Glock 42: Initial Impressions, Review, Long Term Durability

Good on GBM for a thread wander - AS556, working in Healthcare's great - don't think that you just need to be on the spongy meat space if you're contemplating it.  I have fuckle to do with patients, but I've worked in every dept in our L2 Trauma over the last 6 years and work with crazy fun things and people everyday.  I even had thoughts of punting into meat space because I love what I do and wanted more, and still might some day - but right now being where I am pays the bills well enough and I've got options to roll later on if I want.  (Good) Hospitals are like that.


And GBM -

Dude I've never been disappointed with XTP's terminal performance.  Now, take it as a grain of salt, but I routinely use the 300gr 44M XTP's loaded slow and angry in my muzzy, and those things hit like a Mac truck.  I've also tried the 200gr 10mm XTP's and they were great too.  If I had my choice, I'd like to see a Barnes XPB loaded into something, as they've been wicked too for downrange expansion in poodles. 

A quick look through Barnes website shows the TAC-XPD in 380ACP (80gr, 990FPS), which looks to be an XPB bullet.  I'd be curious to see where that falls in the chips, looks like DT's getting ~1050fps from the same round out of a G42.

Edit - and damn you again for pushing my Glock button....

You grabbed a G42?

 
Interesting. The soft loops kinda worry me though. I only owned one holster with them and it kept unsnapping. Holster was kind of a POS though. 

Cool, thanks. I may buy these if RTF isn't making anything for the G42 yet.

That snap is a lot bigger than the one on my holster. Cool. Thanks man. I feel better about snaps now.

I fired 200 rounds through my G42 today. 50 rounds of Monarch 94 grain steel case round nose, 50 rounds of Aguilar brass round nose, 100 rounds of WWB flat nose. I had no malfunctions except one with the Monarch. That one may have been shooter induced. Sometimes the pistol did not lock back on the last round but that was because I often rested my thumb on the slide stop. Every time I remembered not to do that the slide locked back. Some people have reported the pistol likes to shoot left. Mine shot left, but that was my fault again. If you use the last third of the distal digit of your trigger finger it will shoot to point of aim. I suspect most of the people who thought the pistol shot to the left used improper trigger technique. I had no holster and only a pocket for reloads so I was really only able to time splits. By the end of the session I was averaging .30 splits with occasional .27's. I was able to keep nearly all the rounds even while shooting at speed in a 6 inch square at 5 yards distance. I expect I will be able to wring more performance out of the pistol with upgraded sights and more practice. I also am thinking about relieving the trigger guard slightly on the right side and stippling the left portion of the frame past the trigger guard where my left thumb rests.

I let some dude who showed up to the range as I was finishing up shoot it. His accuracy was poor at first due to his poor technique. Because it was a small pistol that he had never fired before I was able to get past his ego and teach him how to shoot pistols properly. His accuracy immediately improved keeping rounds in a 5 inch square during slow fire. I may have hurt his pride slightly because he tried to save face by saying that he hadn't shot in a while and his poor technique worked well with his full size XD. I smiled and nodded. I can't fix them unless they want to be fixed.

If shipping a pistol wasn't so damn expensive I would ship the pistol to you to play with for a week or two and really mess up your decision process.

I hear you on the single stack 9 though. I have never shot a Shield, but it looks pretty sweet. Bigger than the 42 but not too big. Definitely no pocket pistol. Honestly the 42 is a bit big for a pocket pistol although it could work with some large deep pockets. I kinda wish the 42's grip was .25" longer and carried one more round.