The Final Laps Of The Not Glock Race

Many, many years ago, when I first started gunblogging, I wrote about the idea of the “Not Glock,” the polymer, striker-fired pistol you’d choose if you didn’t choose a Glock 19. At the time when I first wrote about this, the “Not Glock” of choice was the original Smith & Wesson M&P. Ruger’s “Max” series hadn’t shown up yet, H&K was doing the P30, SIG was about to roll out the double-action only P250 series and FN had the DA/SA FNX series. The M&P was pretty much the only gun that copied the polymer frame and the striker-fired action of the Glock Gen 3 series, which was the version being sold at that time. 

Hold onto that last sentence, because it’ll be important later. 

In the intervening, oh, 20 years or so, the “Not Glock” field has become downright crowded, with the FN 509, H&K VP9, new M&P models and. of course. the P320 from SIG. Based on what I see and feel (with absolutely NO market data to back this up), the P320 is now the “Not Glock” of choice, with the FN 509 and Walther PDP coming up fast. 

What’s coming up even faster, though, are “Not Glocks” that are actually… Glocks. Or rather, clones of the Gen3 Glock. The patents on that iteration of Glock pistols have expired, which means just about anyone can copy what a Gen3 looks like inside and make it their very own. Palmetto State, Shadow Systems, Stoeger, Faxon, Anderson Manufacturing, Zev, the list goes on and on. 

And we haven’t even begun to talk about the homebuilt, aka “3D printed guns” market yet. 

Now Ruger and Magpul have entered this market. This, IMO, a great move on both their parts. Sales of the Ruger Max-9 have been… whelming. Not bad, but nothing like the FN 509 or the P320, and Magpul gets to put their prodigious polymer manufacturing skills to work at building Glock frames. As a result, this pistol has one thing going for it that the others don’t: Top-tier names, as everybody knows Ruger and Magpul. Not only that, but they’ve improved upon the Gen3, making it a chassis gun that is red-dot compatible with no plates, right out of the box and given it a very nice MSRP.

Not bad.

The Not Glock race isn’t over, but Glock needs to realize just how good its competition has become. Think back to, oh, 1985 or so. IBM was the dominant player in desktop computing, with Compaq coming up fast. Now one company (Compaq) has been swallowed whole by a competitor (HP), and the other (IBM) is out of the desktop game altogether. 

Pistols are a mechanical device, which means that they evolve at a speed much slower than gadgets which use computer chips. “Slower,” however, doesn’t mean “never.” Companies that understand that thrive. Those that don’t go the way of Gateway computers.