Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns I predict the new Glock 42 to be a FLOP

A comment I can agree with..........mini-autos are only better than nothing at all.

As to the G42, it's about 1/2" shorter on length, about 3/16" thinner & about the same height as a G26/27 in 9mm/40, which I carry occasionally, IWB.

Not much difference in the size of the guns, but, IMO, a big difference in the potency of the rounds so I'll take the 9 or 40 any day & pay the very small size penalty.

The G26/27 & the G42 are all too heavy to be a pocket gun for my use, so if I want to pocket carry, then it's a J-frame 442 with 135 gr Gold Dots.

As far as concealment goes, even with just a T-shirt & a pair of shorts, in a good IWB, I can carry a 1911 LWT Commander sized pistol or a G19 every bit as effectively & as well concealed as the aforementioned G26/27, hence the comment that it is only carried occasionally..........why carry a smaller gun that not as easy to shoot & carries fewer rounds?

The G42 simply makes no real sense to me for reasons of both size & round potency.

MM

I love my Sig P938 9mm, but it is carried in a backup capacity only except for rare instances. If I have to fly someplace and I cannot take a full size, or I go to a gun unfriendly city where discretion is really important and I can�t be leaving extra guns in a hotel room, I take the Sig. It has great sights that make it 25 yard capable, and with a couple of reloads it gives me a pretty decent comfort level that puts me ahead of where a late 80�s/early 90�s cop was with a .38 Special revolver and two speedloaders. It does take practice to get used to the manual of arms carried in a pocket. It is not as smooth as the J frame on the draw, but has too many other advantages to make that the deciding factor. I like getting ready for a fight with a firing grip on the gun and my thumb on the safety when nobody knows I have it!

Getting back to the topic, I would have figured the Glock 42 as a flop because it is too big for what you get in terms of power and capacity. Also, I would not want to be drawing the Glock out of a pocket in a panic situation given the ease of firing compared to the Sig with the manual safety or a �DAO type� gun such as the Kahr CM9 or the Kel-Tec. But, I gave up predicting what would be a flop in the marketplace. I figured the Taurus Judge for a flop, but now we have the Raging Judge and the Who Da Judge and the How Da Judge, and S&W went with the executive branch and the Governor. S&W also has the atrocious lock on revolvers and a bunch of companies have magazine disconnect safeties on guns, but people buy them. I also don�t get cowboy guns except for hunting, but they seem to be doing well.

P.S. I had Kel-Tec P11 that never malfunctioned. It did, however, rust whenever I carried it on my ankle when there was snow, slush or rainwater on the ground.

Hmmm... I do not recall ever having my heart "pimping"

You are probably correct in the case of most folks, but for what it is worth (not much) I do practice my firearms draw and present to fire motions every day at least a little. When I am carrying my P3AT, which is rarely, and I am in an even slightly uncomfortable neighborhood or situation, I have my right hand in my right front pocket, and I already have a shooting grasp on the grip of the gun as I walk along, acting unconcerned but being situationally aware. You are 1000% correct that the little boogers can be hard to draw quickly without practice. I can have either my 1911 or my 380 ready to fire in well under one second from rest.

Ever tried getting that gun out of your pocket under stress, or being on the ground fighting. Or practice other than "range" conditions.

With your above approach, you're going to do one thing well..that's shoot yourself i. The leg.

All you can do when carrying any size weapon is hope your opponent is a little bit slower than you.

During my draw and present drills, my finger remains alongside the triggerguard until the gun is well outside of my body area and facing whatever imaginary opponent I may be facing.

I did have to draw and fire my weapon once at a snarling, fast approaching Charpei/Pit bull cross dog at about 6 feet distance when I fired. I made a perfect center shot right where the neck meets the chest. Even the reporting officer made a comment on what a nice shot I had made and the obvious effectiveness of my 357 Magnum 125gr HP loading. The reporting etc. was but a formality as the shoot was so clearly and obviously a good one, well justified.

I don't know this for sure, but having spent quite a few years having to make quick kill shots on very close Elephant, Cape Buffalo and other dangerous game should, I would hope, be of some help in my keeping my wits about me in a different yet equally dangerous setting. I hope to never find out! I have also done a little bit of comeptitive handgun shooting in games that require speed with accuracy, thus at least somewhat simulating a threat scenario. These are, of course, not nearly as intense as a fight or to the death showdown with the worlds most dangerous creature, but there is only so much one can do in training and preparation. You made your comment about me in ignorance, not knowing at all what I have done to prepare or prep. I have done what is available to me to do so far. A trip to one of the top shooting schools is in mine and Sherri's near future when I am (hopefully soon) physically able to endure such a weekend.

