Rare Full-Auto Glock: The Factory Select-Fire G18

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With a cyclic rate of fire that runs as spicy as 1,200 rounds-per-minute, the slide of the Glock G18 can sometimes jog so fast that they outrun the magazine.

A true machine pistol and not a conversion with a fun switch modification on a more commonly encountered Glock, the 18 features a slide-mounted selector switch and is pretty rarely encountered due to the Hughes Amendment, which tragically relegates it to largely a LE and military-only item. This means that, outside of video games and a few in the hands of dealers, the factory standard full-auto G18 is fairly elusive in the wild.

The Glock 18C is a compensated version of the G18, note the slide-mounted selector switch. (Photo: Guns.com)

The Glock 18C is a compensated version of the G18, note the slide-mounted selector switch and Gen 3 frame, easily mistaken for a G17. (Photo: Guns.com)

“It’s a special weapon for special tasks,” Chris Edwards, a Glock factory instructor told Guns.com previously. “The history is originally Mr. Glock designed this for two reasons. The first was so he could test the pistol and the components faster. This was way back in the 1980s.”

Google "Hughes Amendment" and get disappointed. (Photo: Guns.com)

Google “Hughes Amendment” and get disappointed. Still, maybe one day… (Photo: Guns.com)

“After he designed it and built it, he realized there was a certain place for this kind of weapon. Anti-terrorist kind of duties, maybe executive protection,” Edwards said.

The specs sheet provided to Guns.com lists the Glock 18/18C with similar dimensions — not identical — to the Glock 17. It has a shorter slide at 7.33 inches, a slightly longer height at 5.9 inches, and a lighter weight at 20.7-ounces.

In 2017, Guns.com attended a brief demonstration at Glock’s instructor range in Smyrna, Georgia, in which we were shown proper techniques for firing the Glock 18. As this week is GLOCK WEEK, we thought we would revisit that in the above video.

Enjoy.

SEE GREAT DEALS ON GLOCKS (OTHER THAN THE G18) AT GUNS.COM

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