Keeping up with the Micro-9's

Glock haters bemoaned the Glock 43X and Glock 48 when they were launched, stating that nothing more had been done than lengthening the grip of the Glock 43 to accommodate a 10-round magazine. This criticism is unduly harsh and incorrect. The magazine for Glock 43X and Glock 48 is testimony to this is, in that they will not fit into a Glock 43. The Glock 43X and Glock 48 use a semi-staggered magazine while the Glock 43 uses a traditional single stack magazine. However, there certainly is a case to be made that Glock’s competitors are bringing more feature-rich and more ergonomic pistols to the market.

Evolution

This lack in design innovation is reflected in the early models of the Glock 43X and Glock 48 pistols with Glock’s idea of innovation being a different colour slide, adding forward cocking serrations and bevelling the slide and frame at the muzzle end for easier holstering – hardly awe-inspiring stuff! Especially as this was Glock’s reply to the Sig P365 which had taken the defensive carry pistol market by storm a year earlier with the introduction of the double stack Micro-9 pistol which had set a new benchmark with its class-leading 11 round capacity! Glock haters once again bemoaned the fact that Glock had only matched the capacity of the diminutive Sig P365 but in a larger pistol.

Glock’s 2nd rendition of the Glock 43X and Glock 48 was launched mid-2019 and featured an accessory rail moulded into the dust cover forward of the trigger guard and went back to the black coloured slide, but still lacked the RDS cut and cover plate to the slide. Sig Sauer, at roughly the same time, launched the Sig P365 XL - a pistol which is to all intents and purposes is the same size as the Glock 43X. This new pistol from Sig offered a greater capacity of 13 rounds – 2 more rounds than the Glock’s while featuring the high trigger undercut and excellent grip texturing as found on the original P365 pistol. The Sig P365 XL has the X-series flat trigger, a slightly flared magazine well and is fitted with the excellent X-Ray 3 day-night sights. Over and above this, the Sig P365 XL also has an optic ready cut slide as standard directly from the factory.

Shortly after the arrival of the Sig P365 XL Springfield Armoury unveiled their reply to the Sig P365 pistol - the Springfield Hellcat which was launched at the end of September 2019. Springfield had one-upped Sig in that they had managed to squeeze 11 rounds into their tiny Micro-9 double-stack pistol for a total capacity of 12 rounds fully loaded with their flush fit magazine. When combined with their extended 13 round magazine which is supplied with the pistol the capacity went to an impressive 14 rounds! Thirteen in the magazine plus 1 in the chamber, while still being more compact than a Glock 43X. The Glock 43X and Glock 48 were starting to look a bit like hobbled houses as they fell further behind in the capacity race.

The importance of capacity

Civilian gunfights are won or lost with the magazine in the pistol. These shootouts tend to be close-in, fast and dynamic fights that do not allow time for a reload. By the time the gun smoke clears it is all over bar the police report. A number of firearm owners felt uncomfortably under-gunned with only 7 rounds. This has all changed with the availability of the double stack Mirco-9’s and the compact slimline pistols, such as the Glock 43X and Glock 48. These offer an improvement of more than 50% in capacity when compared to the slimline subcompacts such as the Glock 43.

The Shield Arms S-15 magazines for the Glock 43X and Glock 48, or an extended magazine for the high-capacity Micro-9’s such as the Springfield Hellcat increase this difference in capacity even more ensuring that the armed civilian has enough ammunition in hand to deal with just about any life-threatening eventuality they might face. As the saying goes the only time you have too much ammunition is when you are on fire, or when you are drowning!

Shield Arms S-15 magazine

The innovation that would put Glock back in the lead from a capacity point of view would not come from the firearms giant themselves, but rather from a small company called Shield Arms who designed and developed a steel magazine forgoing the polymer sheath found around the OEM Glock magazines. This freed up more internal room in the magazine to be stuffed with bullets. Shield Arms were able to cram an impressive 15 rounds into their steel magazines, which are still flush-fit magazines, putting Glock back in the lead from a capacity point of view with a fully loaded capacity of 16 rounds! This allows these new slimline compact pistols to rival the capacity of Glock’s ever-popular double-stack Glock 19 pistol. Shield Arms have done their homework and their S-15 magazines are well designed and have proven to be reliable. These magazines are endorsed by Aaron Cowan from Saga Dynamics who has over 7000 rounds through the Shield S-15 magazines he owns without a single stoppage. Aaron refers to the Shield S-15 magazines as being boringly reliable. While the Shield Arms S15 magazines add extra weight to the Glock 43X and Glock 48 this additional weight is useful in that it is made entirely of bullets.