Sunday, January 23, 2011

Testing Firearms: Extreme Torture Test

In the last post, we studied some of the criteria that militaries follow when selecting a new firearm for their inventory. Among the extensive list of selection criteria is a set of torture tests, which test the firearm for reliability, functionality and ease of use under demanding conditions. While military tests are pretty demanding, they are not necessarily the toughest tests that a firearm may be subject to.

A few years ago, one enterprising gentleman decided to conduct a series of tests to determine exactly how reliable his Glock model 21 pistol was. He fully documented his process and even took video footage to prove that he'd actually conducted the tests.

The entire series test is documented here. The first couple of pictures in his original post seem to have disappeared, but a backup copy of that legendary post was also archived here, with the first few pictures intact. Note that the second link only has pictures, but not the links to the movies, which the first link contains. It is a very interesting read. The tests he conducted seem to be even more demanding than military tests. Bear in mind that this particular pistol was almost 10 years old already and had been well used and abused, before he even started conducting the tests. Also, half-way through the torture test process, he took the very same weapon to a weekend gun match!

While this is an extreme case of mistreatment, it is interesting to note that his weapon still managed to function after all that had been done to it. Note that the gentleman conducting the tests is a professional expert and such tests should NEVER be conducted by readers of this blog.

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