My After-Action Report on The Glock45

Gun Review

This pistol has been released for quite some time now, however I was able to purchase the Glock45 a month ago and I haven’t been more pleased with a pistol in a long time.

Below I’m going to give you my take on the performance and reliability of this pistol, I’m very confident you will not be disappointed with the performance of this sidearm.

Up until I purchased my own Glock45 I only read about it online and through other gun reviews. When I moved back to California, I had the opportunity to shoot the Glock45 and immediately fell In love with it. The performance and the overall feel of the pistol was amazing, I will go into more detail later but after my first experience I had to buy one.

G45 Build

9x19, the G45 combines the full size G17 Gen5 frame with a standard G19 slide featuring front serrations. The depth and width of the serrations I felt were spot on and supplied me with more than enough grip to rack the slide back or conduct a proper press check. Another major notable enhancement is the Glock nDLC finish, this is exclusive to Glock. It is an ion-bonded finish that reduces corrosion and scratching and aids the weapons reliability and functionality. All these fine tune upgrades really set this weapon apart from the rest in my opinion.

One of my personal favorites is the flared magwell that makes it easier for all shooters to insert the magazine especially while conducting fast magazine changes, very hard to miss the magweel with this feature.

Like its Gen5 predecessors the fingers grooves have been removed from the G45, which enables me as a shooter to get a better grip on the gun, I really enjoy the feel of this. The G45 comes with a Glock Marksman Barrel, this is a match-grade barrel with tighter chamber specs. And more aggressive rifling for better accuracy. The consistency and accuracy is very noticeable with the G45 compared to other pistols I have used and train with. The final touch is the ambidextrous slide stop lever, which is a nice feature for both the right and left handed shooter or if for any reason you need to switch hands for drills or in a dangerous situation.

Specifications: G45

Caliber: 9x19mm

Capacity: 17+1 rounds

Barrel Length: 4 in.

Overall Length: 7.44 in.

Sights: Polymer U-notch

Weight: 25oz w/empty magazine.

What I Think

Going back to the beginning of this post, the first time I had the privilege to shoot the Glock45 I was immediately hooked on the weapon, and it all boiled down to the grip for me. I’m a huge G19 fan but wasn’t a fan of the grip length but combining the G17 lower with G19 upper this was a smart move by Glock. Another reason that I didn’t end up going wit the 19x was the color, I wanted to get away from the military color and style and lean more towards a sidearm that will be more useful to me as a civilian so I ended up going with the G45 because of the color, flared magwell, and quite simply the overall feel of the weapon in my hand. The feel, weight, and balance are all very important to me when I choose my weapons.

The G45 is an extremely well-designed pistol and are in high demand as a result. Like I stated before it is the most well-balanced pistol I have ever fired. The buyer of this firearm is someone who is looking for reliability, comfort, accuracy, and capacity. The pistol just feels right in the hand, and is easily manipulated, with an excellent capacity at 17+1 rounds. Three magazines are included with purchase of the pistol.

Team Guy Rating

Accuracy:

I haven’t shot a more accurate pistol up until I bought the G45. The grip size combined with the compact G19 slide makes the gun recoil so smooth, allowing the gun to stay on target that much easier.

Reliability:

I had no malfunctions with the pistol yet, one thing that has happened to me a few times is when I go to do a magazine change and I slam the magazine to hard, it will send the slide home without chambering a round, then I would have to proceed to my immediate action drill. This is an issue that doesn’t concern me, do to the fact it’s not an uncommon occurrence with pistols.

The Feel:

This pistol is bad ass and feels even better in your hand. Plenty of room on the grip for even the largest of hands, but still has the compact feel.

Cool factor:

The gun looks simple in nature but is a secret badass in my mind, it’s not flashy looking but it will crush some of the best pistols out there.

Overall:

If you haven’t shot this pistol go out and give it a go and put some lead through it, I promise that you will not be disappointed. And If you don’t like it for whatever reason, then that is ok because it won’t be for everyone. I highly recommend this pistol for anyone, because of the versatility and reliability.

Go out to your local range and rent this pistol and give it a go, and after reading this leave a comment below and let me know if you like the review or you would like me to expound on something specific.

