TAC TV

I finished up the two part series last night where Larry Vickers torture tests two Glock pistols: a 3rd gen Glock 17 and a 4th gen Glock 17. While there are countless stories and posts of people torturing Glocks and AR15s, Larry Vickers' tests are epic and educational. There was no disappointment in both the Glock 17 tests, or the Daniel Defense carbine tests; the rifle from the latter test I personally saw at this year's Modern Day Marine Convention, and it looked like hell. I took a cellphone pic, but it turned out to be blurry.

***Spoiler alert: if you want to watch the video and find out for yourself what the outcome was of the Glock 17 tests, take a hike.

There were some of the usual tests, like freezing the pistols in water, burying them in dirt, tossing them in muddy water, and running them over with a truck. All in all, they never failed to fire. In part 1, Larry had the truck run over both of the loaded magazines on concrete. That was telling; the magazines bulged a bit, with the 4th gen magazine baseplate looking mangled. They still fired great, and I note that each pistol used the same magazine for all the tests. Another interesting part is when Larry shot the pistols with #8 shot from a shotgun at 15 yards. It stippled the polymer grips, but didn't break them. Both guns were thrown (loaded, for every test) from a helicopter at 500 feet, and as can be expected, both guns ran fine when they were recovered, and right before that test they were both thrown from a moving vehicle onto gravel. Besides being scratched up, the guns were fine.

The test that separated the men from the boys, so to speak, is when Larry detonated 30 lbs of tannerite about three feet away from a mannequin with both pistols holstered. The decision was made to have them in kydex holsters because this is how cops and the military transport their sidearms. A coffee cup sized jar of tannerite makes a decent sized explosion, and the Glock employees who were present for this test were obviously not prepared for the size bang that they got; it was enough to turn a car into a john boat, if it had been done that way. It took the crew awhile to find both guns -- the 3rd gen fired just fine; the 4th gen's slide had come partially off, which took a minute to get back on, and the trigger was blown away. Larry cycled the slide a few times, loaded one round, and fired the gun using a multi-tool in lieu of the trigger. Very impressive.

It's possible that other firearms can take this sort of abuse and still function, but it's telling to actually see it, which is good advertisement for Glock. When the conversation of guns turns to "torture test", usually the image of Glock comes up, since Glock owners gleefully beat them up just to find out what it takes to make them stop ticking. I've found this thought process applies to Cold Steel knives as well; there are plenty of hard core knives out there that will take punishment, but Cold Steel does a comprehensive test on all their knives every other year. Say what you want to about it, but Glock and Cold Steel definitely put their money where their mouth is, and I continue to support them.