Some 50 Yard Plinking With A Couple of Glocks...

We’ve got a firearms qualification coming up so it seemed like an ideal time to check zero on the two main pistols I carry these days; my issue Glock 22 and personally-owned Glock 23, both in 40 S&W caliber. These guns are nothing special. The G22 (top) has the dreaded, 8 pound ‘New York’ trigger and the G23 (bottom) has the standard 5.5 pound unit. I did smooth the grip a tad on the G23 and I replaced its front sight with a Meprolight unit.

For targets, I used the Birchwood Casey’s depicted below. They are 12 ¼”x 12 ¼ and really nice for handguns because you can see your irons well against the light background. This would matter because I decided to shoot at 50 yards today; likely about the longest distance either pistol might be pressed into service.

We recently switched to Federal 165 grain HST as our .40 caliber duty load. So far I have killed one deer with it, which had reportedly been hit by a car and was down in the median. When I walked up on it however, it bolted off on three legs toward a busy highway so I only had a second to plant an HST into its shoulder. The deer went right down and was dead almost immediately; the HST penetrated about 14” deer, including the shoulders, and it was recovered nicely mushroomed under the skin on the far side. I don’t know what else you could ask of a 40 S&W hollowpoint.

On to the shooting… three shots groups, with the Federal 165 HST were the order of the day, standing unsupported at 50 yards. Two groups were fired from each Glock; one with the front sight touching the red center dot and one with a six o’clock hold, about four inches under it. I used a single target and each individual group mentioned, is highlighted in red.

The G22, center hold, 50 yards. I hit just a tad high-

The G22, six o’clock hold, 50 yards. That’s more like it!

Well, six o’clock worked for the G22; same hold with the G23 at 50 yards-

The G23, with a center hold at 50 yards, was much better-

Since the G23 is also my summer “farm & fishing gun” I let fly with three rounds of my 40 S&W small game/pest load which is a Missouri Bullet 170 grain lead SWC over 4.0 grains of W231 in range pickup brass, for about 840 fps. Recoil is nil and it makes short work of groundhogs and everything smaller. I held right under the dot for this group, highlighted in blue-

Some closing thoughts… I could just about always get a couple of shots in 2 ½” yet I still managed to throw one out. I need to shoot more. I’ve benched both guns and both are easily capable of 3 ½” or less at 50 yards, with good ammo. That is significant because it meets my personal definition of ‘combat accurate’- capable of making 100% head-shots at 50 yards. Ridiculous?

Watch the North Hollywood Bank Robbery videos sometime.