Chuck's Glock Takes a Salt Water Bath
Underwater Testing a Glock
By Chuck Taylor


As most of you know, for the last twelve or so years, I've been continuously torture-testing a Glock 17 9mm pistol. I obtained it new over-the-counter back in 1988 and, there being no data on Glocks available at the time other than what was furnished by the maker, I endeavored to determine for myself exactly how good Glocks really were. Specifically, the idea of polycarbonate frames and other internal parts being a relatively new feature, I wanted to know for sure if the gun would really take the abuse Glock, Inc. claimed it would.

Thus far, I've carried that pistol all over the world; Latin America, Africa, Alaska, the Philippines and Alaska to name but a few, during which it's been exposed to what can only be described as "highly abusive" conditions. It's been exposed to 120-degree-plus heat, forty degrees below zero and nearly every temperature in between. It's seen mud, snow, dust, gravel and lots of just plain dirt. It's been buried in dust, mud and snow, then exhumed and still it fired without a single stoppage and looked much better aesthetically than its history would indicate it should.

In fact, after all this time, I considered concluding the test and declaring the doggoned gun to be indestructible. But, over a glass of wine (well, okay, several glasses!) with my associate Arnold Teves, honcho of Firearms Academy Of Hawaii and his lovely wife Paulette at a fine seafood restaurant in Kailua, it was discovered that I had missed something.

"What?" I exclaimed, examining Arnold's controlled smirk alarm. "What do you mean I missed something? What could I have possibly missed? H---, I've done everything I could think of to that gun, within reason, and still it works perfectly. What could I have possibly missed?"

Continuing to control his amusement, albeit with some difficulty, Arnold smiled and said, "What about leaving it in the ocean for a while...you know, long-term salt-water immersion? I don't remember reading about anything like that in the dozen or so articles you've published about the test over the years. I would be something new and still be a valid test, wouldn't it?"

[cont]

He had a point. At various points during the test, I had thrown the pistol into the ocean several times and let it stay submerged overnight a couple of times with no discernible effect, but I had never really exposed it to salt water for any longer period of time. After all, I am SCUBA qualified and it would give me the opportunity to not only further test the ruggedness of the gun, but shoot it underwater as well. And what cool photography I could get, too. Hmm...

As dinner progressed, a format emerged. The gun would be left on the seabed for one-month increments, after each of which it would be retrieved, rinsed in fresh water, disassembled, examined and then returned to the sea. A total of six months was decided upon, since it was December, 1999 and I was in Hawaii teaching and would return for another class with Arnold and some U.S. Navy SpecWar personnel the following June (June, 2000). The next day, I arranged for a friend of mine who was a diver to administer the program and we were off and running.

Six months later, I returned as described above and found the gun to be relatively unscathed even though, other than the five times it was rinsed in fresh water and examined, it had spent the last six months at the bottom of the Pacific.

I joined a friend of mine who in addition to being a serious shooting enthusiast is also an expert diver. I donned a wetsuit, SCUBA gear, the test Glock holstered around my middle, my dive camera hanging from my neck and boarded a towed sled behind his Jet Ski.

The net result of all of this was that the Glock, which was equipped with an underwater firing pin kit, worked fine...even submerged. Using 9mm 115 and 124-grain ball ammunition, not a single malfunction was noted, which stimulated my mind even more. I now have a plan for doing this again, but doing it complete with target frames, silhouettes and so on and becoming the first guy in history to run through high speed presentations and shooting drills on actual targets underwater! Stay tuned for the results of this one with its accompanying photography at a future date, eh? We returned to the shore then hiked back up the beach to our vehicle and proceeded to Arnold's house to examine the weapon one last time.

Upon rinsing it in fresh water and detail-stripping it, we determined that virtually nothing had happened. Other than some almost microscopic rusting on the slide release lever and a small pit on the edge of the top of the slide, the pistol was completely intact. In addition, a small crack had appeared in the polycarbonate frame on the left front side of the entrance to the magazine well, but no other damage was detected.

[cont]

Impressed, Arnold and I then dried and lubricated the gun, then proceeded to obtain one last substance to dunk the pistol in. Fresh cow manure. At the dinner where the initial test had been conceived, I had inadvertently muttered that once the seawater test was complete, I would have done everything to the gun but dunk it in doo-doo. This got a bit of a laugh in that the old phrase of "shooting the ...well, you know...immediately came to mind. Still, the idea wasn't so far fetched as you might think. Cow manure, for example, is a multi-media substance containing partly digested grass and other vegetable matter, stomach acid and who knows what else. Moreover, it tends to be glutinous, stringy and otherwise highly obnoxious in every way. After laughing about it for a while, I realized that such a substance would in fact make a good test medium. Previously, I had only subjected the pistol to single-media substances like dirt, dust, ice, snow, et al and if it functioned after being soaked inside and out in fresh cow dung, it would have indeed proved its worth.

So, we obtained the "agricultural substance" fresh from its usual source (!), placed it in a plastic bag and off to the range we went. Upon arriving there, I placed a high-cap magazine loaded with 124-grain Federal Hydra-Shok JHPs into the gun, cycled the slide to load it and dropped it unceremoniously into the bag.

It was then that an amusing revelation fell upon us. After retrieving the manure-soaked Glock from the bag, I realized that I needed to be the one to take pictures, so that left Arnold to be the shooter! Still, his smile remained in place as he gingerly assumed a Weaver Stance, pointed the piece at the target and pressed the trigger. Now that's a guy with a great disposition if there ever was one! BOOM! The pistol fired, the slide reciprocated, reloading it. Then, BOOM!, BOOM!, BOOM! and so on until the magazine was empty and the slide locked open. In the target 7 meters distant were 17 center hits. I handed Arnold another full loaded high-cap magazine, then another and another until a half-dozen were expended, but the pistol continued to function without mishap. When it was over, Arnold's face, arms and shirt were spattered and his smile had vanished (mine would, too--with all that, er, stuff flying around, who wants to keep his mouth open?).

"Got it...all of it!" I said happily, and handed him a one-gallon container or water, some soap and a clean shirt, which he accepted with alacrity, and the test was over. The Glock had gone the whole route and passed with flying colors.

Frankly, I don't know what else to subject it to without losing focus on being realistic. I guess I could freeze it into a solid block of ice and then try to fire it but I know darned well it will malfunction and who cares, right? Or perhaps I could run over it with a car to see if it would break, but then what would that prove? Besides, a friend of mine just inadvertently did that and the pistol, also a Glock 17 , didn't break!

[cont]

In conclusion, my test Glock 17 is still going strong and has now digested 168,000 rounds and successfully endured everything I've been able to throw at it. As claimed in the old TIMEX commercial featuring reporter John Cameron Swayze, "It took a licking and kept on ticking." Yet, though finish wear is evident, the pistol doesn't look nearly as worn as it should, given the abuse to which it's been exposed. In fact, when it is shown to people, they all marvel at the fact that it's been through so much and still looks as good as it does.

This being the case, only continued shooting, carrying and high-speed presentation under real-world environmental conditions remain as a valid means of continuing the test, so that's what I intend to do. I'll be back in Hawaii teaching later this year, and will sure look forward to shooting my ol' Glock 17 some more. Underwater against targets! I always wondered at what distance a pistol fired underwater might remain lethal. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll continue to lend it to students, carry and shoot it myself and otherwise continue the project.

Because, who knows...though based on its performance so far, I'm not holding my breath, one of these days it might actually break, eh?
-----

-Troy

Some of those pictures are "stock" Glock, Inc. shots of THEIR test guns, while others are Chuck's.

-Troy