Glocks are among the most popular handguns, period. That’s because they work, and they work consistently, even with poor maintenance and cheap ammunition.
If you try running your expensive Staccato 2011 without cleaning it every few hundred rounds, you’re going to be guaranteed to have jams. A Glock? You can get about 3000 rounds at a range between cleaning.
My range had a rental CZ75 they never cleaned. Probably had 15k rounds or more through it, the owner figured. He’d check it periodically to make sure it was safe, but he was curious to see how long it took to crater it. It was still the most accurate 9mm in the rental fleet. I sold my M&P to buy a Shadow just because that gun blew it out of the water for multishot accuracy.
IIRC there’s one part on the Shadow II that’s known to fail at regular intervals, I think the extractor? It’s something that’s well known to competitive shooters, common enough that they keep spares on hand the same way that most competitors keep spare optics batteries on hand. I don’t know that I’d try running a Shadow or Shadow II for thousands of rounds without cleaning, just because it’s got closer tolerances than a CZ-75B. But that’s just me.
Oh, and if you like CZ, check out KMR Arms. KMR does some of CZ’s manufacturing, and also does their own line. Sadly, they aren’t yet generally available in the US due to the general difficulties in importing pistols, but I’ve heard they’re trying to work out distribution. These should be viewed solely as competition guns though rather than tactical or duty firearms; you should probably not be using any of them as a carry gun.
EDIT: A range can probably get away with a little less cleaning, because they limit the ammunition that people can use; they can only sell very clean burning ammunition that won’t leave a ton of powder and copper fouling. Most people that practice on their own use whatever is cheap, which may even be shitty Russian surplus Wolf ammo with lacquered steel cases, and corrosive Berdan primers.
Glocks are among the most popular handguns, period. That’s because they work, and they work consistently, even with poor maintenance and cheap ammunition.
If you try running your expensive Staccato 2011 without cleaning it every few hundred rounds, you’re going to be guaranteed to have jams. A Glock? You can get about 3000 rounds at a range between cleaning.
My range had a rental CZ75 they never cleaned. Probably had 15k rounds or more through it, the owner figured. He’d check it periodically to make sure it was safe, but he was curious to see how long it took to crater it. It was still the most accurate 9mm in the rental fleet. I sold my M&P to buy a Shadow just because that gun blew it out of the water for multishot accuracy.
IIRC there’s one part on the Shadow II that’s known to fail at regular intervals, I think the extractor? It’s something that’s well known to competitive shooters, common enough that they keep spares on hand the same way that most competitors keep spare optics batteries on hand. I don’t know that I’d try running a Shadow or Shadow II for thousands of rounds without cleaning, just because it’s got closer tolerances than a CZ-75B. But that’s just me.
Oh, and if you like CZ, check out KMR Arms. KMR does some of CZ’s manufacturing, and also does their own line. Sadly, they aren’t yet generally available in the US due to the general difficulties in importing pistols, but I’ve heard they’re trying to work out distribution. These should be viewed solely as competition guns though rather than tactical or duty firearms; you should probably not be using any of them as a carry gun.
EDIT: A range can probably get away with a little less cleaning, because they limit the ammunition that people can use; they can only sell very clean burning ammunition that won’t leave a ton of powder and copper fouling. Most people that practice on their own use whatever is cheap, which may even be shitty Russian surplus Wolf ammo with lacquered steel cases, and corrosive Berdan primers.