I was browsing a US gun forum a few weeks ago and came across a thread where the poster was kicking around the idea of getting a .45 GAP Glock (GAP Standing for “Glock Auto Pistol”)—and I was intrigued. I find oftentimes around this time of year—maybe due to a bit of cabin fever or something—that I’ll get a craving for a new gun, and that thread was the spark that started my quest. I was generally aware of the .45GAP Glocks but didn’t know much about them or the round. I expected them to be rare and the round likely non-existent, but to my surprise, when I did a quick search I found that Frontier Firearms had the pistols on sale for $300 off (!), and I was able to find a number of dealers with ammunition too. I like owning unusual guns, and I’ve like Glocks a lot since I owned my first one—a Gen 2 G17 in 1991, so this was an easy decision for me.
Here’s a quick overview of the round itself. It dates from 2003—which is much earlier than I’d remembered…if you’d asked me I would’ve guessed the round was about ten years old. The original .45ACP Glocks had grip frames that were quite large, and I found that even the “Short Frame” model 21SF still had a trigger reach that was a bit too long to be comfortable. Glock wanted to develop a round that would duplicate .45ACP ballistics in a round that would fit the Glock 17/22 sized frames, and in conjunction with CCI/Speer released the round—the round's overall length is 1.070", compared with the .45ACP at 1.275".
There were three models of Glocks developed for the round: the full-sized Glock 37, the compact Glock 38 and the subcompact Glock 39. I would’ve liked now with a Glock 34-length slide model but I guess it didn’t fit the round’s intended purpose of law enforcement and self-defense. As far as I know only the Glock 37 was sold in Canada, I’m not sure that there were any extended-barrel models of the 38 or 39 sold here. The round gained early popularity with US law enforcement, but this has waned in recent years—with the improvements in 9mm self-defense ammunition performance in many cases it was seen that having 17 rounds of 9mm rounds was better than ten of .45GAP. And, pistols such as the HK45, which can comfortably accommodate the .45ACP round in a comfortably-sized grip frame, also reduced the demand for the pistol.
Now—onto the pistol itself. Although the pistol is unfired, the fired case envelope dates from March 5 2011—11 years ago today! From what I can tell, the frame is a regular G17/22 Gen 4 frame, with no differences to accommodate the GAP round. The slide, however, is noticeably wider to accommodate the larger-diameter chamber and bore.
The slide also has a noticeable bevel along its bottom edges to allow it to match the width of the frame. I can’t remember if the Gen 4 G21SF I previously had (the only other Gen 4 Glock I’ve owned) had the same slide finish but this one has a grippier, rougher finish, similar to early Glocks, that makes it easier to rack the slide. My Gen 3 G31C has the “frying pan” which is super-tough for wear but smoother and slipperier than I like.
I could tell from its heft that the G37’s slide is heavier than my G31C’s slide, but I was surprised the difference. The G31C’s comes in at 386g, but the G37’s slide weights in at a beefy 483g. Some of the difference would be due to the compensator slots in the G31C’s slide but a difference of almost 100g is surprising.
I’m one of the few folks that actually like factory Glock sights, but I find since my cataract surgery a few years ago that fibre optic sights work best for me—I found these TruGlo TFO (tritium-fibre optic) sights on the EE for a good price. They’re steel, and offer good protection to the fibre optic elements. I would’ve preferred a different color for the front, but I’m OK with all-green.
Here’s a comparison of a 230 gr. FMJ .45GAP (in the middle) with a 230 gr. FMJ .45ACP on the left and a 124 gr. 9mm on the right. It’s a stubby little thing, isn’t it!
The cartridge also takes small pistol primers, not the large pistol primers of the .45 ACP.
I’ve been able to source a good amount of of ammunition—mostly 230 gr. FMJ with some 185 gr. FMJ and 230 gr. JHP. It’s funny, in doing research before I made the purchase I found a number of threads on different forms dating sometimes form ten years ago predicting the end of availability for factory ammunition but it still seems to be fairly easy to get. Not as easy as .45ACP or 9mm, but still not bad. And, it can apparently be reloaded with .45ACP dies, just adjusted for the different OAL.
In doing the research before the purchase I often saw people mentioned that the .45GAP was “an answer to a non-existent problem”, which I don’t think is quite true…it’s more like an answer to a problem that not everyone has—that is to have .45ACP ballistics in a manageably-sized Glock. I’m looking forward to taking it out to the range!
