The all new Glock 44, coming up. (mellow electronic music) Hey guys, I’m Johnny, with PewPewTactical.com, your definitive source for gun reviews, gear guides, and all things in the bang department.
Today’s gonna be all about the Glock 44 chambered in the legendary .22 long rifle. We got one. I’m gonna tell you all about it. I’ll get it out to the range and hopefully help you decide if you need to add some more rimfire to your life. If it’s your first time here, we always put a ton of stuff down below for you to check out, including a link that goes over to our website.
My opinion is our website is spectacular. Check it out, and see what you think. For several months, the internet has been chattering about what the 44th Glock was gonna be. A lot of folks, including this guy, thought that it was gonna be a carbine, and it turned out to be a .22 pistol that looks identical to the Glock 19.
Glock had a huge release event down in Georgia a few weeks back that we got invited to. My editor went and had a blast with the gun. Since then, there’s been a boat load of talk on the internet and the online consensus, is that the new Glock is underwhelming. So my editor sent me one to check out for myself, so I can make up my own opinion and it’s exactly what you would expect from Glock.
It’s a striker fired, polymer-framed, Austrian engineered semi-automatic pistol and it’s chambered in .22 long rifle. The only difference is that it’s a blow back design. What it comes with is just all the other Glocks, a hard plastic box with paperwork and bunch of back straps to choose from, and two magazines instead of the usual three like the gen fives. And those two magazines hold 10 rounds. Yep, you heard that right. 10 whole rounds.
Overall, it is precisely the size of a Glock 19, which is half a spaghetti squash in size. The controls are the same as a Glock 19. It really will feel familiar in your hands on day one. For me, the weirdest thing is how light it is. Mine weighs, unloaded, about three quarters of a pound. Even loaded, it’s just about a pound, maybe a little over.
MSRP is $430, but as of the filming of this video, we don’t really know the street price yet, but it’s probably gonna be around $360. And there’s gonna be an option for a threaded barrel that should be around $150. All right, let’s get out to the range. For this test, my goal was to get the absolute most ammo down the pipe that I could. I took it out of the box and I let it rip.
My goal on day one was 1000 rounds, but those 10 round magazines, they got in the way, and my thumbs pooped out after 700 rounds. Now, let’s talk about those 10 round mags. They’re light, like crazy light, and I’m not really sure, but to my hands, the plastic feels lighter than a regular Glock. The sides had these little small plastic discs that you pull down that help you load.
These things are what ate up my thumbs by about round 500, but I do like the setup and it makes loading a breeze. And there’s an indicator that shows you when the mag is full just in case you can’t look through the side of the open magazine and see for yourself. The sides are standard fare, a dot up front and a white box in the back. And as far as accuracy, I had zero problems. Y’all know I like to ping torso steel, and I put rounds right where I wanted ’em.
The gun is accurate, I can say that definitively. I only went out to about 50 yards, though, because I couldn’t hear the steel ring any further out with that little .22 round, but at the release event, my editor took it out to 100 rounds consistently, and I have seen the documentation on that. Now here’s where it gets interesting, they did, at the release event, 10,000 rounds through the test pistols and only at the end did they start getting some reliability issues.
The feed ramps were literally caked with carbon. Here’s a pic of a feed ramp after 10,000 rounds. That’s carbon chunk missing from the caked on blackness. And that’s the big talk on this gun, it’s the reliability, and because of that, my editor told me to run the gamut in ammo, and that I did. I shot Federal, Winchester, Remington, a box of Browning, literally from the ’90s, Mini Mag, and a boatload of Walmart Thunderbolt.
And with the cheap stuff, I did have problems, consistent failure to eject and stove pipes. And that was all with the cheaper ammo, but with the hot ammo, like the CCI Mini Mag, zero problem. The gun runs great. Now I don’t think I’m ever gonna conceal carry this gun, but for back and forth to the range, I was able to use my hidden hybrid holster for the Glock 19.
It fits great, but keep in mind that the slide spring on the new gun is light and you may want to adjust your tension accordingly. Now to be honest, I went in to this test a little bit cynical, it’s my attitude, it’s a .22, what are you gonna do? But after a few mags, I started having fun. The gun is literally the smoothest and the lightest shooting semi-automatic pistol that I have ever fired. You stay on target with zero effort and for me, that translates to fun.
Let me tell you what I like. First, again, it’s fun to shoot. I didn’t shoot enough rimfire in the last few years, and it reminds me of being a kid, so it gets me back in the groove of the .22 LOL Now second, I do like the price of ammo. It’s cheap to feed and if the street price on the gun comes in, in the mid 300s, I’m gonna be happy there, as well. A full day at the range and you don’t break the bank. Third, the maintenance on this one is gonna be super easy, just like all the other Glocks.
I have other .22 pistols that are a nightmare to field strip. The 44, it does run a little dirty, but when it’s time to clean, you won’t cuss field stripping it. Three shortcomings I do want you to consider. First, the threaded barrel is gonna have metric threads. You half by 28 guys, you’re gonna have to have an adaptor.
Second, those 10 round magazines. Before y’all start typing down below, keep in mind that double stacking rimmed cartridges is a nightmare for the engineers, but holy moly, I need bigger magazines. We’ll see which after market manufacturers step up to the plate, but I need a 100 rounder, and finally, and this is the big one, it’s the reliability issue. There’s already a lot of talk online about this, but let me give you my official stance on the reliability of the Glock 44. Again, I struggled with the rounds that were cheaper and lighter, but I didn’t struggle with the hot stuff or the good stuff.
So, the gun runs, and it runs great, but with an asterisks. You gotta fire the hot ammo. The two that worked best for us, the ones that we’re recommending to you, first, of course, is the CCI Mini Mag, and also Blazer. Now, take note of this. Blazer is what Glock brought to the event down in Georgia and down there, it ran great. Now, I have a question, why did Glock spend three years of R&D; on this gun? A lot of folks are saying that, the 44 is gonna be perfect for training, especially for kids and women.
Now my opinion is the Glock 19 frame is a little bit too big for really small hands to learn on, and that whole attitude of, here little lady, go shoot a .22. Well, that’s patronizing and it makes me feel like its 1953. I do think it’s great for brand new shooters to get to learn the Glock platform on the .22 rifle caliber, just my opinion. But here’s my question of the day for all y’all, how would you use a .22 Glock? Maybe on the range for fun, or maybe training?
Or how about throwing on a light onto that plastic rail and have a varmint gun that gives the varmint a fighting chance? Let us know what you think right down below, we’ll read every comment. Overall, I really did have some surprising fun with the new Glock 44. If you load up on hot ammo, I think you’re gonna have fun as well. On behalf of the PewPewTactical team, I’m Johnny, and we’ll see soon. (mellow electronic music)