Glock 21 Review & Accuracy (The Best "Man Stopper" Pistol?)

[Applause] [Music] in this video we're going to be reviewing the Glock 21 in 45 ACP the Glock 21 was first introduced back in 1991 along with the Glock 20 in 10 millimeter the Glock 21 was largely developed for the American market simply because as Americans we love the 45 ACP caliber round and when you look at this you have to see the history of the 45 ACP to really appreciate it and this dates all the way back to the Thompson lagarde tests of 1904 that led the army and the cavalry to decide that the minimum caliber would be a 45 caliber round that was required for a new handgun for the army in fact General John Thompson insisted on a real quote-unquote man stopper pistol following the poor showing of the Army's 38 Long Colt pistols that were used during the philippine-american war back in 1899 to 1900 - so as a result john browning developed the 45 ACP in 1905 which ultimately was utilized in the 1911 pistol was adopted by the US services and used up until the 1980s the 45 ACP is is comes in a number of different types of grain bullets but the most common of which is the 230 grain bullet and has been widely adopted and utilized by the US Armed Services for a long time so that takes us to the Glock 21 so what are some of the things that I like about the Glock 21 first thing is widely adopted it's been attested worldwide especially with military and a lot of police units people love this especially in short range shooting simply because it is a very effective man stopper one of the other benefits of the 45 ACP over the nine-millimeter is a lot of police forces now are moving back to 9-millimeters because of the ballistics of the new types of bullets they can utilize but in the military there are conventions worldwide that prohibit the use of frangible or hollow-point bullets where you have to shoot full-metal-jacketed bullets and the 45 ACP is large enough in and of itself that even as a full metal jacketed round it is just devastating as a man stopper so even though we as civilians can benefit now from newer technology that the hollow point type bullets the military is still limited and that was one of the reasons why the 45 acp was so effective for so long in fact there have been reports of a number of different field hospitals and physicians who for example back in the world war two would report that a number of people that have been shot and injured but the nine millimeters would come into the hospitals but many they were far they would far outnumber the amount of people that ever came in that survived being shot by the 45 ACP it's just clearly a very effective round and that's why the military had used it for so long and then of course that's why ultimately Glock adopted into the 21 for the American market because of our affinity with the 45 ACP some other things I like it's it's a Glock if you're used to firing a Glock this is a typical Glock it's a little bit larger frame but the same type of mechanisms 34 parts etc it comes with a 13 round magazine now for those of you who have been fired 1911's all your life you know that you have a limit to typically 7 to 8 rounds in a single stack 1911 well now it can bump up to 13 rounds which it gives you an added advantage of extra capacity the Glocks are also very affordable compared you to many higher-end 45's as well as many higher in 1911 45s in the market today I think you'll tend to find that the Glocks are very affordable and that in that regard and it's also very lightweight and easy to shoot and we'll go through some of the the weight comparisons in a moment but surprisingly a lot of people will be very happy with how the Glock 21 shoots compared to other pistols out in the market today so what are some of the drawbacks to the the Glock 21 well the first thing is there's a drawback just inherently to the 45 ACP car tridge the 45 ACP and 230 grain is a lot of lead it's almost double the lead count of a typical ein millimetre and when you're in the field or having to carry ammunition around this can be a very big issue for example a fully loaded 13-round magazine Glock magazine comes in it at 12 points 7 ounces compared that for example to a Glock 17 magazine which carries 17 rounds of 9 9 millimeter and it comes in at 1111 basically around 11 ounces so not only is the 9-millimeter providing you with additional rounds to carry but it also is lighter relative to the 45 acp yeah another drawback is the size of the double stack magazine so when you move from a single stack to a double stack you had a lot of width which ultimately has to be incorporated into the frame of the pistol to take the magazine's so not only is the is the grip typically a little bit larger and wider on the Glocks but you'll also notice the frames are actually larger as well compared to the 1911 s 19 Levin's have a relatively slim frame design relative to the amount of frame that's required in the Glock 21 - to ultimately make this an effective pistol to shoot the other part that people would say is when