I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Glock for most of my adult life. I love the Plastic-Fantastic Renaissance they brought to defensive hand-guns. I also HATE that because of their proliferation and durable success you don’t have many options to buy a new production ALL METAL hand-gun that isn’t a 1911 style war-horse. Of course I don’t hate polymer guns. My carry and home defense guns are polymer Smith and Wesson Shield 9mms. But if I had my way all my guns would have aluminum frames and shiny stainless slides. Due to the “glockification” of handguns most modern semi-autos can be had in any color you want as long as it’s flat black.
My Brother-Cousin Elmo recently bought Glock’s new model 48. Bucking the flat black trend this one has a 4.17 inch barrel inside it’s silver “nPVD” coated slide. It certainly LOOKS way better than the all black herd. It’s strange though. It has an odd sort of off putting super FLAT almost powdery look and feel. It reminds me of fence or nail galvanizing. Not a very finished look. Glocks have always been just as UGLY as they are reliable….which is to say VERY VERY VERY UGLY. This is no exception…although it IS not AS UGLY as previous models. It has a sort of rounded chamfering on the muzzle end of the slide that adds a little style when compared to the old square BLOCKY look of most previous Glocks.
My main problem with Glock have been that their grips are just too thick. They feel like picking up a chunk of 2×4 lumber. There is still some of that but it’s greatly reduced manly due to it’s single-stack magazine (this one’s capacity is a nice even 10 rounds of 9mm). The Glock 43 was their first single stack Nine and even with my diminutive hobbit-sized hands my pinky would be dangling off the end with-out adding an after market third-party pinky rest/extension. My Shield’s would have the same issue if I ever used the 7 round mags….but I NEVER do. I opted to buy a bunch of 8 rounders. I sold or traded off all of the stubby 7 round magazines. The Glock 48 feels very NICE in the hand with no pinky dangle. For ME this handle is the PERFECT length.
Glock actually gets a LOT of stuff JUST RIGHT with this one. I put several mags of 9mm through Elmo’s brand new gun and like most modern semi-autos it never gave us one malfunction. Not only was I able to get accurate hits with the 48 but NONE of the brass flipped up and smacked me in the head on the way back down like a lot of Glocks do to me. If you look at some of the pics online or even some of the video reviews like this one from TFB TV you will notice the weird hollow “fake dust cover thing” that protrudes past the frame where the slide extends out to the muzzle. I thought that thing was soooooo ugly until I seen and handled the gun myself. It looks MUCH better in person.
I will probably never be a Glock owner…but I must admit they seem to be on the right track with the 48. They still have the usual Glock Problems:
1) painful cheese-grader “target” trigger
2) blocky overly thick grip (1.10 inch thick here while my Shield is 1.0)shape
3) terrible U rear plastic sights
One and Three are easily fixed by throwing on some aftermarket parts but you are stuck with Two. But for a Glock this is a really NICE grip. Just don’t compare it to prettier, more ergonomically advanced guns like the Smith & Wesson M&P series!
If you’re a Glock guy/gal and you have smaller hands and/or need a more concealable piece this is a better option than the stubby gripped G43 or G26.
