The new "historic" Glock G44 caliber .22 LR !!

Glock "teases" the industry and made a big announcement through a live event about the newest product line. Almost no one could guess what Glock's new weapon would be.

Glock introduced a rimfire firearm of the same size as the G19 for both game and training. The Glock 19 is the most popular Glock pistol and may be the most popular semi-automatic gun on the market. It was only logicalfor Glock to unveil the new .22 LR pistol in G19 size (and for holster compatibility).

The G44 is Glock’s first rimfire pistol.  Why have they waited so long?  One reason might have to do with the fact that it is very difficult to make a striker-fired rimfire pistol.  That’s why every other rimfire pistol we know of, even if it’s a replica of a striker-fired centerfire gun, has been made with an internal hammer.

Our opinion on the new Glock pistol:

Definitely throwing in a 22LR is fun to shoot! Also the best way to train a new shooter is with a 22LR. Why not having one exactly the same as the characteristics and size of a regular firearm? So it's Glock's time to "recover" the lost ground in the training gun market!

 

We mentioned above that it is very hard to make a striker fired rimfire pistol.  So hard, in fact, that we don’t know of any.

Why is it so tough?  If the striker fired pistol is already fully cocked (like a Sig p365, Smith and Wesson M&P, or Springfield XD) then the recoil spring on the slide must be strong enough to return the slide to battery to load and chamber the next round AND be strong enough to allow the striker to be cocked.

Surely, a strong spring can be used but… then the spring is too strong for the weak 22 round to reliably cycle the gun.

The same problem exists with striker fired guns that are partially cocked as you pull the trigger (Glocks)… if the striker spring is strong enough to fire the round, then it’s likely going to overpower the recoil spring that has to be light enough for the gun to cycle.

This is why the rimfire Smith and Wesson M&P looks like the 9mm M&P from the outside (great for training familiarity and holster compatibility) but it is actually a hammer fired 22LR on the inside.

Glock can sometimes get picked-on for their lack of innovation but, they make a pistol design that works very well (so why change anything) and we think that this striker fired G44 is pretty darn innovative.

In fact, we’re blown away that Glock came out with features nobody else has been able to incorporate into a rimfire pistol thus far!

Along with potential spring issues on a rimfire semi auto pistol, there comes an issue with slide mass.

If you didn’t know, most centerfire semi-auto pistols have a locking function that locks the action while the pistol is fired and which must be unlocked prior to extraction or ejection.  Rimfire pistols, on the other hand, are typically direct blowback (spring tension and slide mass only) and don’t have a locking mechanism because the diminutive 22LR is too weak to unlock an action.

This is why 22LR pistols have very light slides.  To get a light slide, many manufacturers use junk metal, zinc, aluminum, or something other than steel.  Of course, this reduces the pistol’s durability but a steel slide would just be too heavy.

Glock took their patented design of a polymer/steel hybrid slide that they use in their simmunition guns and brought it to this pistol – another innovative idea!

The legacy continues...