PMCI - March 2021

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FIREARMS - GLOCK 44
lb trigger felt like every “out of the box” Glock I have ever shot.
The flush fit ten round magazine loaded easily and dropped
free cleanly. I immediately ordered three additional magazines
to give me more training options in reloading without having
to stop every two magazine changes to refill them.
The G44 also ships with four replaceable back straps to
make the grip thicker as needed. Having smaller hands, I
cannot say I have ever needed any of these additional molded
straps, but I do have close friends who praise these options
for their gorilla sized paws. While I am a huge advocate of the
“adapt and overcome” philosophy of grip to hand ratio, I will
admit it does make life so much nicer when the gun feels like
it was custom made for you. Fortunately, grip felt great without
any extra add-ons straight out of the box. I was looking forward
to getting some rounds down range as soon as possible.
G44 SPECS
Caliber
Overall Length
Slide Length
Width (Overall)
Slide Width
Height w/ Mag.
Overall Sight Distance
Trigger Travel Distance
Magazine Capacity
.22 LR
7.28 inch
6.85 inch
1.26 inch
1.00 inch
5.04 inch
6.02 inch
2.76 inch
10 rounds
ON THE RANGE
To get different perspectives on the Glock 44, I invited fellow
STG instructor and gun writer, Jim Wenzel and well-known
holster maker, John Phillips aka the “King of Kydex” from
Survivor Creek to lend a hand. Our team met early one morning
at the Baldwin Pistol School owned by good friend, Tom Martin.
Over the next two hours, shooters ran various strings of fire and
made their notes. The ultimate compliment to come from this
initial session was simply, “It shoots like a Glock”. The pistol ran
flawlessly and felt very natural to a group of guys who have
spent the bulk of their shooting careers pulling Glock triggers.
As described in our review of the Elevated Silence .22
Swarm ( www.ElevatedSilence.com ) in our last issue of PMCI
Magazine, the successful range day continued as we switched
to running suppressed. There was little noticeable point
of aim, point of impact shift even at the 25 yard mark. The
diminutive suppressor beat “hands down” three other .22
caliber suppressors I had in our inventory. Using the shorted
configuration of the Swarm performed flawlessly, delivering
the same impressive accuracy with the threaded barrel as the
standard nonthreaded Glock barrel showed unsuppressed. Both
Suppressor and Mini Mag ammunition from CCI were used with
only a difference of a ¼” in accuracy difference in the two. The
suppressed ammunition grouped slightly lower than the full
power variant. This range session made me really excited to
introduce this pistol to my students at the range.
Rather than just having new shooters jump from running
SIRT or 6mm guns in the classroom to live fire with their
9mm or .45 caliber pistols on the range, my STG instructors
and I divide shooting into subcategories as well. Depending
on the skill level of our students, we will work them from
the SIRT and 6mm to a .22 caliber handgun in which all their
basic fundamentals can be practiced over and over under the
watchful eye of a qualified instructor. This offers our students all
the major fundamentals while keeping cost and recoil low. In
the past, I often used a Ruger MKIII and MKIV 22/45 pistol for
initial live fire.
As many readers know, the Ruger Mark series of pistols are
an ultra-reliable and accurate .22 option for new and seasoned
shooters alike. With most of our students running Glock 9mm
variants, the Glock 44 was quickly adapted and helped learning
curves between .22 and larger calibers greatly decrease. Even
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