Posted on 12/20/2017 5:39:22 AM PST by Yo-Yo
The bustling global arms trade has resulted in many excellent handguns in the last hundred years. Some of the best handguns are more than a hundred years old, while others have been in production for less than a decade. All are excellent weapons for defense, and in some cases offense; they are equally at home in a homeowner’s gun safe or carried as an officer’s sidearm. Here are five of the best handguns currently in service worldwide.
The Colt M1911A1
The original 1911 weighed 2.4 pounds and had a seven-round internal magazine. In 1924, the gun was updated, mostly for ergonomic reasons, to the 1911A1 standard. The 1911A1, while internally complex by modern handgun standards, is still a popular handgun. The end of handgun’s patent, coupled with the weapon’s enduring usefulness resulted in almost every major U.S. gun manufacturer releasing its own version of the handgun. In 2012, the U.S. Marine Corps Marine Special Operations Command adopted the Colt M45A1, an updated version of the 1911A1, as its standard handgun.
The Glock 17
The Glock 17 was built around three key ideas: simplicity, reliability and ease of use. The handgun is easy to take apart, with a single press of the button removing the slide for cleaning and access to the barrel. The Glock passed the Austrian Army’s reliability test with flying colors, jamming only once in ten thousand firings. And the weapon was expressly designed with an eye on “pointability”—the pistol’s natural ability to act as an extension of the shooter’s hand-and-eye coordination.
From the original Glock 17, capable of carrying seventeen rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition, the Glock line has expanded to cover nearly all semiautomatic calibers, including .45 ACP, and the gun has replaced the 1911A1 pistol in such organizations as Marine Special Operations Command and the U.S. Army’s Delta Force.
The Sig P226
Developed by the Swiss-German partnership Sig Sauer to replace the M1911A1 in the U.S. Armed Forces, the Sig P226 failed to win the contract but received a major boost when U.S. Navy SEALs rejected their Beretta M9 pistols in favor of the Sig.
The P226 was an evolution of the Sig P220, a postwar favorite of Western and Western-oriented (such as Japan) armies worldwide. The pistol is a so-called double-action design, meaning a single long pull of the trigger will both cock the pistol and release the firing pin, firing the pistol. Users can also operate the Sig in single action mode, in which the pistol is manually cocked and a shorter trigger pull releases the firing pin. The pistol is equipped with a side-mounted decocker for lowering the hammer without firing.
The Sig Sauer P226 served with the U.S. Navy SEALs for twenty-eight years, before eventually being replaced by the compact version of the Glock 17, the Glock 19.
The Smith & Wesson M&P
Smith and Wesson is one of the oldest names in American firearms. Although the company was mostly known for revolvers, it was inevitable that the company would come out with a Glock-style polymer handgun. The result, the M&P (Military and Police) became highly successful in its own right.
Introduced in 2005, the M&P features a steel-reinforced polymer frame and stainless-steel slide. The M&P was one of the first guns to feature three interchangeable palm swells, allowing the user to configure the pistol to better fit his or her hand. The M&P also features ambidextrous slide stop and magazine release. Unlike the Glock, the M&P can be disassembled without pulling the trigger.
The M&P is available in a number of midsize pistol calibers, including nine-millimeter, 357 Sig and .40 Smith & Wesson, as well as .45 ACP. The M&P mostly serves in police forces in the United States and abroad.
The CZ 75
One of the best handguns in the world wasn’t even available to recreational shooters for much of the Cold War. The CZ 75 handgun, introduced in 1975, borrowed a great deal from John Moses Browning’s late model pistol, the Browning Hi-Power, both externally and internally, but is not a copy, and features significant differences. The nine-millimeter pistol could carry up to sixteen rounds, making it one of the largest-capacity handguns of its day.
Locked away behind the Iron Curtain and unable to secure contracts with the Czechoslovakian government, the CZ 75 failed to gain adherents until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Today the pistol is available in an updated form, the CZ 75BD, featuring a firing pin safety, decocking lever and underbarrel accessory rail, and available in a variety of midsized handgun calibers.
Effin’love that pistol. Dead on accurate.
***the CZ 75 failed to gain adherents until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.***
What do you mean “failed to gain adherents”! Gun magazines at the time were full of praises for the CZ-75 and some tried to make copies of it here in the USA. I actually saw one at a gun show with a HUGE price on it back in the mid 1980s.
Tanfoglio of Italy produced a very good copy of it but I found the trigger to be creepy and the grip too big for my hand. Otherwise it worked well, when the front sight did not fly off.
Right now, you can get a plastic framed Turkish SAR version which fits my hand well, but still has the creepy trigger.
All of my military handgun training in 1966-1969 USAF was done with .38 revolvers.
Yep, the Legion is impressive.
Dad’s new gun. Heavy, nice kick to it but able to hang on (while everyone around me hid).
Not a bad semi-auto list. I prefer the G19 over the G17, but just because its shorter. I think the Springfield XD is better thought out than the M&P but that’s splitting hairs over features. Glock, M&P, XD are all pretty much on par with each other. Never had a CZ so cant comment on that. Seems like a 1911 copy and I’d prefer the 1911. I am not crazy about double action/single action like the Sigs, but its good to have one just to train double/single action in case that’s all you have around.
I’d love to have a Sig but my budget only allowed for a S&W M&P .45. I also have a S&W Shield in 9mm for carry because a full size .45 is too large to conceal.
Thanks for the ping PROCON.
Yeh Springfield Armory is hard to beat. XDM in .40 or XDS in .9mm are fine weapons. We own both. Mr. GG2 carries the XDS.
Glock 19.
It is not the flush finish. It is TOO smooth for an “older” hand to grip.I’m an 80 year old and hands can’t grip the side of my LC9. Older fingers have smoothed out skin. The problem is NO friction and the fingers just slide off.
I simply but a strip of EMERY board, sticky backed onto the slide, either side. Works like a wonder.
Even as a youngster, I had trouble with the slide on a .45.
Oh, the same piece of “emery board” still as good as the day I put it on, 3 years ago. Try it.
I like my Kimber .45.
I had one on but was never trained with it. My only AF gun training was when at a base in SF just before going to Vietnam I was given an M16 and a box of bullets and told to shoot at the target until I hit it a certain total of tries. I flew in C47 and I guess they figured if my plane ever got shot down there would be no need for weapons anyway. If those things got hit and you were not dead from the hit the plane, or the part of it you were alive on, would return to base and land.
I had one on but was never trained with it. My only AF gun training was when at a base in SF (Hamilton?) just before going to Vietnam I was given an M16 and a box of bullets and told to shoot at the target until I hit it a certain total of tries. I flew in C47 and I guess they figured if my plane ever got shot down there would be no need for weapons anyway. If those things got hit and you were not dead from the hit the plane, or the part of it you were alive on, would return to base and land.
My choice
Well, got two out of the five, though the Glock is a .45. makes ammo logistics more simple with the 1911 to use the same.
I carry the same. You get 8 with the extended mags, counting one in the pipe. Works for me.
Indeed. I carry it with the standard mag but have two of the extended ones for back up.
If that don’t do it I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Best,
L
With glocks it is better to train yourself not to use the slide release and just release it by gripping the slide and pulling back until it releases. Fine vs. Gross motor coordination.
CC
Might I suggest the 239 SIG, this is what my wife carries.
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