they look at the the larger frame Glocks like the Glock 21 in the Glock 20 is they just they feel large for what they are and oftentimes they want to downsize that but you have to understand the physics behind it most 1911's have steel frames steel slides all of this ultimately the more mass you have the more weight you have the easier it is for the pistol of control in the Glock platform of course we have a polymer frame so the only metal that's in the pistol is on the slide and the internal components therefore the slide needs to be bigger to ultimately account for the amount of weight you need to comfortably fire and operate the pistol and the other drawback to the 45 ACP just again goes back to the pistol round itself the maximum chamber pressures for a 45 ACP is 21,000 pounds per square inch now you compare that to four a 9-millimeter that which can take up to 35,000 pounds per square inch and even 40,000 pounds per square inch for a 10 millimeter so at the time that the 1911 was developed it is a relatively low pressure round and as a result of that even though it is a very effective man stopper it tends to have limitations beyond that when you move into four-legged predators which takes us into the caliber and capacity so we just talked about before it is a 45 ACP one of the benefits of the Glock 21 is it is designed and can be used to shoot plus P loads so 45 plus P loads are you are able to shoot these out of the the pistol which allows you to bump up your pounds per square inch to 23,000 over 21,000 another thing about the Glock 21 is it uses what's called an an octagonal polygonal rifling barrel and I know that's unhelpful but most Glocks that you see the nine millimeters the 40 s used what's called an hexagonal polygonal barrelling but in the larger caliber rounds the octagonal 's worked better because they provided better gas seal for these rounds and basically the main difference is it resembles more of a circle compared to the hexagonal and that's what you'll find within the rifling of the Glock 21 as far as actions and operations a typical stretch of fire pistol there's simple 1 fire released to make safe and you compare that for example to the 1911 platforms which they're single action so you have a single action with the safety that you would have to fire to let down and then ultimately it will recycle itself back to make safe again multiple steps in the process of firing us as as opposed to one step in firing the Glock platform which is the beauty of the simplicity of the platform they created and the striker-fired system today as far as economics and weight how do these compare well the first thing you're going to notice between a Glock 21 is the weight and let's go and look at the weight real quick so in this case empty it comes in a one-pound ten and a half ounces fully loaded it comes in at two pounds and seven ounces however other things you're gonna notice especially if you have a 10 millimeter Glock 21 is that the Glock 21 or Glock 20 the Glock 21 is slightly less weights so it comes in one pound ten and a half ounces as opposed to the Glock 20 which comes in at 1 pound 12 ounces and the reason why it is slightly less in weight compared to the 10 millimeter even though they're their exact same size is to compensate for the lower lower energy 45 ACP cartridge compared to the 10 millimeter so if you have to there is a slight difference in weight between the two another thing about this is the width as we talked about before a lot of people like to carry these on their sides and the 91911 has a very slim profile relative to the 21 so that's one of the things that you end up giving up as well sense it as a Glock it also is very easy to take down familiar with Glocks you'll be familiar with the process of easy disassembly in use of this pistol four major components the frame the slide the the barrel as well as the spring and of course reassembly it's again very easy to do and you compare this for example to the 1911 where you have a number of different steps which is relatively complex to complete relative to the ease that you have in the Glock 21 in taking down and firing as far as options on the Glock 21 what are some of the things that I've done one of the changes I made that you'll notice on my pistol is I included what are called vickers elite sights I use it I almost always change out to aftermarket sights on my Glocks but I tried a different sight on to this pistol because I wanted to have that the the stack dot sighting system and the he also uses a little bit smaller dot on the front sight then you would typically see on a lot of stock sights which I like it helps with accuracy and this is one of the sights that I put on to the Glock 21 here which I love I really like the sights of the Vickers elite sights you also can include things such as extended magazine or extended slide releases like I have here on the Glock 21 as well as you can do a Glock for dollar grip job which I have another video on which again I did here on the Glock twenty-one as far as accuracy