The Glock 39 Gun Might Be Small But It Will Demand Your Respect

Here’s why.

byKyle Mizokami

In the early twenty-first century, industry cooperation between the CCI/Speer ammunition company and Glock lead to the creation of a new caliber, .45 GAP. GAP stood for Glock Automatic Pistol and was meant as an alternative to the nearly century-old .45 ACP. Although things didn’t exactly work out that way, the .45 GAP is still a viable cartridge for shooters who want power with less recoil.

The .45 GAP round was released in November 2002 by CCI/Speer. The round was developed by Ernest Dunham in response to a request by Glock for a round that had the same overall length as the 9-millimeter Luger while packing the raw power of .45 ACP. 9mm Luger, also known as 9×19, has an overall length of 29 millimeters, to the .45 ACP’s 32 millimeters.

Although Glock was already branching into new calibers, including .40 Smith & Wesson, such a new round would allow compact and subcompact pistols to carry a high firepower round while keeping overall length—particularly grip length—down. Grip comfort is a key consideration in choosing a firearm, and too wide a grip can send shooters looking for something else.

The Glock 39 is one of the company’s smallest pistols on the market. The has an overall length of just 6.5 inches, a height of 4.17 inches, and a slide width of just 1.12 inches. The barrel is 3.43 inches long and the entire pistol, with empty magazine, weighs just 1 pound 8 ounces.

The Glock 39 is designed as a backup, concealed carry, or “last ditch” pistol, unobtrusive and easy to keep out of the way but ready to go when you need it. As short as it is it still carries six rounds of .45 GAP ammunition, plus a single round in the chamber, thanks to the single stack magazine. The standard six round magazine can also be replaced with eight and ten round magazines, though the larger magazines will protrude conspicuously from the magazine well and make them difficult to conceal.

A quick look at ammunition data reveals the .45 GAP round does an admirable round of overtaking the older .45 ACP round. A 230-grain Federal full metal jacket .45 ACP round exits the muzzle with a force of 404 foot-pounds and travels at 890 feet per second. Federal’s .45 GAP full metal jacket round, by contrast, weighs 185 grains and has the force of 488 foot-pounds at the muzzle. The .45 GAP round, while still subsonic, travels at a significantly greater speed of 1,090 feet per second. (Federal’s 9mm FMJ round, as a third point of comparison, weighs 124 grains, hits with 364 foot-pounds at the muzzle, and travels at 1,150 feet per second.)