What makes a modern pistol “better”?

[peterGun]

Weight or lack there of, if you commit to daly carry a three pound gun can literally be a pain.

A two pound gun with higher capacity seems to be a no brainer unless you’re dealing with emotions


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[CAJUNLAWYER]

Marketing.

 

[Aukula1062]

Striker fired pistols like the Glock are also popular for concealed carry. That’s the case even though a design that ties all the safeties to the trigger and was intended for use in an OWB duty holster is a poor choice for IWB carry, unless it’s used in conjunction with a very carefully thought out and designed holster.


Wow. That's a whole lot to unpack for me. I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion.

 

[Chubbs103]

Examine a 40’s or 50’s vintage S&W or Colt revolver next to a Taurus or Ruger revolver today. The quality, fitting, finish is so much better on the old stuff. Do the same with a 1908 Colt auto loader vs today’s Glock. Quality is just 1000% better back then.

I agree completely. I would also prefer easy / drop-in parts fitting if I was maintaining a whole armory of pistols. Heck, I might prefer that if my pistol was the only one I had to maintain.

 

[Faulkner]

Examine a 40’s or 50’s vintage S&W or Colt revolver next to a Taurus or Ruger revolver today. The quality, fitting, finish is so much better on the old stuff. Do the same with a 1908 Colt auto loader vs today’s Glock. Quality is just 1000% better back then.

Lets be honest in our assessment, compare a vintage Colt or S&W with a new Colt or S&W.

 

[Faulkner]

Marketing.

There was some pretty aggressive marketing back in the day. Smith & Wesson, and to some degree Colt, had the law enforcement market sowed up well before Glock ever came along. Sure, Glock was innovative with their product and their marketing for law enforcement, but Ruger also tried at the time and they couldn't pull it off.

 

[Ingramite]

I was caretaker of a beautiful Colt 1903 that was made in 1921. The fit and finish was like a piece of fine jewelry. Then it was a pair of ivory grips and an antique hand carved holster. The perfect gentlemen's carry pistol.

Then I found out that they are not drop safe.

 

[rwsmith]

Heat treating...

Heat treating methods are better. For Smith and Wesson this started in the late 50's. Which is why they say any all steel S&W with a model number can take +P loads.

 

[serger]

I think for the most part being able to injection mold
frames and use a CNC mill makes for a pistol that
works fine and lasts a long time........... i.e. Better.

But in reality you don't worry about the arrow,
You worry about the Indian.

 

[pasound]

Older designs all fit my hands better, and have better triggers. 1911, 3913, 6906 all fit with standard grips, and point naturally. I do have a couple of striker-fired, a Ruger American .45, and a P385XL, but I made sure I bought the ones with safeties. The American came with changeable back straps, and I fitted the P365XL with a Hogue grip sleeve to make it more comfortable. I've grown used to striker pistols, but never without a decocker or a safety.

 

[fiasconva]

One of my wife's friends is a real gun nut. She was over one day and had just purchased a Sig Rose (sp?) in 380. I showed her the Browning model 1922, 32 ACP, that I had that was manufactured around 1942. She loved it and kept saying what a well-balanced pistol it was.

 

[sigp220.45]

I like older guns and that is generally what I carry. But I am not the market new guns are aimed at.

I recently bought a SigP210 Carry. In researching why the gun was not a success (its already out of the catalog) I learned it sucks because:

- its a single stack
- its a single action
- the safety is only on one side
- it has a hammer
- it is all metal
- it has no provision to mount a flashlight
- there is no way to mount an optic
- it is not silencer ready

It doesn’t matter that it has a nice trigger and is wonderfully accurate and unfailingly reliable. According to the naysayers the only thing it got right was the caliber.

I know shooters who will only consider a striker-fired, threaded barrel, 18 shot, polymer framed pistol with a red dot and flashlight as suitable for carry.

Show them something else and you get the dreaded “But but but ……. there are better choices….”

 

[Puller]

Examine a 40’s or 50’s vintage S&W or Colt revolver next to a Taurus or Ruger revolver today. The quality, fitting, finish is so much better on the old stuff. Do the same with a 1908 Colt auto loader vs today’s Glock. Quality is just 1000% better back then.

Examine modern 1911's and you'll find they are better than vintage Colt 1911's and much less costly.

 

[ruger 22]

I carried a BHP for 40+ years and still to this day have not really seen anything that would make me replace it were I not retired. The fit that we speak of is a personal choice and while the BHP is not to me a perfect fit it is good enough. The only shooting sport I did where fit is really crucial was trap shooting.

 

[Alk8944]

Absolutely nothing except parts and accessories should be easier to come by.

 

[Abbynormal]

I've enjoyed shooting and owning 1911's, S&W autos, HP's, Sig's', Beretta's, Walther's and Glock's.

For carry Beretta's are too big, HP's are uber expensive and SA only plus I don't feel comfortable carrying a striker fired pistol.

The Sig's, HP's and Walther's feel the best, but Walther's are plastic and I tend to feel better with metal frames.

 

[65-2x2]

Most of the new semiauto products are about marketing, not practical improvements. The make 'em bigger, smaller, lighter, heavier, they make in different colors and finishes, cheaper and pricier, but in my personal opinion, there has not been substantial improvement since 1935, and I still carry a design from 1911. The same goes double for revolvers, both Smith and Colt had perfected them by the early 1900s and subsequent changes are more or less fluff.

The problem that gunmakers have, if they want to continue to make money, is having to reinvent the same gun, year after year, and to convince us that we have to have the newest one. The problem with us is that we willingly participate in the scheme. The reality is that we can be adaquently armed with a product made long before any of us were born. That doesn't keep me from lusting after some of the new ones, but it explains why across my modest collection or rifles and handguns, the average age is older than I am. (and I went to school with Moses)

 

[Harv 24]

The typical "modern" safetyless polystriker is a retrograde in development.

It has three safety features.... So there is that. and I would disagree on being a retrograde, the simplicity of a Glock and the number of parts is leap years ahead of older pistols, even the 1911's.
Simplicity,
reliability.
capacity.
accuracy.

One of the finest magazine every designed for a handgun.

100 years from now, a Revolver and a Glock will be dug up and the Revolver will be rusted inoperable, and the Glock will still work.

 

[Glenn R. McMannly]

Availability of parts is a biggie.

 

[Onomea]

I'd say reliability and fire power.