If you’re an American citizen, you can put your hands on most Glock models. Heck, thanks to the Glock factory in Smyrna, Georgia, we can finally get some of the earlier .380s banned from import. Glock still hasn’t released the 46 in the United States, but the most desired and most difficult to obtain is the Glock 18.
The Glock 18 might be the holy grail for Glock collectors. It’s the rarest pistol and likely has the lowest production rate of any Glock pistol. The Glock 18 was Gaston Glock’s second pistol, first introduced in 1986.
It’s desirable, rare, and almost impossible to obtain because, technically, it’s a machine gun.
That’s the legal definition of a machine gun, not the military definition. More appropriately, it’s a machine pistol. Nonetheless, it’s full auto, and there are zero transferable Glock 18s. The few that exist require federal licensure, a lot of paperwork, and a rigamarole to obtain.
Glock likely owns the majority of the Glock 18s in the United States. It is a fascinating gun.
Gun guys and gals know it, and pop culture exposed it to the masses. It’s a legendary gun, almost mythic because of its full-auto design and how hard it is to get.
What’s the Glock 18?
The Glock 18 is a full-sized 9mm pistol capable of selective fire. Its slide features a fire selector. When you press the selector up, the gun fires in semi-auto mode; when you press it down, it fires in full-auto mode.
The firing rate is absurdly high, which is common with machine pistols due to their short slide travel. The rate of fire is around 1,200 rounds per minute, but it may vary depending on the ammunition used. At 1,200 rounds per minute, we are looking at 20 rounds per second.
Externally, it looks a lot like the Glock 17, Glock’s first pistol, and another full-sized 9mm pistol. The biggest difference to the naked eye is the fire selector.
That said, there aren’t many interchangeable parts. The Glock 18 slide can’t fit on a Glock 17 frame, and vice versa.
Glock purposefully raised the rails on the Glock 18’s frame to prevent interchangeability. While they share magazines and likely some small parts, they are largely incompatible.
Glock still produces and sells the 18 to qualified customers. Glock displays the firearm on its European website.
The Glock 18 and 18C at a Glance
| Specification | Glock 18 and 18C |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer / Origin | GLOCK Ges.m.b.H.; Austria. |
| Caliber | 9×19mm / 9mm Luger. |
| Action type | Recoil-operated, locked-breech, tilting-barrel, striker-fired “Safe Action” machine pistol. |
| Operating modes | Selective fire via a slide-mounted selector: upper position, marked with one dot, for semi-auto fire; lower position, marked with two dots, for full-auto fire. |
| Cyclic rate of fire | Approximately 20 rounds per second, or 1,200 rounds per minute, according to Glock’s current product pages. Glock’s 2018 G18/G18C accompanying sheet lists a theoretical rate of 1,300 rounds per minute. |
| Weight without magazine | G18: 625 g / 22.05 oz. G18C: 590 g / 20.81 oz. |
| Weight with empty standard magazine | G18: 705 g / 24.87 oz. G18C: 670 g / 23.63 oz. |
| Weight with loaded standard magazine | G18: approximately 940 g / 33.16 oz. G18C: approximately 905 g / 31.92 oz. Actual weight depends on ammunition. |
| Overall length | Both models: 204 mm / 8.03 in. |
| Slide length | Both models: 186 mm / 7.32 in. |
| Barrel length | Both models: 114 mm / 4.49 in. |
| Overall width | Both models: 34 mm / 1.34 in. |
| Slide width | Both models: 29.5 mm / 1.16 in. |
| Height with standard magazine | Both models: 155 mm / 6.10 in. |
| Standard factory magazine | 19 rounds: a 17-round G17 magazine with a factory +2 floorplate extension. |
| Optional factory magazine capacities | 17, 24, 31, and 33 rounds; availability varies by market and applicable law. |
| G18C compensator | Four barrel ports vent gases upward through a slide window to help reduce muzzle rise during automatic fire. |
| U.S. legal status | Machine gun subject to the National Firearms Act and 18 U.S.C. § 922(o). Glock does not sell the G18/G18C to the U.S. commercial market. Government and qualified-licensee possession and transfers remain subject to applicable federal requirements and state or local law. |
History of the Glock 18
Glock initially developed the 18 to test the components of Glock pistols. A machine pistol is a helluva testing tool if you’re testing for wear, heat resistance, and lifespan. Its high rate of fire makes it quick and easy to reach high round counts and subjects the gun to an amount of stress a semi-auto would never replicate.
The original Glock 18 featured a slightly longer barrel with porting, which was quickly discarded because it would not fit in Glock 17 holsters. Later, they produced compensated models, which they labeled the G18C. Its main distinguishing feature is the ports in the barrel and slide, which help minimize recoil and improve control during rapid fire.
