In December 2003, soldiers of the U.S. Special Operations Command captured the Ace of Spades himself, Saddam Hussein. The former Iraqi president, on the run since the capture of Baghdad, had appeared in a deck of playing cards with the profiles of other fugitive war criminals and naturally was the top card. Hussein, bedraggled and bereft, was armed with one of the rarest of handguns: the Glock 18, the full auto Glock.
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Glock 18: An All-Rounder Monster of the Glock Family
For those of you who ain’t heard of this beast, let’s paint a clear picture. This ain’t your regular Joe’s gun, it ain’t even your law enforcement’s standard sidearm. No, this here is a special gun for special folks. Glock 18 is the kind of gun that’s got its own tales to narrate, and damn, they are intriguing ones!
How Did the Glock 18 Come About?
Glock’s initial handgun design made for Austrian Army, an early adopter of the use of polymers to reduce weight, made the pistol relatively lightweight and easy to carry. The seventeen round detachable box magazine was much larger than most handguns of the time. Recoil from the nine millimeter ammunition was quite manageable. An emphasis on mechanical reliability made the Glock 17 an attractive choice for police and special operations units that used handguns as their duty pistol, especially in offensive roles.
A Full Auto Glock is Born
In the mid-nineteen eighties Austria’s counterrorism unit Einsatzkommando Cobra, part of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, approached Glock and asked if the company could create a full auto version of the Glock 17. The company was successful and named the gun Glock 18, due to its similarity to the original gun but obvious differences. Technically the Glock 18 is a machine pistol, or a pistol-sized weapon capable of fully automatic fire.
Glock 18 vs. Glock 17
Let’s start off by dipping into the dirty details. Glock 18 is a machine pistol, a select-fire variant of the famed Glock 17 which was built for the good guys – the military and law enforcement. The duo, Glock 17 and 18, they’re so similar, you’d think they’re twins. But make no mistake, even though Glock 18 can switch between semi-auto and full-auto, it still maintains its compactness, concealability and maneuverability like the 17, only with an appetite for destruction.
Glock 18 Recoil
While the Glock 17’s recoil is very manageable, a rate of fire for 1,200 rounds a minute was something else entirely. Early Glock 18s had ported barrels that vented gunpowder gases in a direction to counteract barrel climb. However, this increased overall pistol length and created a situation where the gas ports could catch on clothing while being drawn—not a great feature for undercover work. The Glock 18 also includes an optional wire frame shoulder stock to aid in accuracy.
Glock 18C
A later version, the Glock 18C, has a two inch cut in the top of the slide to expose the barrel. Cut into the barrel are four chevron-shaped cuts designed to vent gases upward, countering the upward barrel rise when firing fully automatic. As a result the 18C has fewer surfaces to obstruct drawing, and at first glance doesn’t look any different than a semi automatic Glock.
The Glock 18 accepts typical Glock magazines, from ten to seventeen rounds, but a handgun with a rate of fire of 1,200 rounds a minute can empty a standard pistol magazine in a blink of an eye. In order to help feed the Glock’s voracious appetite the company released thirty-three round magazines. These longer magazines extend far past the magazine well, making the gun difficult to conceal but double available firepower.
Is the Glock 18 Accurate?
As you’d expect from a full-auto Glock, the Glock 18 rips through ammo like a Viking berserker – brutal, ruthlessly fast, and near unstoppable. The key element here is if you manage to hold on during the hailstorm-of-bullets mode, you’re going to be lighting up targets left, right, and center. This high-capacity pistol holds 17, 19, 31, 33 rounds – enough to make your combat or recreational shooting experience action-packed.
Can I own a Glock 18?
Finally, the biggest limitation of the Glock 18 is its availability. The Big Brother doesn’t like civilians to have too much fun, so not everyone can get their hands on this unique piece of machinery. So, unless you’re law enforcement or military, obtaining a Glock 18 is next to impossible.
Federal firearms laws regulating automatic weapons for the most part keep the Glock 18 out of civilian hands, although a handful of guns exist in the hands of shooting ranges and private collectors. The fully automatic pistol is available for police and government purchase in the United States but without the benefit of frequent, expensive training it’s difficult for even the largest police departments to justify the cost. This specialized weapon may be fun to shoot, but it has little practical value outside of units such as EKO Cobra. For the foreseeable future, the gun will remain a rarity that roars at 1,200 rounds a minute.
What Alternative is there for a Glock 18?
Honestly the Full auto of a GLock 18 isn’t terribly practical. While it would be fun to shoot once, between spraying bullets everywhere but your target and the cost of the gun even if it was available would not be “fun”. There are a lot of great Glocks. Check out our Glock 17 vs. Glock 19 Article.
The main source of this article: This Glock Gun Fires an Insane 1,200 Rounds a Minute
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