Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns The end of "made in Austria" Glocks

More internet / gunshop nonsense, I�m afraid.

The problem with Beretta 92 slide cracks was a design problem � not a manufacturing issue � and they initially occurred with the European manufactured guns with high round counts.

The fix was a change in design � not where it was made. When Beretta introduced their pistol into the military Service Pistol fiasco, there were no production facilities for the pistol in the U.S.

The reported problems were sheared off barrel lugs, frame cracks and slide separations.

The slide failure fault was determined to be metallurgical. Picatinny Arsenal, in a document coded MMB-01-89 pointed out the material employed in the slides had difficulties in it's microstructure, the sulphide morphology, and the element added for sulphide shape control in the AISI 8640 re-sulphurized steel. It was not a hardness problem. Rather, it was the chemical element added to control sulphide shape. The sulphides found in the low toughness slides were globular and contained tellurium (Te) as an additive to control the shape. Work done by the Army Science Board in the Materials Evaluation Section, AET-M demonstrated that Beretta slides represent two distinct populations: one with a low fracture toughness of about 40 ksi V in. and one with a high kv of about 71 ksi V in. The low fracture toughness slides separated much sooner and magnaflux did not reveal the faults. For instance, one slide magnafluxed at 6,000 rounds showed no faults, but suffered a catastrophic failure at 6,007 rounds.

It is interesting to note that a modification was made to the military M9's so as to prevent the rear portion of the slide from departing the frame. No such modification was made to civilian pistols.

Of course I don't know any of that to be true. It was told to me by an old guy with early onset dementia sitting on a stool in a gun shop drinking coffee and chewing tobacco....

.....dang, I swear I don't remember telling you all that.......
:-)

just went up the safe. I compared my nib USA made Glock 19 to the Austrian twin. No difference. Serial numbers are different and the USA model has the state of Georgia on the slide instead of the glock logo. WOW

Not going to sell either one

Really? This is the only interesting post in this rather lame thread - if it is true.

The only external metal that rusts on a 1st gen Glock is the slide release. I have a very high round count Gen 1 G19 that is never properly taken care of and it does not rust. The thing is the perfect truck gun.

So if there is rust on the slide on Gen 4's then that would indeed be a huge disappointment.

For curiosity sake, can you please take a look at your Gen4 and see if it is stamped "made in Austria" or "USA"?

Your pistol is "made in Austria" and has a tennifer metal treatment from the factory.

Sorry it took so long to get back to this.

I just took a look at both my G35 and My G27. The frames on each say made in Austria. The slide simply says "Austria".

I have reports from the firearms training staff of Kentucky's Fish and Wildlife Law Enforcement and from KSP personnel who have encountered rust developing on the slides of their Generation 4 pistols. KY F&W are issued G22's.

In each case I have been made aware of, the rust has developed in the slide serrations of the pistols.

I will buy my duty guns when I retire at the end of this month, but I am looking for a Generation 1 G17 and at some point I will add a Generation 2 or 3 G19, but I doubt I'll buy any more Generation 4 guns.

I work in a fairly large gunshop (4500+ yearly) and all of the US made guns that I've seen were Gen 3's. I'll check when I go in Monday.

From my understanding, the Gen ones are getting collector prices now.

I guess that's mistaken, since your post above was made a few years ago, and just this past summer I bought new a Gen 4 Glock 17 that says right on it "Made In Austria."

Well since I haven't run into a bad Glock (okay, since Gen 3) whether made in the US or Austria I'm left wondering why it makes any difference?

As long as Glock remains large enough that S&W can't buy them out, I don't much care if they're made here or by the EU.

and since i cast those bullets, it's about 3.50 a box for me.