Back in the early days of semi-automatic pistols and up to the Browning Hi-Power, it wasn’t a completely uncommon thing to see a pistol with a shoulder stock mounted on it. Lugers, Mausers, and the aforementioned Hi-Power all had models and variants that could have an optional shoulder stock mounted to the gun. The Hi-Power even had sights that were graduated to an extremely optimistic range of 500 meters.
Image from Wikipedia
Obviously, this idea didn’t catch on too well, because proper shoulder arms like rifles and submachine guns generally outperform a pistol with a shoulder stock on it. But the idea has persisted to this day, it’s even dumber today than it was in the early 1900s. For example you have this video about attaching an Israeli stock mod to your Glock, or the ridiculous ENDO Tactical Glock Stock. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, pistol craft was still in the earliest stages of development. Shoulder stock pistols pre-date the Modern Technique and the evolution of pistol shooting by a significant margin.
There is no practical reason to put a shoulder stock on a modern combat pistol. If you want to do it for giggles, knock yourself out because hey, it’s a free country. People buy Taurus Judges, so put a stock on your pistol. But if you’re serious about shooting, it just doesn’t make sense. You’ll pay $150-$250 for the stock by itself, plus another $200 for the tax stamp to create an SBR. For our Washington residents, you can just stop reading because SBRs are illegal up here anyway. So now, you’re out ~$500 and have an SBR that still has all of the drawbacks of a pistol and none of the advantages of an SBR.
- Short sight radius? Check.
- Firing a pistol cartridge out of a pistol length barrel? Check.
- Still difficult to mount optics on? Check.
Plus, now you can’t conceal it without removing the stock. If you want a pistol caliber SBR, there are way better options that putting a shoulder stock on your Glock. The value in a pistol caliber SBR isn’t “it has a stock” but it’s that the rifle platform gives you a longer sight radius, it’s easier to mount optics on, etc.
I can’t imagine the sort of question where the best answer would be “mount a stock on your Glock”, but it was probably a pretty stupid question to start with if that’s the solution. If you want a rifle, get a rifle.
The thing I can’t understand is the new Sig Adaptive Carbine doohickey. For $600, you can mount a sling and a red dot and a light on your pistol, or, for a tax stamp and long, long wait, you can make into an SBR!
Or, for $750, get at Beretta CX4 Storm and don’t worry about any of that krep.
No, the value is that it has a stock. Which gives you easy and total recoil control, without thousands of rounds of practice, using downloaded ammunition, or a compensator that will blow your ears out if you shoot it in your bedroom. Total recoil control means red dots – which eliminate sight radius as a consideration altogether – go from being a pointless gizmo (because you lose the dot in that tiny little window between each shot, and have to go hunting for your front sight anyway) to a true point-and-click-click-click-click-click interface. The pistol length barrel and cartridge means you can also suppress it, and still not end up with a overly long or unwieldy gun. In fact, the stock tends to balance the silencer.
You can put one of these things in the hands of someone who’s never shot a gun before, show ‘em where the trigger is, and have ‘em rocking and rolling like a USPSA champ inside of 5 minutes. It’s stupid easy. Which is what guns are all about. The whole point is to make self defense accessible.
Of course, the legal situation gets in the way of that, but if it weren’t for that obstacle, these things would be tremendously popular, and rightfully so.
A couple of points, first off I’m completely unsurprised to see you defending this idiotic idea. Secondly, it does not give you “total recoil control”. Also, the suggestion that giving a stocked pistol to someone will somehow have them shooting like an experienced and talented USPSA shooter within minutes is just so laughable that I can’t even fathom how you arrived at that conclusion.
If you want a gun with a stock on it, you want a rifle. It can be a pistol caliber rifle or a proper rifle, but it will certainly be a better solution than slapping a crappy plastic stock on your Glock.
I’ve seen it. In my state, SBRs aren’t illegal. You can scoff all you like, but your derision is no challenge to actual experience. Until you’ve actually run one – or watched a noob rapidly getting the hang of running one – you’ll just have no idea. Which means you’re in for a pleasant surprise. So laugh all you like. I’ll save my laughter for the inevitable, typical Caleb Giddings, “Oh man, what was I thinking? These things are awesome after all!” post after you get to try one out for yourself.
That is it. You said this:
Unless you can show me proof of a complete novice picking up a shoulder stocked pistol and shooting at the USPSA Master or Grandmaster level, then you’re full of crap.
