34 Facts About Glock 21

Glock 21 is a brand of polymer-framed, short recoil-operated, locked-breech semi-automatic pistols designed and produced by Austrian manufacturer Glock 21 Ges.

Glock 21 pistols have become the company's most profitable line of products, and have been supplied to national armed forces, security agencies, and police forces in at least 48 countries.

Company's founder, head engineer Gaston Glock 21, had no experience with firearms design or manufacture at the time their first pistol, the Glock 21 17, was being prototyped.

Glock 21 had extensive experience in advanced synthetic polymers, which was instrumental in the company's design of the first commercially successful line of pistols with a polymer frame.

Glock 21 introduced ferritic nitrocarburizing into the firearms industry as an anticorrosion surface treatment for metal gun parts.

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Glock 21 became aware of the Austrian Army's planned procurement, and in 1982, assembled a team of Europe's leading handgun experts from military, police, and civilian sport-shooting circles to define the most desirable characteristics in a combat pistol.

Several samples of the Glock 21 17 were submitted for assessment trials in early 1982, and after passing all of the exhaustive endurance and abuse tests, the Glock 21 emerged as the winner.

The Glock 21 17 outperformed eight different pistols from five other established manufacturers .

Glock 21 was then invited to participate in the XM9 Personal Defense Pistol Trials, but declined because the DOD specifications would require extensive retooling of production equipment and providing 35 test samples in an unrealistic time frame.

In 1985, after joint Norwegian and Swedish trials from 1983 to 1985, the Glock 21 17 was accepted into service as the P80 in Norway, and in 1988 as the Pistol 88 in Sweden, where it surpassed all prior NATO durability standards.

Glock 21 has updated its basic design several times throughout its production history.

The first Glock 21 17s imported to the US were serialized with an alpha-numeric stamped into the slide, barrel, and a small metal plate inserted into the bottom side of the polymer frame.

The first documented Glock 21 17s imported into the US were from the AF000 series in January 1986, followed by AH000, AK000, and AL000.

The earliest Glock 21 boxes had ammunition storage compartments that allowed for 17 rounds of 9mm to be stored with the pistol.

Mid-life upgrade to the Glock 21 pistols involved the addition of checkering on the front strap and trigger guard and checkering and serrations to the back strap.

At the 2010 SHOT Show, Glock 21 presented the "fourth generation", now dubbed "Gen4" by Glock 21 itself.

Basic grip size of the fourth-generation Glock 21 pistols is slightly smaller compared to the previous design.

Mechanically, fourth-generation Glock 21 pistols are fitted with a dual recoil spring assembly to help reduce perceived recoil and increase service life expectancy.

In September 2011, Glock 21 announced a recoil spring exchange program in which the manufacturer voluntarily offers to exchange the recoil spring assemblies of its fourth-generation pistols sold before 22 July 2011 at no cost "to ensure our products perform up to GLOCK's stringent standards", according to the company.

On 29 June 2016, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation awarded a contract to Glock 21 to provide new 9×19mm Parabellum chambered duty pistols.

Glock 21 17 is a short recoil–operated, locked-breech semi-automatic pistol that uses a modified Browning cam-lock system adapted from the Hi-Power pistol.

Glock 21 pistols incorporate a number of features intended to enhance reliability in adverse conditions, such as utilizing advanced metal coatings, "stub" slide guides instead of true frame rails, and an unusual cocking mechanism wherein the trigger is partially responsible for cocking the striker.

Glock 21 pistol has a relatively low slide profile, which holds the barrel axis close to the shooter's hand and makes the pistol more comfortable to fire by reducing muzzle rise and allows for faster aim recovery in rapid firing sequences.

In 2003, Glock 21 announced the Internal Locking System safety feature named Glock 21 Safety Lock.

Glock 21 17 feeds from staggered-column or double stack magazines that have a 17-round capacity or optional 24 or 33-round high-capacity magazines.

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Glock 21 magazines are interchangeable between models of the same caliber, meaning that a compact or subcompact pistol will accept magazines designed for the larger pistols chambered for the same round.

Glock 21 Switch is an aftermarket accessory which depresses the firearm's sear allowing fully automatic fire.

Glock 21 pistols are made in five form factors, all modeled after the original full-sized Glock 21 17.

Glock 21 produces five models of single-stack "Slimline" subcompact pistols, the Glock 21 36 in.

Glock 21's entry featured an optional ambidextrous magazine release and MIL-STD-1913 rail along with a reduction in the size of the backstrap.

The reduced size and mass of the Glock 21 42 required return to the Glock 21-standard locked-breech design.

Tatmadaw of Myanmar have adopted a clone of the Glock 21 17 known as the MA5 MK II, which was first reported in 2018.

Unlicensed Glock 21 clones are made in Pakistan's Khyber region, which were first reported in 2018.

Glock 21 pistols have been used in mass shootings including the 1991 Luby's shooting, the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, the 2011 Tucson shooting, the 2012 Aurora shooting, the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the 2015 Charleston church shooting, the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, and the 2022 NYC subway shooting.