I agree with the idea that Glock is going after women shooters, they are an undeserved and rapidly growing segment of the market. Having a small (but not tiny) .380 offers reduced recoil and much less force to actuate the slide, both stumbling blocks for many new and/or women shooters.jmra wrote:If I understood the question correctly, he was asking why Glock chose to make the G42 a .380 instead of a 9mm. I believe the answer is obvious. They didn't have a .380 on the US market and sales on the G26 are still going strong. No reason to disrupt the sales numbers on the G26.Cedar Park Dad wrote:M&P has both the M&Pc and the Shieldjmra wrote:See previous postMurindo wrote:I like Glock's but why a .380 when the competition is fielding reliable accurate mini 9 mm's?
Beretta has the Storm Subcompact and the Nano
Ruger has the SR9 and the LC9
Springfield XDM in both double and single column
Sig has the same. heck they have a subcompact and two different types of single column 9mm.
Those are off the top of my head. I'm having difficulty thinking of a major pistol maker that makes 9mms, and doesn't have both a double column and a single column, besides Glock of course.
When/if sales drop on the G26 they will release a G42 sized 9mm. At this point they obviously don't believe it is in their best interest to do so.
Glocks lowest market share is among women. This is mostly due to the fact that women in general (this forum may be an exception) go for softer shooting guns. By introducing the G42 I believe Glock is aiming at the female customer base.
As for stealing market share from the 26, I wonder if there is something else going on here. There are plenty of reports of people being able to cause failures to feed with a G26 by holding it VERY loosely, but so far they have avoided the "reliability" problems associated with all the sub 20 oz 9mm's. My small 9mm have generally poor reliability when run by new shooters, but they magically run very well for me...
So what if Glock puts out a ~15 oz 9mm that is snatched up by inexperienced new shooters who limp wrist it then complain about poor reliability? I think they learned from the gen 4 recoil spring overreaction that they need to maintain their reputation for reliability over all else.