Sunday, May 15, 2011

MORE GLOCK PERFECTION: AMAZING STORIES








In the current issue of American Handgunner, they have an advertisement with their spokesman, Gunny, talking about him meeting a guide in deepest, darkest Africa carrying a well-used 20 year old Glock. The ad says:


"On my last trip to Africa, I noticed my guide had an old Glock sidearm, so I offered to
get him a new one." He said "No thanks. I've carried this one in the bush everyday for
twenty years. It has saved my life five times. It's the only pistol I'll ever carry."


You can go to the digital edition page of the American Handgunner here and see the ad at pages 24-25. You'll have to flip through the online magazine to page 25 to find the ad, and the online access, which is free, is very cool and is one reason why AH is one of my favorite gun magazines. Roy Huntington has assembled a talented if not legendary group of modern day handgun scribes and his massive interaction with the magazine ensures it's excellence.


So my question is, in this series of ads entitled GLOCK AMAZING STORIES, how come they didn't have a picture of the guide and his gun?

How about letting us know what generation it was and what model? 

I say How 'bout?

How about hearing some of those stories about how the Glock saved his life FIVE TIMES? I want to hear those stories. So do a lot of other folks, I'd venture a guess.

Folks at Glock, I already know all about Glock reliability. After carrying numerous reliable and critically acclaimed handguns of the day as a police officer, when the Model 21 was introduced there were no tears in my eyes as a competitive shooter as the 1911 faded away in the rear view mirror in the spring of 1992. And so it's been since then. The street cred of Glock is "Pull trigger, goes boom."

So what kind of rig does this guide use to carry his Glock every day? How many extra mags, if any, does this guide carry with him? Does he carry a long arm and if so what kind and caliber, or is the Glock his sole weapon? What kind of ammo and bullet does he use in his weapon?

These are the things we want to know.


I mean, just mentioning this, I know this guy told his story to  Gunny. Let's here the whole story, Glock. Or as much of it as you can tell without putting him in jeopardy.

Most important though, I'm curious about whether this is man or beast we're talking about here that the Glock saved his life from, because either are equally possible in Africa. Now if we're talking man, then I could see any type of Glock being used, but I'd be betting on the 17 or the 19, due to the popularity and availability of 9mm ammo around the world. But, if were talking dangerous situations involving a beast and not man and the Glock saved his life 5 times, then I'd really like to know the caliber. Since .45 ACP or 10 mm or .45 GAP are the largest calibers that Glock makes guns in, it would seem a guide in the African bush would be carrying one of those calibers, to maybe do some double duty on two and four legged threats.


Who knows. We don't know if this guy is killing humans in self defense as a bush guide or whether cheetahs or lions or any other number of meat eating animals have bum rushed this guide and lost against the bite of his Glock.


Did it save his life because the guide stumbled upon a band of poachers and was able to run them off and safely extricate himself from the situation at gunpoint without firing a shot?


Or was he attacked by said poachers, weary of his interference with their illegal actions and weary of our guide's good citizenship, and guide threw down on the poachers with some 33 round extended 9mm magazines until our hero emerged unscathed from battle with the nefarious killers of animals?


There are many possible scenarios, all of which would be highly interesting to Glock enthusiasts like me and to the general handgunning public, regardless of their temperature on Glock pistols.


But Glock just throws a teaser with this ad.


Now, if someone at Glock reads this post and runs it up the flagpole there at corporate, the first thing you need to do is to decide NOT to try to cover this topic in the Glock Annual magazine that comes out. I know your intentions are good, but it's a catalog with a bunch of hype written by paid writers (and not feature writers but technical writers and PR writers).


Glock should get some leading handgun writers and bloggers who are Glock believers and have them do some articles. And something like this guide's story, with accompaning pictures of the places and scenes of these events, would translate into an ad campaign that would really catch the interest of the target audience.


I suppose there is a chance that this guide might risk prosecution or retaliation if the life saving exploits of his Glock involved other humans, and if so I understand then keeping all the details a big secret.


Still, he's got a story to tell, and I think I'd like to hear it.

2 comments:

  1. Great post! I agree, more details would make these stories even more interesting. The testimonial approach certainly speaks louder than any other sidearm ad, which usually throws the word 'reliable' in the ad with nothing to substantiate the claim. The newest glock story I've seen details a deputy who took cover from a firing suspect by jumping into a muddy swamp, and his grime covered glock still fired. Once again though, they didn't show the deputy and had a small picture up top of a swamp if I recall. Still not very detailed, but a step in the right direction for an interesting ad campaign.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for stopping by, Klinton Pipes! I think I saw that Glock story you speak of as well.

    Also saw the one about the guy who went on the cruise out of Galveston and then Hurricane Ike hit and his car swept away with Glock in trunk. Months later, they recovered the still flooded car and the Glock. They had "artist's renditions" of the scene. I wanted to see a pic of the torture test Glock.

    If I worked for Glock, I'd be buying these pistols and testing them and putting them on the web. I can't recall if the Ike pistol was still operational. I'll go back and find that story, it was in one of the gimme Glock catalogs from the range from a year or so ago.

    Thanks again for commenting! Glock on!

    El Fisho having identity issues on blogger still. Still.

    ReplyDelete