The Austrian counterterrorism unit Einsatzkommando (EKO) Cobra also requested machine pistols for its operations. It is unknown how exactly these guns were used or whether they were used extensively, but we do know the unit explicitly requested them.
EKO Cobra: sweet name, BTW. Way cooler (and easier to say) than Gendarmerieinsatzkommando Bad Vöslau.
Beyond Austria
Machine pistols are very niche, and the Glock 18 has been adopted in limited numbers by Austria, Argentina, Armenia, Malaysia, and the Netherlands. In these countries, the gun is fielded by elite special operations or police forces.
Interestingly, as Steve Comus reported in the 1993 edition of The Gun Digest Book of 9mm Handguns, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department purchased Glock 18s as an entry weapon during drug raids. That’s the only American adoption of the pistol I can find.
The most fascinating piece of Glock 18 trivia comes from Iraq. On December 13, 2003, operators from 1st SFOD-D (Delta Force) pulled Saddam Hussein from a hole at Ad Dawr. He was carrying a Glock 18C with a flush-fit 17-round magazine.
How he came into possession of the gun is unknown. Unit armorers test-fired the pistol at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), then mounted it to an engraved plaque and presented it to George W. Bush. It’s now part of the collection at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas.
The Problem With Machine Pistols
Why didn’t the Glock 18 catch on like wildfire? Why wouldn’t you want a full-auto gun if that’s an option? Well, machine pistols aren’t the easiest guns to control.
Small, lightweight guns firing full auto can be very difficult to manage. People are shocked to find that even full-auto rifles are difficult to control, so imagine how hard a handgun firing 20 rounds per second can be.
It can be done, but it takes a lot of training and trigger control. Anytime you shoot, you’re responsible for every round you fire. It’s easy to miss, and even easier to miss when you fire 10 rounds in half a second.
It’s a liability and unnecessary. Full-auto fire is primarily a suppressive mechanism, and handguns don’t work well for suppressing the target. The main niche would be close-quarters anti-ambush use, and that’s quite rare.
Glock 18 In Pop Culture
Part of the Glock 18’s fame comes not from its history or performance, but from pop culture. You’ll see it far more often on the big screen, in a TV series, or in a video game than on your local range—assuming you ever see it on your local range.
Both the G18 and G18C have appeared in numerous games, shows, and movies. Examples include Terminator 3, The Matrix Reloaded, and my personal favorite, Skyfall.
In the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall, distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, henchman Patrice runs a Glock 18 with a 100-round Beta-C drum in one scene and a 33-round extended magazine in another.
It’s absurd, but eye-catching, and it’s the only way to fire for more than a few seconds before running empty.
The Matrix Reloaded, released by Warner Bros. Pictures in 2003, shows Morpheus using the Glock 18C (with a 19-round mag) against “the Twins” in a parking garage, then out on the freeway, where he augments a 33-round magazine with a katana.
The standard factory mag for G18s is a 17-round magazine with a factory +2 floorplate. Movie armorers typically convert factory semi-auto G17s into on-screen G18s, and those guns are often lacking the selector switch on the rear of the slide.
As for games, the Glock 18C can be used in Ready or Not, Battlefield 2042, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and others. It was added to RoN in the “Boiling Point” update and, interestingly, has a 17-round magazine with a +7 extendo attached. BF2042 features a “G57” that’s actually a Glock 18, and the G18 in MW II (appearing as the X13 Auto) can be had both in handgun and chassis-conversion carbine versions.
Beyond the movies and games listed earlier, the G18 appears in nearly every Tom Clancy first-person shooter. Terrorists and good guys can wield it in Counter-Strike and Escape From Tarkov, two games that are quite popular. Video games are where the Glock 18 seems to excel, and the only chance most of us will have to handle one.
You’ll also see it in television series like The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, Numb3rs, and others.
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The Glock We Can’t Have
Between the NFA and the Hughes Amendment, it seems highly unlikely that the Glock 18 will ever be available for the average Joe. It’s locked behind a mountain of laws and bureaucracy. It’s a fascinating gun, and one desired not for its performance but simply because of its unique nature and unavailability.
A Few Quick Answers
Not in practice. The Glock 18 is legally a machine gun, and there are zero transferable Glock 18s. Glock sells it only to qualified customers, and the few in the U.S. require federal licensure.
The Glock 18C is the compensated version. Ports in its barrel and slide help minimize recoil and improve control during rapid fire, while the standard Glock 18 has a fully enclosed slide.
Around 1,200 rounds per minute, or about 20 rounds per second, depending on the ammunition.
