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Gaston Glock: How A Legend Made A Legend
With the recent passing of the legendary firearms maker Gaston Glock, we wanted to pay our respects by taking the time to acknowledge his works.
We’ll provide a glimpse into his life, a look at his work, and discuss some things that you may not have known about the legend himself, including the time that a French mercenary almost murdered him with a mallet.
Ninety-four years is a long life, so there is no way we could include everything in one article, but let’s jump into the life and times of Gaston Glock.
The famous Gaston Glock. Source: forbes
How It All Started
Gaston Glock was born in Austria in July of 1929. Little is known about his childhood, but as a teenager, he was forced to enlist in the Wehrmacht in the later years of World War II.
Post-military service, Gaston went to school where he studied to be an engineer. After graduating, he worked at a hand drilling company until the late 50s. Afterward, Gaston got to work in his garage, making curtain rods during the 1960s and, later, knives for the Austrian military.
In the 70s, Gaston and his team developed the FM-78 field knife, fragmentation components, and belt links for machine guns. Having this connection with the Austrian military will come to help him later on.
Glock offers more than just firearms. Source: glock
He ran these successful businesses alongside his first wife, Helga, and in 1980, he bought an injection molding machine to manufacture sheaths and handles for the field knives used by the Austrian military.
It wasn’t until shortly after, in 1981, that he applied for the Glock 17 patent.
The Making of Glock
One day, Gaston overheard a couple of colonels voicing their complaints that no gun was meeting their needs. Conveniently, it was around the same time that the Austrian military was looking for a new firearm.
With his background in engineering and a newly purchased polymer injection machine, he took it upon himself to get to work on making a new handgun. The early 1980s is when it all started, and he wound up innovating one of the most dependable pistols of all time — the Glock 17. Gaston was 52 years old at the time!
Gaston showing how it is made. Source: nytimes
Adoption and Success of the First Glock Pistol
It didn’t take long for the Glock to become a huge success. After the Austrian military and police force adopted the Glock 17 en masse, word got back to the United States and other NATO countries worldwide.
And many of those countries were also looking for new firearms for their military and police forces.
It wasn’t long before some of the pistols started popping up in the U.S. market.
This caught the attention of multiple police agencies, many of which were still using Smith and Wesson revolvers chambered in .38 Special at the time. It was only a short time before many agencies gave up their six-shooters in favor of the 17-round Glock 17s.
Many officers swear by Glock. Source: glock
Since the Glock got so much love from NATO countries, many wound up adopting it for their military and police agencies. Well, besides the U.S. Military, who has never adopted one. They standardized the Sig Sauer, but multiple Special Forces teams chose the Glock. However, by the 1990s, an overwhelming majority of police agencies across the U.S. standardized the Glock 17.
By 1992, there were already 250,000 Glocks in the United States, and that number only continued to grow and still does.
Since then, Glock has developed multiple variants across different generations of pistols. The Glock has become the staple of durability and performance when you need it most, and Gaston made sure that no matter what caliber or size, there’s a Glock for everyone.
The Time Gaston Was Almost Killed
What would a legend be without a crazy story?
In 1999, Gaston Glock caught wind that one of his closest friends and financial advisers, Charles Ewert, was stealing money from him, embezzling funds from the Austrian firearm maker.
Gaston, being a man who stood on business, confronted Charles. Unbeknownst to Gaston, Charles hired a French mercenary to kill him in an effort to make it look like an accident.
After being lured into a garage by Charles, a French mercenary hit Gaston over the head with a rubber mallet, but Gaston wasn’t going down without a fight. He fought back and knocked out the mercenary, who wound up falling on top of him. The soft-spoken engineer thwarted Charles’ homicide attempt.
Charles and the mercenary were both arrested and convicted of attempted murder.
Conclusion
Gaston was considered “the reclusive Austrian billionaire” and enjoyed staying out of the spotlight. But when you make pistols as good as Gaston did, staying out of the spotlight is hard.
A Glock 17 historical reproduction is a great conversation piece. Source: basspro
Thanks to Gaston’s great engineering mind, Glock continues to grow and thrive. His story and success inspire us, as well as the number of rounds we can put through his pistols without failure.
Rest in Peace, Gaston Glock.
