Let’s start the review portion on my blog with one of my favorite pistols for concealed carry, the Glock 27. For those of you who do not know, the 27 is the smallest sized Glock pistol chambered in 40 S&W.
My pistol was purchased used, or should I say traded for, about 4 months ago. I traded a gen 4 Glock 17 (full-sized 9mm) for it as my Texas CHL was being processed at the time and I wanted a good candidate for full time concealed carry. Let me tell you, it doesn’t get much better than this for a fully featured concealable pistol chambered in a defensive caliber. But is the 40 S&W the best caliber for this gun?? That has yet to be seen.
I have personally been carrying this gun as much as legally possible for the last couple of months and have shot about 230 rounds through it of all kinds of ammunition. This thing eats it all without any issue. From the most aggressive JHP rounds to FMJ rounds this gun likes it all. I have found that the 180gr bullets are much more controllable in this pistol as compared to their 165gr counterparts. The 165’s are just too “snappy” when shooting store bought FMJ rounds. In defensive rounds the 165’s were not as “snappy”, and were comparable to most of the 180gr bullets that I’ve shot through it. While I have not shot a ton of rounds through this gun, this is definitely a well used pistol. It has probably had several thousand rounds run through it, yet it still runs good as new.
Let’s look at some positives and negatives about this pistol.
Positives:
- Small Size
- This is a concealed carry firearm, there is no looking around that. If you are looking for a fun range toy, while this is a great shooter and can be a lot of fun, you should probably look at some of the larger versions. The grip and slide length on this gun lend itself very well to concealed carry, and I often carry it with only a tee-shirt or polo shirt un-tucked over it. It is also possible to tuck-in a shirt and conceal it quite well with the proper holster. I have also used a shoulder holster styled set-up for carrying it with much success.
- Famous Glock reliability
- Do I really need to elaborate… It’s a Glock.
- Parts galore
- Once again, It’s a Glock… Want to change something about it to make it yours or to suit your style of shooting better, it’s probably out ther on the internet. From trigger enhancements to beavertailed grips, you can find it all.
- Ability to accept full size magazines
- This is a huge plus for many of the smaller sized Glock pistols. My normal carry is a stock 9 round G27 magazine in the gun with either a +1 G27 magazine or now that I’ve found one, a G23 13 round magazine. I have also run the gun with the big-boy 22 round magazine in it as well. One this worth noting is that there are some people out there stateing that they have had feed issues when running extended magazines in their pistols. They claim that the pressure from gripping the magazine with your pinky finger causes them. I’m not sure of the reality of this claim but I do have a solution, keep your pinky off the magazine!!! I have never had a malfunction caused by using an extended magazine and I believe it is attributed to that fact. You don’t shoot the pistol with your pinky on the regular magazine, so why do you need it on these.
- Ability to convert pistol to 9mm and 357 sig
- While this probably fits in with parts, I thought it would be good to highlight it here as well. The G27 can accept conversion barrels that will allow you to shoot either 9mm or 357 sig through the gun with the correct magazines. This allows for cheaper practice when using 9mm, or the ability to have three pistols in one if that’s what you want.
- Accessories!!!
- This is a huge plus for all Glock pistols. I think the 1911 may be the only pistol that beats the Glock in the shear number of accessories that are made for it. From holsters to grip plugs and everything in between, your local gun shop probably has tons of stuff for the Glock pistols.
- No external safety
- While many people see this a negative, the truth is that unless you practice drawing and disengaging the safety lever often, you may not think to do so if you ever have to draw the weapon in self-defense. Remember, we will not rise to a new level of training in such a situation, we will fall to our level of training and that’s all we will have. I’d personally rather have one less thing to think about in those stressful few seconds.
Negatives:
- Recoil
- 40 S&W is going to have quite the recoil to it. If you are recoil sensitive I would either suggest looking at the Glock 26 (9mm version) or shooting it first at your local shooting range. You could also look into the conversion barrels talked about in the positives section 🙂
- Width (kinda)
- While this is not a huge issue, it is one that merits some discussion. For a concealed carry pistol this is as wide as I would want to go. With it being as wide as it is, be prepared to still have to dress around the gun in some aspects.
- Style
- It’s a Glock. This isn’t a gun you are going to want to show off to your friends because of how fancy it looks. This is a gun that is designed to give you every edge you can get when you need to use it for a defensive purpose. I classify it as minimalist. There are no external levers save for the trigger, slide release and slide lock (take-down lever) and the grip is designed around working to control recoil when combined with a defensive type grip.
Pictures:
What’s a review without some pictures of the pistol. Look for more pictures of this pistol in some of my other blog posts. As you can see from the pictures, this pistol has been well used. The finish on the slide has definitely seen lot’s of holster wear.
Walk Softly but Carry a Big Stick 