Glock
brand of polymer-framed semi-automatic pistols
Glock (German: [ˈglɔk]; stylized as GLOCK) is a brand of polymer-framed, short-recoil-operated, locked-breech semi-automatic pistols (as well as some rifles and one machine pistol) designed and produced by Austrian manufacturer Glock GmbH. The firearm, designed by company founder Gaston Glock (1929–2023), entered Austrian military and police service in 1982 as the P80 (later known commercially as the Glock 17) after outperforming established competitors in reliability and safety tests. Despite initial market resistance due to its "plastic" construction, the Glock became the first commercially successful line of pistols with a polymer frame.
The weapon uses the company's proprietary "Safe Action" system, which consists of three independent internal safety mechanisms: the trigger safety, the firing pin safety, and the drop safety. These mechanisms prevent accidental discharge without an external on-off switch. The pistols are also noted for their high magazine capacity relative to their weight and their resistance to corrosion, originally achieved through a ferritic nitrocarburizing surface treatment known as Tenifer.
Glock pistols have become the company's most profitable line of products. They are supplied to national armed forces, security agencies, and police forces in at least 48 countries, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the majority of police agencies in the United States. The product line has evolved through six generations of design changes ("Gen 1" through "Gen 6"). It is available in a wide variety of calibers, including 9×19mm Parabellum, .40 S&W, 10mm Auto, and .45 ACP, as well as various sizes ranging from the full-sized Glock 17 to the subcompact Glock 26 and "slimline" Glock 43.
The widespread adoption of the design has made the Glock rise in popularity and a subject of gun control debates.
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This entry incorporates text from “Glock” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.