I made my post based on observations of things that you have posted. And I stand by it. I can make part of that judgement based on your bear hunt story. Add in all of the stories regarding your health issues it's fairly easy to begin to form a baseline. Furthermore, there is a world of difference between facing down an animal, which you are already reasonably prepared for and the charge is somewhat expected, and reacting to a blindside fist out of the blue.

I didn't think you can Mark. I don't think you're intentionally lying, but I don't think you're being realistic about your ability.

And it's not just you. Getting your 1911 from concealment to an accurate shot in "well under a second" is pretty dang fast. Doing the same with a Kel-Tec in your pocket is super human. I'm not sure that any man walking could do that in "well under a second".

Is a 3rd or 4th gun really a consideration? Is anyone carrying 3 guns at a time? I don't cc, but even when hunting and such, I've only ever had a max of 2 guns with me. I want to understand the philosophy of such an idea, or even the practicality.

On duty? Yes it can be practical. I've heard of NYC cops who used to carry 3 -4 revolvers


I believe the philosophy is 2 guns is one, and one gun is none.

I have three on me quite often. My service pistol, my BUG, and my M-4

Yeah, for the most part, if I were carrying three handguns on my person, it was a full sized sidearm, (Smith 1076 or Glock 35) and then the Glock 27 in an ankle holster. Then I usually had one of the NAA revolvers in my left hand pants pocket.

I figured the NAA about as good as a sharp knife in a worst case/last ditch scenario.

Very few folks ever knew I had it, as it was verboten to carry any unauthorized weapons on duty. I made sure to purchase mine where I had to fill out a 4473 on it, so I couldn't be accused of carrying a drop gun.

When the P-32 came out, I was just getting to the end of my road time, but I did replace my NAA with one of them for the last few months of my time on the road.

I got one, had a ruger had a Kahr I like it and can put 7 bullets into a pie plate at 10 feet in less than 2 seconds. And yes I will buy the 9 when it comes out! Short trigger resets are cool.

I had a chance to shoot the G42 last night. I went to the range with my wife and her friend (who is shopping for carry gun).

It felt nice in my hands and recoil was what you'd expect from a .380 or even slightly less. Accuracy was fine. In fact, the ladies shot it as well or better than anything else.

It did fail to function function a couple times. I can't recall one when I was shooting, but my wife's friend got several. She might have been limp-wristing, though.

The glaring issue (for me) was it's size. I kept thinking what a nice 9mm it'd make. Much like Safariman posted back at the start of this thread, the gun is pretty big for a BUG. Stacked on top of each other, there is no real difference between the G42 and a Kahr PM9.

I don't see the gun having any place with men who want a pocket gun. Again, my Kahr slips into a Galco pocket protector and takes up no more space than a G42. I think the PM9 is on the verge of being too heavy to fill the role of a pocket pistol. Since the G42 frame has absolutely no size advantage, there's no real point to it--especially when you have to go down to the .380 cartridge.

However, I stand by my original prediction that Glock will sell a ton of them. Glockaholics will gobble them up, and gun store salesmen will push them on women.

So many of you are looking at this the wrong way. The gun is mainly meant for women and people who can't handle recoil. Quit comparing it the LCP and PM9 and compare it to the Walther PPK/s or PK380, the Sig 232 or the Bersa Thunder. They are the market that's being taken over.

Flop or not is of no concern to me. I won't be buying one and don't care what others do.

For those interested, CDNN has the G42 for 4 Benjamins in the holiday sale flier.

No idea if that's a good price or not.

This is an issue even with J frame 38 Special with +p loads. I'm glad my 442 weighs 15 ounces instead of 11.4 ounces. I won't be practicing with +P loads or even 148 DEWC that much. If it weren't for being a "pocket gun" a larger set of grips would be on it now.

I recently shot a Beretta Nano 9mm. It wasn't a 3 yard gun but the amount of work to actuate the heavy trigger and the dinky sight make me think night shooting in self-defense would be a treacherous thing. Someone who was watching could have told which 12"x12" target I was shooting, but not where on the target. Far from shooting out the pips on playing cards, I would have been hard pressed to hit the card at 7 yards.

My lone 380, loaded with +P+ Buffalo bore ammo, is a 'contact range' type of firearm to me. Or, to say it another way, if we are not touching in battle already, the 380 is going to be hard to make a connecting shot with. I sort of think of it as a light, hi tech, on impact nail gun kinda thing. This is why it sits a lot more than it goes along.

I am not unreasonably paranoid enough to carry more than one gun at a time in my daily life. With my two primary pieces being a 10mm and a 44, I am in WAY too much trouble, and have likely already made one or more poor decisions if I cannot extricate myself with one of those two sidearms.

Somebody's compensating...