The Glock 22: America's best-selling police pistol

Guns Magazine, July, 2008 by Massad Ayoob

There are more reasons than low bid why this 16-shot .40 leads in US police handgun sales. More police departments seem to have adopted the Glock 22 than any other make and model. For years, the FBI has given new agents their choice of a 16-shot G22 or the slightly smaller 14-shot Glock 23.

From the frozen wasteland patrolled by the Alaska State Troopers to the 120-degree streets covered by Phoenix PD, the Glock 22 is standard issue along with numerous other state police agencies and countless sheriff's departments.

There are good reasons why the Glock 22 is as ubiquitous today, in law enforcement as the Smith & Wesson Model 10 M&P .38

Special revolver was when we were younger. Yes, cops buy on bid, and yes, the polymer frame Gaston Glock popularized greatly reduces the cost of the pistol. However, the market is now glutted with polymer handguns.

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To understand the G22's popularity, we have to go back to the time of its birth. The year is 1990. From FBI on down, as the wave builds to sweep away the old service revolver and replace it with the semiautomatic pistol, firearms instructors and rank-and-file cops are split fight down the middle. Roughly half want firepower and, at the time, firepower meant a 16-shot 9mm auto such as the Beretta 92, the Sig P226, or the S&W 5906, all extremely popular back in the day.

But the other half want stopping power, colloquially characterized as "a caliber beginning with the number 4," and that means a .45 auto with typical cartridge capacity of eight rounds. FBI's John Hall, head of the Firearms Training Unit, has attempted to cut that Gordian knot with a compromise gun, the 10mm Auto, for which S&W gets the fateful and controversial contract. The Bureau decides on a mild subsonic load, 180-grain bullet at a bit under 1,000 feet per second.

At Smith & Wesson, Tom Campbell, Paul Liebenberg, and Ed Hobbe realize these ballistics can be duplicated in a shorter cartridge based on Liebenberg's wildcat Centimeter round, short enough to fit a 9mm envelope and allow a double-stack magazine giving more ammo in a pistol of reasonable frame size. They approach Winchester, and the result is the .40 Smith & Wesson, debuting in January 1990 at the SHOT Show. It exactly splits the difference between the 16-shot 9mm and the 8-shot .45 paradigms--S&W's Model 4006 will hold 12.40 rounds.

Gaston Glock, at the show, sees the round and is intrigued. He orders a version of his tremendously successful Glock 17 9mm built around this cartridge. The first try off the drawing board is too weak for the powerful .40's vicious slide velocity, and the frame needs to be reinforced. The second incarnation is the charm, and sales take off.

Best Of Both Worlds

The geometry of the standard-size Glock has allowed it to be an 18-shot 9mm. Chambered for the new cartridge, the pistol designated Glock 22 becomes a 16-shot .40. The 12-shot conventional double action .40 autos of S&W and, subsequently, Beretta are the compromise guns they were meant to be. But in the Glock 22, law enforcement sees more than a compromise, it sees the best of both worlds.

On the one side, the 16-shot firepower of the traditional Beretta, Ruger, SIG, and Smith 9mms is not compromised at all if the G22 is adopted: it's a 16-shot pistol, too. On the other side, caliber potency, the 180-grain .40 S&W bullet at 990 fps is remarkably close to the most popular police .45 duty load of the day, 185-grain projectiles rated for 1,000 fps. And much of law enforcement asks itself, "Why should we compromise, when we can have it all?" With said realization, sales of the Glock 22 pistol rocket toward the dominance the model soon achieves in American police work.

The first generation of .40 S&W loads, the still-predominant 180-grain subsonic, was soon followed by a second generation of 155-and 165-grain JHPs going faster, and then by a third generation, a still faster 135 grain. A reduced recoil load from Federal and Speer, done for government spec, gave a fourth power level, a 165-grain at a 1,000 fps. Let's look at comparisons.

The 180 grainer roughly equals the old .38-40 revolver load of the Old West. Each comprises a 180-grain, 40-caliber bullet at approximately 975 to 1,000 fps.

The Border Patrol's 155-grain Federal JHP at 1,200 fps or Nashville Metro PD's 165-grain, 1,140 fps Winchester SXT Ranger both dropped bad guys like lightning when fired from the Glock 22s, bring us into the .357 Magnum's ballpark. Typical factory loading of a 158-grain .357 Mag round these days is around 1,235 fps.

The South Bend, Indiana police issue the 135-grain Cor-Bon .40 at 1,300 fps. Ballistics are roughly comparable to the typical .357 Sig police load, a 125-grain bullet at 1,350 fps. At the other end of the scale, you can stoke your .40 to a .38 Special hot-load level. The 165-grain subsonic at 1,000 is little different from the Cor-Bon .38 P load spitting a 158-grain lead hollowpoint at the same velocity.

Still, the Gen One 180-grain subsonic still seems to be the most popular LE load, followed by the snappier 155- and 165-grain options.