What Makes a Gun Company’s Reputation. How Do they Rank

[RevolverRob]

Thats kinda the problem in my book.

The Timberwolf frame offered a genuine innovation that Glock could have employed to great success - grip angle changing backstraps. One pistol, with either a Glock, 1911, or CZ grip angle, to best suit the shooters natural point of aim.

This was released at the time of the Gen 3 Glock. To which Glock gave us...stack on backstraps to simply make the Glock grip hump increasingly pronounced.

Now even Polymer 80's have more refined ergonomics then the factory Glock.

FN released the first optic cut production pistol - the FNX 45 Tactical - in 2012. Glock didn't release the MOS until 2016.

SIG released the P365 before the Glock 43x/48, showing that metal magazines can provide high capacity slimline pistols (arguably the Keltec P11 showed this decades earlier.) Glock releases the 43x/48 with 10rd polymer mags...leaving the 15rd metal magazines to be developed by a small company after internet nerds figure out that CZ75 mags fit easily into the g48 magwell.

This is...frustrating.

What you view as a problem I view as a likely strength. Waiting for demand to build and determine it is really there is important for any company.

My frustrations with Glock have nothing to do with being slow to adapt to market changes. It is being slow to respond to legitimate user criticism. Like Gen4 reliability issues, mushy triggers, and minute of pie-plate accuracy. Those issues seemed to be exacerbated by rolling engineering changes in addition to the stupid addition of finger grooves beginning in Gen3.

Pretty much all of those issues were resolved in Gen5, it only took just under 20-years.

Comparatively speaking the rollout of the G42/43/48/etc has happened lightning quick.

In the time it took Glock to roll out the Gen5, several whole product lines came and went from other makers, like Smith and Wesson, Walther, and Sig. Non-interchange of parts has resulted in those lines become veritable orphans. Anyone tried finding a M&P9 1.0 barrel lately? They're all discontinued. How about a Sig P250 caliber interchange kit? How about parts for the Walther PPX or a PPS Gen1 with a paddle mag release?

One could argue the Hudson H9 was innovative for its recoil spring mechanism. Parts though? Shit there are people who bought their guns and don't even have the gun anymore.

Meanwhile, back in the jungle - you can get all the parts for the not very innovative 1911, Browning Hi-Power, CZ75, Glock (pick your flavor), HK USP, and the Beretta 92-series. This speaks to the durability, reliability, and engineering of those designs. The youngest of those designs, the USP will be 30 in just a couple of years. We may have newer designs, but until they have 20+ years of continuous use, I'm unlikely to view them as well vetted and established models.

Thus for me, a companies reputation has far less to do with innovation and far more to do with longevity. But not just longevity (or like Colt would be the best brand ever). It's consistent production of quality products that makes the company's reputation to me.

[Joe in PNG]

I'll also add that "Innovation" has to be more than some Go Fast plastic bolted over a common-or-garden straight blowback system/ Browning tilting bolt. Or a new but ultimately niche cartridge. Or something that is actually more useless than the traditional thing it is supposed to replace (I'm looking at you, Taurus Curve).

[JSGlock34]

There's a lot I dislike about SIG, but they're disrupting the industry. They're turning themselves into one-stop shopping for firearms (handguns, SMGs, assault rifles, precision rifle, light machine guns), ammunition, suppressors, optics, tactical gear, and training. They're poised to provide a complete suite of small arms to the military (M17, NGSW-R, NGSW-AR and their .338 LMG). They're managing to make simultaneous inroads into competition, LE, and military communities.

I dislike their propensity towards using the end-user as beta tester (everyone has had a problematic roll-out of a product but c'mon SIG) and the company sometimes seems apathetic about the safety of their products. They have an absurd number of SKUs and seem to cannibalize their own product line at times. The gun of the month syndrome imported by Cohen from Kimber tends to periodically run amuck.

Many seem to think their 'modular' approach is less innovative than it is a marketing gimmick - and there's a pretty extensive list of promised features that never came to fruition. On the other hand, the modular aspect for the end-user may just be a nice by-product of the real advantage of the modular system for an organizational purchaser - logistics. The Army will likely appreciate that the M17 has a disposable frame.

Is this what innovation looks like? It's definitely a mixed bag.

On the other hand, Glock just builds handguns. Pretty good at it too.

[RevolverRob]

I'll also add that "Innovation" has to be more than some Go Fast plastic bolted over a common-or-garden straight blowback system/ Browning tilting bolt. Or a new but ultimately niche cartridge. Or something that is actually more useless than the traditional thing it is supposed to replace (I'm looking at you, Taurus Curve).

One thing about "innovation" is that it usually takes a minute to see that something really was innovative.

Like in 1955 when General Motors introduced a thin-wall cast overhead valve V8 - yea folks saw the potential of it - but now nearly 80-years later, we look back on the small block Chevy V8 and recognize it was of the single most innovative products ever produced from the perspective of whole industries and markets it helped refine or produce.

There are very few ground breaking things that just, overnight, become "the" thing. The iPhone is probably the best example of something that fundamentally redefined the game. And even then you couldn't have an iPhone without a whole bunch of other fundamental developments (like the microprocessor, the internet, and the lithium-ion battery).

Which I guess drives back to my point before. One reason we don't see truly radical departures and this "rapid" innovation in the firearms industry, is because the fundamental unit of power, the self-contained munitions cartridge, has been pretty much the same for ~160 years or so.

That said we've certainly seen some innovation in the firearms industry but most of it comes from the military end of the spectrum and trickles down as opposed to consumer spectrum and trickles up. Makes sense there is still WAY MORE MONEY in military spending than commercially.

[Joe in PNG]

Which I guess drives back to my point before. One reason we don't see truly radical departures and this "rapid" innovation in the firearms industry, is because the fundamental unit of power, the self-contained munitions cartridge, has been pretty much the same for ~160 years or so.

That said we've certainly seen some innovation in the firearms industry but most of it comes from the military end of the spectrum and trickles down as opposed to consumer spectrum and trickles up. Makes sense there is still WAY MORE MONEY in military spending than commercially.

Then again, pretty much everything has been tried in ammp, from hyper-velocity small projectiles to big thumpers. And the biggest progress for handguns has been the refining of the JHP bullet, where the projectile expands reliably, while reaching a specified penetration depth, even after passing through a set of barriers. Which was more of a law enforcement thing, but anyway.

[spyderco monkey]

Good points. However I don’t find this frustrating. I want fewer new models, parts, and mags from Glock. Just continue to refine the current design. Standardization is one of Glock’s main strengths.

Well thats just the thing; the innovations Glock could implement don't change the overall parts or models; Timberwolf, Polymer 80, Nomad, MR920 etc are all superior in terms of ergonomics and features, yet other then the frame itself, use legacy Gen 3/4 parts.



-Substantially smaller grip circumference (feels like a metal magazine gun)
-Grip angle changing backstraps (1911, Glock, CZ grip angle; aftermarket could create custom fine tuned angles)
-Non pignose rail with real Picatinny
-Factory removable integrated magwell
-Undercut trigger guard

The above should have been the Gen 4 Glock; certainly the Gen 5. Substantial improvement, no reduction in parts availability.

For the sights, simply taking the shitty plastic sights, and replacing the white insert with a blaze orange insert, and replacing the rear with an all black plastic U notch.