Glock 19

Caliber:9mm (Other Glock models come in various calibers too)

Price: $400-$600+ (depends on generation, model, and other factors)

To the average person, there’s probably like two instances where you’ve seen a Glock. It’s either: “POLICE DEPARTMENT SEARCH WARRANT!!!!! PUT YOUR HANDS UP MOTHER FUCKER!!!! GET DOWN ON THE GROUND FUCKO!!!” or “AYO CRACKA CHECK YO SELF NIGGA FLEX ON DIS SHIT MUTHA FUCKAH!”. Glocks. The most widely known and used handgun in the universe. For a good reason though. They are the Toyota Corolla of firearms. Basic, boring, plain, simple, but good grief do they fucking work (mostly according to Glock haters lmao).

I don’t hate Glocks. I am not a mega fan of them either. But I think at least trying one out if you are looking for a handgun is a must in order to get an idea of what modern striker fire pistols are like. Aftermarket is like the AR-15 in the sense there are mags, accessories, parts, and all kinds of shit available to the point where just like a Honda Civic, you can rice it out into an abomination. It’s one of the versatile pistol platforms out there. But a stock Glock (lmao) is probably one of the most boring handguns you will ever shoot in my opinion. Specifically the Glock 19 (compact 9mm). Not saying it’s a bad gun to shoot. It’s just very standard feeling. Accuracy is good, reliability is good, eh….ergos could be better, the sights are okay. It’s just a very basic handgun, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Again, you can customize your Glock with so many aftermarket parts it’s unreal so you can make some improvements to make your Glock shoot like a dream. You can even change the calibers fairly easily too. There are Glocks that are single stack and slim, double stack and short, full size, compact size, you name it.

The one problem I have with Glocks apart from their basic form factor is their price. Glocks are kind of like the Apple of the firearm world. They like to release new generations of their pistols with minor changes and they tend to charge a lot of money for the kind of guns they sell. If you want to get a Glock for cheap or rather, IF you can find a Glock for cheap, it’s usually going to be something on the used market or police surplus. You can also do a polymer 80 build (assuming it’s going to be legal years from now) if that’s your sort of thing, though it’s still going to be kind of pricey to get the rest of the parts. Is it worth it though? Hmmm. Maybe.

There are definitely plenty of alternatives to the Glock (and in particular the Glock 19) out there from many manufacturers. Smith and Wesson have the M&P line which is also a favorite for law enforcement and the price is usually just shy from what Glock charges for their pistols. They also make a double stack pistol called the S&W SVDE which is practically a straight up Glock clone (minus the magazine compatibility) with a slightly worse trigger but otherwise works identically. Beretta, Stoeger, FMK, Bersa, even fucking Watlher all make some kind of Glock clone. It’s just the nature of the market these days. Though at the end of the day, I still think going with Glock in the end is probably the smarter option in the end just for that access to all those aftermarket accessories and magazines. The later of which will be very convenient for all those pistol caliber carbines that take none other than Glock magazines (which are very affordable once you get past that investment for the handgun).