Now that the big reveal has happened, and the Glock 44 is out, it seems like it is time for a thread dedicated to Glock 44 range reports.
I picked my Glock 44 up today at the LGS. When I handed it to my wife to show her, she basically turned up her nose and said she wasn’t interested. In that her main competition pistol is a 320 Legion, I could sort of understand how the 44 might feel like a toy. When I got it home, I was pleased to determine that I could add a GlockStore Thug grip plug, which added about 1.5 ounces. Link:
https://www.glockstore.com/Thug-Plug
The trigger felt heavy relative to the weight of the pistol, and I decided to look at the striker spring. It appeared to be a regular OEM 5.5 spring, although the spring cups were white instead of black. I replaced the 5.5 OEM striker spring with a Wolf 5.0, improving the trigger somewhat, but in the process launching one white spring cup to an as yet undetermined area of my gun area. Replacements are on the way, but in the meantime, I used regular black OEM spring cups. Next, was to check the G44 in a George AIWB and my Comp Tac International competition holster — the 44 worked perfectly in both.
End of the day, my wife and I headed back to the range — me to shoot the 44 and her to mess with one of her new Legion optics top ends. After a few rounds to verify it would still light off rimfire rounds, I figured I should shoot some known test. My wife suggested Gabe’s test, using a Pistol Training target, since that is what I had up. Oh, before I forget, the 44 shot POA/POI in windage, but about two inches high at 7 yards with the 40 grain Fiocchi ammo I was using. Will look at a taller front sight later.
I had to edit the various strings together, so you didn’t have to watch me reloading magazines. I was turbo on three runs, maybe on a fourth, and just over on a few more. I could stand some time working with the smaller grip as my draw looked balky. Here is the video.
Afterwards, I tried some doubles, and found the 44 harder to split than my Gen 4 17 competition pistol. While the sights lift less than a 9mm, the overall experience was very similar. At this point my wife asked to shoot a few magazines through the 44. Here she is shooting a two inch dot and then the eight inch circle at about 7 yards.
Just as I was about to ask her what she thought, she turned to me and said “wow, I had no idea this thing was going to be so much fun to shoot!” That, of course led me to end up loading a box of .22 ammo into magazines as she shot away.
After I wrestled the pistol back out of her hands, I finished up another box just enjoying the 44. At that point I got the bad feeling I might be ruining my recoil control with my Glock 17, so I went and grabbed it to see. I figured I would do a cold Garcia dot drill, which is a draw and six shots into a two inch dot at 7 yards, since that would test recoil control. It went clean in 3.69, allaying any concern about not remembering how to shoot centerfire.
I repeated another dot in 3.20 something with my sixth shot about a half inch high, then did a number of other tasks, and experienced no negative from the .22, and positive from steering the sights and working the trigger on a harder to shoot pistol than my G17.
Throughout the session, I had a couple light strikes, possibly from my lighter striker spring, possibly because it is a rimfire. I also had a few stoppages when trying to load from slide lock. I have no idea how these pistols will do with higher round counts, and if my sample is representative, but as of now I give it an unqualified thumbs up as a helpful training tool, especially for a Glock shooter.