I love the 10mm cartridge. I blame it on Stephen Hunter and the book “Point of Impact.” Growing up, I often heard that things like stopping power aren’t a thing, but the 10mm is still a powerful, fast-moving, deep penetrating round with excellent expansion. When shopping for 10mm guns, you’ll run into two common platforms: the Glock and the 1911. But which is better?
Glock has consistently produced a 10mm pistol since 1990, as the 10mm cartridge poised itself to be the next cartridge of choice for law enforcement. The FBI chose the cartridge as a duty-issue offering, and Glock wanted to keep gaining that market dominance.
Producers of 1911s of the era were ever quicker to produce 10mm guns, however. Colt introduced the Delta Elite in 1987, the first 10mm pistol produced by a major manufacturer. The 10mm and .45 ACP are very close in overall length, and it was an easy conversion.
Why the 10mm?
The 10mm cartridge is a very interesting cartridge choice. It’s the closest an automatic handgun can get to a practical magnum cartridge. Sure, you can get things like the Desert Eagle in .357 Magnum, but it’s not a practical option for defensive or duty use. A proper 10mm load can move a 180-grain projectile at 1,200 feet per second. That’s pretty much on par with a 158-grain .357 Magnum load.
With a 10mm, you can get modern capacity with wheel gun power. The benefits of this type of cartridge are plentiful. A heavy projectile moving at a fairly fast speed hits hard, allowing the cartridge to penetrate deeply and expand as it penetrates, giving you a very decisive self-defense cartridge. For duty users, it tends to function a bit better through light cover, which might be a concern.
This also makes the 10mm an excellent option for hunting. It’s a great medium game-getter that will turn whitetail into a freezer full of venison. It’s a decent backwoods cartridge as a whole and has been used effectively, with the right load, to kill bears when needed.
The 10mm also offers a fairly flat shooting cartridge, at least as far as handguns go. Depending on the ammo and velocity, the cartridge barely drops out to 75 yards. At 100 yards, it’s dropping about 8.5 inches.
While the 10mm isn’t for everyone, it can be a very versatile and capable pistol cartridge. It comes down to picking the right pistol for you, which brings us back to the M1911 or Glock option.
Which is better?
That’s the question of the day, after all. I compared my Glock 20 to a Springfield Operator in 10mm to figure it out. There are many differences, but one of the most notable is the Operator’s 6-inch barrel versus the Glock 20’s 4.61-inch barrel.
Options
Glock offers us three 10mm guns: the standard, full-size Glock 20; its little brother, the Glock 29; and the big guy, the long-slide Glock 40. These represent a variety of sizes. Glock pistols are very common, and you can find any of these sizes fairly easily. Glock also produces MOS variants of the guns with optic-ready options.
Glock is one company, and 1911 is a platform, which means the 1911 gets the benefit of a great many companies. There are 10mm 1911s in every size and configuration out there. We can get compacts, long slides, and more. There are comped models, optics-ready models, railed models, and more.
The big downside is that the M1911 platforms are a bit more expensive. A Turkish-made 1911 in 10mm can cost more than a Glock despite being considered a lower-tier 1911. For comparison, an optics-ready Gen 5 Glock 20 retails for around $600, while a Ruger SR1911 in 10mm costs close to a grand. That’s a big difference.
Accuracy
Accuracy will depend on the shooter. Excellent accuracy is possible from either platform, as the Glock and M1911 have consistently proven to be excellent shooters. Both feature fairly light triggers and full-sized grips, and both can perform better than most shooters are capable of.
Reliability
Oof, I don’t want to rag on the M1911 guys here, but if you want a reliable M1911, you’re going to have to spend more money. Cheap M1911s aren’t great guns and still cost more than 10mm Glock pistols. You’ll at least have to purchase a Ruger SR1911 at nearly a grand price to get a reliable M1911 for long-term, high-round-count usage.
Glock is Glock. They are very simple guns. They can be taken apart with nothing more than a punch. The simplicity of the design ensures reliability. It’s tough to make one wrong. These guns can chew through a lot of ammo and remain problem-free. Glocks are known to get into excessive round counts without a problem.
If you asked me to give you the bottom line, I’d say Glock is the best choice for a reliable pistol.
Ergonomics
The M1911 guys and their single-stack magazines get some benefits here. The 10mm cartridge is a big round, so when it’s shoved into a double-stack Glock, it creates this big, fat grip that’s not exactly comfortable for everyone. The thinner grip and the M1911’s long history of excellent ergonomics give it a bit of edge here.
Don’t worry. Glock gets a minor benefit. In shooting a Glock and 1911 side by side, you’ll notice that the Glock has less recoil. The gun’s polymer frame flexes and allows you to shoot those full-powered, hard-hitting, deep-penetrating cartridges with a fairly mild recoil impulse. The Glock 20 is easier to shoot rapidly than the M1911, which tends to be a bit more snappy in the recoil department.
Aside from the grip width and recoil, the M1911 guys will prefer the M1911, and the Glock guys won’t mind the Glock. As neither, I can understand the pros and cons of both configurations. The M1911 is a safety-having machine with both a grip safety and frame safety to deal with. I’m not a huge grip safety fan. Glock only has the trigger safety, which is my preference.
The Glock has an ultra-small slide release that’s so easy to pin down that it might as well not have a slide lock. The M1911 has a nice big slide lock positioned perfectly for easy thumb engagement.
Throwing the Centimeter
At the end of the day, either platform will serve you well. Both are accurate, capable, and easy to shoot. Both platforms have numerous options, sizes, and configurations available for every need. The mighty 10mm is at home in both guns. I personally would choose the Glock model for its simpler design, lower price, and higher capacity. However, the M1911 platform is an excellent shooter with better ergonomics in most cases and a very light and consistent trigger.
Which would you choose? Let us know below!
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