-Travis Kennedy

#ThinkingShooter #Teams

Building Fundamentals

Over all the years that I have been trained in firearms, everything boils down to developing strong fundamentals. In my experience even as a Navy SEAL I have noticed that most, if not all people, I’m guilty of this, are so eager to skip the boring fundamental drills and go straight to the high-speed drills and techniques because it looks cooler and it’s more stimulating. But this is just a temporary emotional fix, jumping into drills and techniques that you aren’t ready for will set you up for failure. I have personally fell into this mindset when I was a young Navy SEAL, I was eager to be high-speed, I thought I was good because I did some basic drills in BUD/s and SQT, at the time in my mind I wanted to skip the boring drill and go straight to the action. Looking back now that was a wrong mindset, I quickly learned that I wasn’t as good as I thought, but that mental switch turned me into the thinking shooter I am today, I’m going to go over the techniques and lessons I have learned over the past 12 years on how to build a strong foundation to make you become a great defensive shooter.

Build Your Foundation

Maybe you have never touched a firearm or you have some experience with firearms but just not quite confident or you find yourself doing advance drills you see on the internet that you aren’t ready for, or you could be an advanced shooter with tons of experience but may fall victim of skipping practice of your fundamentals. I don’t care what experience you bring to the table everything boils down to consistent purposeful practice of shooting fundamentals will make you a great shooter. Below are the techniques I’m constantly practicing, thinking of, and teaching whenever I am at the range.

Shooting Stance

How you stand while you shoot will make a difference on the accuracy and your effectiveness while putting lead down range. What I teach is put your feet should with apart, with your weak leg slightly forward, putting you in an athletic stance, ready to handle recoil management and move fast and affectively if necessary. I keep my left leg slightly forward because I’m right dominant, this feels natural to me, so I recommend do what feels comfortable for you because there isn’t one size fits all, but keeping your legs should width, slightly bent, and in an athletic stance, this will set you up for success that will trickle all the way up your body through the gun all while putting accurate rounds on target.

Your Grip

Your grip is one of the most important fundamentals of shooting, and this is the most common issue I see in individuals. Whether your right or left handed all these techniques apply, for my example I’m going to describe a right handed shooter. What I teach is 60%/40%, the 60% is for the dominant hand, In my case my right hand. I’m grabbing the pistol high on the grip and apply 60% of my grip strength with my dominant hand on the grip of the pistol. My left hand (non-dominant hand) apply the other 40%. I place my left index finger up under the base of the trigger guard in line with my first knuckle, I wrap my left hand across the grip, making contact with my right hand. My thumbs are stacked on top of each other and facing down the slide of the pistol, creating a clean natural point of aim. My arms are extend out but not fully locked out, I have a slight bend in my elbows to help with recoil management, and I’m flexing my chest and arms in ever so slightly to help me even more with recoil management, enabling me to keep my sites on target effectively.

Sight Picture and Sight Alignment

The key to aiming and effective shot placement is to properly align your sights, proper sight picture, Front site focus, and be able to keep your sights on target with little to no movement all while pulling the trigger. This is a lot easier said than done and takes hours of practice to be effective. Sight picture and sight alignment are sometimes taught as one and the same, but it is important to know that they are two different and distinct fundamentals.

Sight alignment

This is the relationship of the front sight and rear sight. Your eyes must be lined up with the front sight and rear sights positioned so that the alignment is correct. Proper sight alignment of the two sights means that the top of the front sight is vertically centered in the NOTCH of the rear sight, so there is equal amount of white space on either side of the front sight post. This also means that the TOP of the front sight is LEVEL horizontally with the TOP of the rear sight. There are many different types of sights, this is just a general guideline that will apply to most types of sights. No matter how the sights are configured, the front sights are designed to be placed on the same axis as the rear sight.

Sight Picture

This is the placement of your aligned sights on the target. Once you have everything in alignment, front sight and rear sight now the question may come to mind “Where do I place my sights now in relation to the target?” It depends, especially on what you are aiming for, typically guns are sighted in for a hold that requires the shooter to place the front sight where it covers up the center of the target (center mass, or head shot). Putting this all together now, we have to focus on sight alignment, sight picture, and front sight focus. However, the human eye can’t focus on 3 objects at the same time at different distances. For the most accurate shot placement my advice would be to focus on the front sight, keeping the rear and target out of focus. When you use an acceptable site picture technique this means that your primary focus in on the front sightt this may be in part of the proximity of your target for quick shots. Regardless of technique each has its place and can be used for certain situations but the foundation to practice on is to train front sight focus this technique will instill good habits to which you can build on.

I hope this post gives you insights on how to properly aim your firearm, giving you a perspective on sight picture, sight alignment, and front sight focus. This is by no means all inclusive as there are many different techniques, but this will give you a good foundation and understanding to basics of firing your weapon and what you need to focus on every time you conduct training.

If this was helpful or you would like me to write about something else or expound on this article, please comment below or email me.

- Travis Kennedy

#THINKINGSHOOTER

After Action Report: Glock45 Gun Review