Glock Wins Philippine Pistol Tender
The Austrian fantastic plastic handgun Glock has won a contract to supply pistols to the Philippine Department of National Defense, which will supply the new handguns to the Philippine armed forces. The contract award is for the supply of 74,861 Glock 17 Gen 4 handguns, which will be used by all branches of the Philippine military.
The contract was awarded to the American subsidiary of Glock GmbH, Glock, Inc., and the company’s press release suggests that the pistols will be made at Glock, Inc’s plant in Smyrna, Georgia, in the United States. The company’s press release proudly proclaims that the export of nearly 75,000 pistols to the Philippines makes Glock, Inc. “the biggest exporter of pistols from the United States” and states that the included buy of a similar quantity of holsters is the biggest holster contract in Glock’s history. That the Philippine government would buy from Glock, Inc. rather than the German company Glock GmbH makes sense, given that country’s history of close relations with the United States.
Interestingly, the winning pistol was not the new Generation 5 Glock, but the previous Gen 4. It seems likely that the competition to select the new Philippine Army pistol predated the development and/or release of the Gen 5, or that the Gen 5’s features were not desired by the Philippine government.
Nathaniel is a history enthusiast and firearms hobbyist whose primary interest lies in military small arms technological developments beginning with the smokeless powder era. He can be reached via email at nathaniel.f@staff.thefirearmblog.com.
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Kind of a kick in the teeth to the Philippines local industry. Geoff Who will not speculate, you get the government you deserve.
Glock is lucky they even made it that far in the testing MHS requirement called for a non-caliber specific weapon with modular features to allow for the adaption of different fire control devices, pistol grips, and alternate magazine options. The weapon will fit various hand sizes and will mount targeting enablers using Picatinny rails. Glock has almost none of the requirements that the US military asked for. Look at the gen 5... it still has the glock proprietary rail, ambi slide release but no ambi mag release, a back strap option but can not change caliber easily like the Sig p320. Maybe if Glock would actually design somthing new or innovative then maybe they would have won the contract. No one is to blame other then GLOCK!