what kind of accuracy can you expect to receive well let me just show you at least what I've received out of this pistol so in this case I have different groups at 30 feet and 50 feet that I've fired out of the pistol and then moving out to 70 feet it tends to open up quite a bit for me and then one-handed at 20 feet so how does this all compare well let me compare this for example to my Kimber 1911 and for those of you who are familiar with the 1911 models this is one of the more higher-end models that's got a competition trigger on it excellent sights very easy to fire a typical good 1911 now when you compare the two at 30 feet what kind of groups am i receiving out of my Glock compared to what do I receive out of my Kimber so in this case at 30 feet it's pretty similar it's a little bit tighter with the Kimber which I would expect it's a heavier pistol better trigger I had one flyer here otherwise it was a very tight group but when I move out to 50 feet again the groupings are pretty similar between the two now if I move out to 70 feet you can start seeing a little bit of separation here between the Glock 21 and the Kimber 1911 in this case with the camera I was able to fire a much tighter group at 70 feet then I was versus the Glock 21 and then my one-handed 20 foot groups were almost identical as well so the only really separation I'm seeing as far as accuracy is when I go beyond 50 feet but 50 feet in I'm pretty much consistently accurate with the Glock 21 as I am with my 1911 s and again this is me firing I understand there's other people out there that I'm sure can shoot much more accurate than I can but at least these are my experiences I have but when I move beyond 50 feet I tend to find more accuracy with the 1911 as opposed to the Glock 21 so as far as alternatives what's on the market today well Glock makes a model similar to the to the 10 millimeter 29 same size that is called the Glock 30 and then they have different variants they have the 30 30 s F and the 30s and you can see some of the differences here if I just lay them over in size between the two they have the same width frames but the frames are shorter as well as the grips are typically shorter and you're gonna feel this when you fire them especially if you fire the Glock 30s which is a subcompact subcompact with a slim frame I've actually used to own one of those and it just was so uncomfortable for me to fire I just decided not to use it because it gave up so much accuracy at least for me there also are the 36 which are the slim frames single stack options so again similar size but the slim version single stack and then you now we now have a 41 Glock 41 which is a competition longer slide version as well so you have a number of different variants out there just in the Glock side alone for the 45 acp and then of course you have a ton of options now on the 1911 side and they're just getting better and better out there today this is one of the ones I liked and shot for years but again there's there's many great options out there so as far as utility what is the Glock 21 good for it's good for combat and protection for two legged predators you know as General Thompson said it is a real man stopper and that's what you have with the 45 acp and with the added capacity and ease of use it really is an effective tool especially it's short to medium range for especially for protection against who of legged predators just excellent pistol for that regard so overall high quality it's a Glock that which means there's a lot of simplicity to the pistol people are used to the platform today it is a really effective man stopper you don't need to buy really expensive rounds out there to even be effective with this pistol some of the ones that I like for example the most are the the federal HST if you want a hollow-point round as opposed to under what hammer also makes a great round here in the plus P version now the federal comes out at about 950 feet per second the standard fee per second is around 850 for basic rounds but you can see this get bumped up with the plus P loads where they come out to almost a thousand feet per second with the 230 grain bullet which is again very exceptional typical what you would see out of Underwood ammo it is relatively accurate especially compared to my 1911 s it is affordable these are very affordable compared to many of the high-end 45s you would see today it's a Glock they tend to hold their value very well extremely reliable and universally used so that's my review of the Glock 21 one of my favourite pistols if you liked this video or you like our channel please subscribe on YouTube and thanks for watching

Channel: AZ Trigger

Views: 384,112

Keywords: Glock 21 Review, glock 21 accessories, Glock 21 Accuracy, glock 21 gen 4, glock 21 vs 1911, glock vs 1911 accuracy, glock 21 45 acp gen 4, glock 21 sights, glock 21 vickers sights review, glock 45 models, glock 21 grip tape, glock 21 rubber grip, glock 21 accuracy test

Id: B3ARiOr1reQ

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2017