On December 10, 2019, after an extensive marketing and hype campaign, Glock announced that their next pistol, the Glock 44, would be a .22LR compact pistol. Many commentators expressed disappointment in this announcement, expecting Glock to release something more innovative and exciting. The rimfire pistol market is rather crowded, with other manufacturers like Ruger having established product lines. But others have expressed the opinion that a .22LR Glock is long overdue. Many other pistol manufacturers make .22LR analogs to their service pistols, so people can train their marksmanship on a cheaper-to-shoot gun.

But which take is better?

From the Glock 44’s setup, it seems to be aimed to be a training pistol. The main innovation on the Glock 44 is a hybrid polymer-metal slide that is light enough to fully cycle with only the energy of a .22LR round. Most full size .22LR pistols use bolts that move within a fixed slide, such as the Ruger Mk-series or the CZ Kadet conversion kit.

The full-length slide allows for common actions like press checks and power-stroking to be practiced with the Glock 44 as with a full size Glock, although the spring pressure will not be the same as models in larger calibers.

The Glock 44 is also made in a similar size to Glock’s most popular model, the Glock 19. Ambi controls and the reversible magazine release suggest that the frame is based on the Fifth-Generation Glock 19 frame, albeit with some changes to accommodate the fixed .22LR slide. As the Glock 44 is probably meant to be a training pistol, the trigger features the same striker, “safe-action” trigger, tuned to be in line with other 5^th generation triggers.

However, a lot of the criticism of the Glock 44 has been focused on the magazine. A fairly standard, single stack design, the Glock 44’s magazine only holds ten rounds, five less than the similarly sized 9x19 Glock 19. This is due to the need for the magazine to stack the rounds at an angle with one rim in front of the other for reliable feeding. However, some .22LR magazine designs use pseudo-double stack designs that alternate nesting rims on right and left to pack more rounds into a magazine.

But Glock probably stuck with a reliable single-stack design to sell the Glock 44 to the widest variety of markets. Some American states restrict the purchase of handguns or handgun magazines with a capacity of more than ten rounds. By using the simple design as the only magazine on offer, Glock minimises the number of variants of the magazine they need to tool up to produce.

While the Glock 44 isn’t going to compete with high-end .22LR handguns like Volquartsen, it fills its role as a trainer pistol fairly well. The magazine issue is minor and could be rectified by third party magazines, or the later release of a larger capacity magazine by Glock. While definitely not worthy of the hype campaign surrounding it, it’s not a poor addition to Glock’s pistol line.

Charlie Gao studied Political and Computer Science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national security issues.

Image: Glock.