CZ is selling a bunch of pistols, Tanfoglio has its fans, and even Walther has brought out a metal gun. Going the opposite direction, Sig has largely abandoned metal for competition, and made its bet in the 320 X5.
Beretta, despite having a big lead in years with the 92 series, has been slow to bring new products to this market, whether competive polymer striker offerings or metal guns targeting performance shooters. Ernest has done an amazing job, as has Bill Wilson, but what was missing was a major corporate emphasis by Beretta on making competitive products. For mature eyed competitive shooters the red dot is a game changer, and unfortunately the 92 does not easily lend itself to adding a red dot. Metal guns lost the LE/EDC market, and have become enthusiast guns, but without a red dot, that limits Beretta to those shooters wanting a metal gun with only iron sights.
What is interesting is CZ Custom, after popularizing the Shadow 1 for competition, has brought out first the Bull Shadow, selling a bunch of them, and now has their new metal Production gun near delivery. That shows there is interest for new performance metal guns, that have the right feature set, although that is a much smaller market than the LE/EDC market, which is now striker fired.