Purpose

I've bought the gun for one primary purpose, IPSC. I also shoot some 'terrænpistol' and to a lesser degree 'tjenestepistol', so ideally the gun should be suited for all this. It isn't. I had some serious reservations concerning the accuracy of the Glock – or perhaps more correct – my attainable accuracy with the Glock. The reliability and robustness that's been the major selling points for the Glock is also its main weakness when it comes to accuracy. The ability to shoot all kinds of different ammo both when totally dry, soaked in oil, drenched in mud or filled with sand is not due to a spray of magic dust from the Gun Fairy – it's due to higher tolerances and clearances throughout the gun. Now naturally you can't expect a loose gun like that to be bullseye accurate – and it isn't.

Accuracy?

This means that the Glock is less suited for disciplines where accuracy is a major factor, like it is in terrænpistol. To be honest, you can't really expect to be competitive with a Glock in terrænpistol, but I chose to just live with it and try not to expect to much from terrænpistol reults. Since tjenestepistol is shot at 12.5 m the looseness of the Glock should not pose a problem in that discipline. The only excuse that one could use would be the rather strange trigger of the Glock. The trigger is a bit weird when you pick up the gun for the first time, but to be honest it isn't all that terrible. I can tell you however that if your trigger control is mediocre or downright poor, some serious inaccuracy may result from the rather heavy and long traveling 'double action' style trigger. Now practise may or may not make perfect – but once you've got a few thousand shots through the hand it starts to get way less of a problem. It's not impossible to get perfect trigger breaks from it, it just demands a bit more from the shooter.

The G34

Now the Glock isn't bullseye accurate, but it is combat accurate, and that's just fine for practical shooting like IPSC. Since IPSC was the main purpose for me, the choice of the G34 model is rather obviuous (bear in mind that the .40 caliber G35 is not available for Danish IPSC shooters due to national handgun caliber regulations). The G34 is made specifically for IPSC, it has the longest possible barrel and has a decent mag capacity of 17. Here's a 'secret', by the way – if you really want to, you can shove 18 rounds into the mag, using the 'Austrian Stomp' (slam the bottom of the almost-full magazine into the palm of your hand to have the bullets 'set' themselves better in the magazine), but be prepared to insert the mag somewhat vigorously and decisively or it'll drop out again 🙂

Old vs new

So – why not consider an old used IPSC-tuned 2011 gun and try to get both accuracy and the the practical aspects covered? Well, for one thing, a good condition 2011 will still be way more expensive than a brand new Glock. Another aspect is the reliability. I consider my 28 year old (bought used) cal .22 gun to be good value for the money – It's still resonable accurate and shoots very reliable with the proper ammo. But 9mm guns experience considerably more wear and tear over the years, and quite frankly I was a bit sceptical about the whole "try to find a used 9mm gun that just simply works reliably without any quirks". I'd much rather mess with the gun and introduce the quirks myself, thank you very much 😀

Using it

Today I really appreciate the simplicity of my G34 and it really does perform tremendously reliable. It simply does what it's supposed to do, when I pull the trigger it goes 'bang'… every time. That inspires confidence and trust in the tool and that's very nice, I think. Oh yeah – details like not having an external safety to engage/disengage is just that, a detail. I don't think any time is really saved from not having to handle the safety manually – unless off course you forget the safety, but I think it is somewhat of a non-issue for even moderately experienced IPSC shooters.