I didn’t always live here. I’ve shot pistols with shoulder stocks. Compared to a rifle, they were garbage. You want to make outlandish claims, you back them up with evidence.
I have to second the weirdassity of stocked pistols. Without a forearm or something else to hang on to, they’re not at all easy to maneuver, and the sights are at a really unusual distance from the eye.
I find it much, much easier to shoot handguns *without* stocks, and while there’s less recoil, the recoil is going into your body and not just your arms, which because of the way you have to hold it, throws off your aim just as much as when you’re shooting a pistol without a stock.
Reloading fast is weird, too.
I will say this: it makes sense for one thing, and that’s automatic fire. If you’re dumping a 30-round magazine in under two seconds, you’re not aiming, you’re evincing a cone of angry lead in a particular direction you hate to death.
Lookie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBjUDCyDCuI
BTW, for best results, you really do want something that allows you to mount a red dot and a front pistol grip. Not just a stock. It’s the combination of all three together that makes the magic happen. The Mako Glock chassis are good, as is the SBR version of the B&T TP9. I can’t speak for SIG’s new chassis, but I distrust anything that claims to be “universal”.
Jason, just a simple question:
Insted of pistol&stock combo, if I put a true pistol-caliber CARBINE “in the hands of someone who’s never shot a gun before”, inside of 5 minutes he will be “rocking and rolling like a USPSA champ”, even better and sooner?
Am I right?
When I was in Jerusalem last the Palestinian security in the Arab quarter (the old city is divided into four quarters: Jewish, Christian, Armenian and Arab. Leave it to Jerusalem) used Glocks with stocks. I lol’ed. Had no clue what model it was (probably a 17) but you walk fifty meters and you have Israeli soldiers with M4s and Uzis (probably Tavors now).
Without the stock, Winston Churchill was a rubbish shot. Practically fodder. With the stock on his Mauser, Winnie turned into a one-man, British murder-machine. The Sudanese dubbed him “pasty lispy Death” because of his killing skills in battle. After you have won as many wars as Churchill, if you still hold the same opinion, I will reconsider your advice.
Yeah, because he actually fought WW Twice on the front lines, right?
Kent,
Well no, but actual frontline combat experience in British India, the Sudan (where he famously used his C/96 to clear a number of Dervishes from his immediate vicinity during a cavalry charge) and the Second Boer War ought to count for something.
I think your “People buy Taurus Judges, so put a stock on your pistol” statement sums up the reason why they exist and why they sell. Some people (like myself) want to build or buy something just for the sake of doing/having. If these people think that a stock on a pistol is a somewhat fun idea (unlike myself) they have the opportunity to build it after jumping through hoops. I do agree that it serves little practical application as it has tons of drawbacks compared to a purpose build PDW/Subgun, but it also has the ‘giggle factor’ for someone with more money than sense.
Just to be clear, I have exactly zero issue with people buying a shoulder stock for their Glock. If they want to jump through the hoops and line up the legal dots, go for it. I just don’t want people to delude themselves into thinking that there’s any application for it whatsoever.
I put a shoulder stock on my cell phone, now I text like a champ.
Hah! Touche’ Brian!
BUT, Broomhandles and BHPs(with tangent sights) with shoulder stocks have more soul than Motown, are a blast to shoot and hey, if you didn’t like “Joe Kidd”, you know what you can do…:-)
You forgot to mention that they doubled as holsters, though not of the concealment variety.
Exactly. I have loved the Broomhandle Mauser since Joe Kidd took it from Lamarr Simms and used it to suppress the posse.
Meh. My whole perspective on the stocked pistol thing went radically to the “no f’in way” end of the spectrum when I saw the episode of “Sons of Guns” where some poor woman walked into the shop with a Desert Eagle and they built some gawd-awful fugly stock for it so she could control the recoil (that’s the one where the daughter shot the DE and they switched one of the shots to a Beretta because she hurt herself).
At no point did anyone (probably at the behest of the gun-ignorant producers from Discovery) say to her “Have you shot much? We can show you several different pistols that will be much more effective for your use than the penis replacement your husband bought for you, secretly hoping you’d hate it and just give it to him.”
Instead, that jackass of an inexperienced “apprentice” free-handed some gollywog POS stock that wasn’t even mounted straight, ruining any resale value the pistol had and not solving the fundamental problem.
