Glock 49 and Glock 19 Quick Comparison

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Allen Zant

For me, the Glock 19 has that perfect grip length that makes it shootable and concealable. The barrel is a little stubby, but long enough to get good velocity out of most ammunition and the sight radius for iron sight shooting was fine. What I always wanted was a 4.4″ Glock 17 slide on a Glock 19.

When Glock came out with the Glock 49, I was excited. Then, there were reports of stoppages out of them at SHOT Show. I decided to hold off on buying one. My interest waned as I shot more 1911s, Hi Powers, and revolvers. One day, I saw a deal for a Glock 49 factory-milled for the ACRO at better than Blue Label pricing and decided that it was too good to pass up.

My immediate thought on a use for the Glock 49 was that .4″ extra barrel might give a little more velocity and the weatherproof ACRO would make a good hunting optic. Besides, it just looks good with that barrel and grip length combination. You might compare it to a 1911 CCO or, even a Hi Power.

I first wanted to see how much the barrel length affected draw speed and recovery time to a rapid second hit. I ran the drills from a JM Custom Kydex “George” AIWB holster at 10 yards on steel.

2.168 second average for draw to 2 hits on steel at 10 yards for the Glock 19 cold. Yes, that is snow in the bottom of the picture. It hung out there for nearly 6 weeks after it showed up. This is Texas!
2.104 seconds, average for draw to 2 hits on steel at 10 yards for the Glock 49. It felt better, especially the way the slide returned to battery. There was a smoothness that the G19 did not have and I felt that the gun returned from recoil to exactly where I wanted it.
Feelings lie. 1.97 seconds average for draw to 2 hits on steel at 10 yards with the G19 when shot again, after the G49. The gun returned to exactly where I wanted it every time.

The Glock 49’s longer slide and barrel feel smoother when it cycles in recoil to me. I have heard others say similar things about the Glock 47 with the same length barrel and recoil spring assembly. However, I found that the last two runs with the Glock 49 were at the same speed as the last 5 runs with the G19. After having shot the first 5 runs with the G19, I was beginning to warm up. After 3 more runs with the G49, I had completed my warm up process, it seems. The final 2 runs with the G49 and 5 runs with the G19 were all about the same.

Even without any extra performance apparent on the timer, the feel of the G49 is still good enough to prefer shooting it. There was no apparent speed difference in clearing the holster for the half inch of extra barrel. Did I mention the 49 looks cool?

Next, I wanted to look at the potential of the G49 for hunting with the extra barrel length to provide a little more velocity and possible penetration.

First up, I grabbed some Hornady 135+P Critical Duty. The Glock 19 averaged 1128.6 and the G49 averaged 1134.8. That was not quite as much as I was hoping for.

Velocity testing done while shooting at 40-yard steel. The G49 hits a little low with the Critical Duty.
Hornady Critical Duty out of the G19. The fifth round is off to the right. I was shooting without a rest, just leaning my shoulder into the side of a metal building for some stability. In checking the sights, later, at 25 yards, it still showed to be dead on.

Next, I tried Winchester 124 +P Bonded RA9BA. It averaged 1212.4 out of the Glock 19 and 1223.1 out of the Glock 49.

After that, I decided to try something with more pow(d)er. I dug out one of my all time favorite loads, the Winchester RA9TA 127gr +P+. Steve and I shot several animals with that load and it always worked well. The Glock 19 averaged 1272.5 and the Glock 49 averaged 1271.3. Well, that isn’t going in the right direction.

Winchester Ranger 127+p+ after the wind changed direction on me. Two of five at 40 yards is not something I would normally admit to. Can I count that edger on the stem as a hit? How about half a hit?
The 127+P+ Winchester load out of the 19 showed more hits than the 49, but the area of control issues are more obvious.

I don’t have a picture to represent the Glock 49’s accuracy, but it shoots just as well as every other Gen 5 gun I have shot. The gun does feel better in recoil and I just like the way it looks. If I want to hunt with a plastic 9mm, then this would get the nod. Likely, that would be looking for pigs in bad weather, or carrying exposed on the tractor for the same pest. I don’t know if this gun has a slow barrel, or if that G19 has a fast barrel, but you can’t expect much out of a 1/2″ and ammunition manufacturers have done a great job at tailoring loads to shorter barrel service pistols. If the gun had been introduced when the Gen5s first arrived, I might not own a Gen 5 G19. It isn’t better, it is just preferable.