Things like that make me want to open a store when I retire from active duty, just to give people decent advice when they walk in the door and provide some end-to-end customer support to them–especially those who are completely new to owning, shooting, and maintaining a gun.
Although it’s not a modern combat pistol, the stock added more than just a convenient place to put your shoulder for HK’s old VP-70, the stock had a selector to enable three round bursts when attached. And, with some strange sense of multi-functionality, HK also said the stock doubles as a holster for the VP-70, but that’s like saying a newspaper doubles for an umbrella.
Dean, I knew I could count on you to bring up the most ridiculous gun HK ever made!
Hey now, the VP70 also came in handy if the anchorline on your driftboat broke! And the trigger was fine if you can do one finger pullups.And that inverted/groove front sight? Badass!
With a trigger like that, you probably needed the stock just to hold the thing steady while you pull on it. But at least they looked cool in Aliens.
One thing you’re missing is that say you have a early Luger, Broomhandle Mauser, Hi-Power or such that came with a shoulder stock- The ATF doesn’t consider these guns SBR’s.
I can’t speak to all the details of that law, but for whatever reason there is a list of Shoulder-Stocked pistols that are not SBR’s per the ATF.
Jim,
My C/96 qualifies as a “curio or relic” and thus required no more than a 4473 when I bought it complete with shoulder stock / holster.
Oh, and speaking of my broomhandle, having put a number or rounds downrange with and without the stock, I have to agree with Caleb on this issue of shoulder stocked pistols. But, there is that “Joe Kidd” coolness factor with the Mauser.
What about the MechTech CCU?
That’s an actual carbine, you can mount optics, it has a proper barrel length, etc.
I happen to own one of these for a 1911 in .460 Rowland. In retrospect, buying one for a GLOCK would have made a lot more sense, but I didn’t own a GLOCK at the time.
Having said that, I’m actually looking at getting rid of mine, because I just don’t shoot it.
If a) you have the disposable income & time for paperwork, b) you think it is enjoyable to shoot, and c) it gets you and your friends safely out to the range an excited, then it is valuable.
Not that I own one myself, but if I grooved on it and it gave me joy to shoot, after a nice 80 hour work week NOTHING could be more PRACTICAL. So let’s cut back on some of the snark and arrogance. It probably gets you nowhere on the road to grand master, but i it keeps you happy and having fun in the firearms world, a stocked pistol is just fine.
I’ve shot at least 500 rounds through a stocked Glock 18 with a stock, and with the stock removed. Not too much difference at full auto, to tell the truth- the targets tended to look like swiss cheese either way.
The reason you see Glocks with stocks in Israel is because a person is only allowed one gun.
I spent some time with an NFA (SBR) Kriss Vector SMG and was surprised by how accurate it was out to 50 yards. I was able to easily bounce a tin can over a hill, something I’d have a hard time doing with a standard hand gun. It may have been the stock, or the optical sight, but there was a positive difference in performance.
To me, that’s a different animal than a shoulder stocked pistol, because the gun is designed to be used as a shoulder arm. The sight radius with iron sights is reasonable, it’s easy to mount an optic, etc.
Ah, so I shouldn’t expect similar performance with a stock and optical sight on my P220. Good to know.
Caleb, is your argument basically that a shoulder-stocked pistol is not economical? Would it make more sense to you if there wasn’t the NFA tax on it?
As some have pointed out, it is faster and more accurate (that is to say, steady) than a handgun. The shooting position (as with most SBRs) is actually more compact than that of a handgun (to aim a handgun, you hold it at arms length; whereas a stocked weapon is pulled into the body). As a defensive weapon, it seems to make more sense than a handgun if concealment is not an issue (for example, home defense).
Of course, the $200 NFA tax means it isn’t economical since you could just use that money to buy another firearm. However, not all countries have the same laws that we do. Many countries make it difficult to own more than one firearm, and these shoulder stocks are probably far more economical in such an environment.
No, it’s that shoulder stocked pistols are inferior to actual rifles for shoulder use, and inferior to actual pistols for traditional pistol uses. If you want a shoulder stocked weapon, you want a rifle or SMG, not a kludgy pistol with a stock.
Zed-not sure Caleb has ever used one, his article doesn’t say. Some serious security pros use the Glock stocks in Israel for exactly the reason you gave, only able to own one firearm.