Beretta PX4 9mm vs Glock Range Report, Part 3

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

alank2

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Jul 14, 2005
Messages
2,561
Reaction score
460
Location
Broken Arrow
Hi everyone,

This is my third post about the PX4 and having put 260 rounds through it with on failures I thought I’d post how it is doing and also do a general comparison between the PX4 and Glock as I was close to buying a full size Glock instead of the PX4.

I like both the PX4 and Glock so I will do my best to keep it as unbiased as I can!

Trigger:

I’ve got the F Model, but there are 4 different PX4 variants:

F Model = DA/SA / Decocker / Safety
G Model = DA/SA / Decocker / No Safety
D Model = DAO / Spurless Hammer / No Safety
C Model = DAO / Spurless Hammer / No Safety / Shorter and Lighter Trigger

There are two things the PX4 offers in the trigger department that Glock does not. The first is that the PX4 has restrike capability. This is often a hotly debated item as some people say there is no point in restriking the primer of a round that didn’t fire and that one should do a “tap rack bang” instead of counting on restrike to fire. I don’t see a downside to having restrike capability, so I would prefer it if given a choice. The other thing that the PX4 offers is the option of a manual safety. Some people prefer no manual safety and you can get a model with no manual safety if you prefer.

Glock offers a much more configurable trigger. You can change out the connector, trigger spring, and/or striker spring if you want it to feel differently. Changing the connector and trigger spring should have a very minimal effect on striker power so you can lighten the trigger on a Glock easily without comprimising primer detonation capability.

I am used to the Glock trigger so I shot it better on day one, but after 260 rounds I would say I shoot the PX4 trigger just fine compared to the Glock after getting used to it. One thing you might not like about the PX4 trigger is that it breaks near the end of its rearward travel. I read some people complaining about this and it annoyed me a little the first time I shot it, but after getting used to it on the second and third days I shot it, it doesn’t bother me at all now. I think the reset is longer than the Glock’s, but I wasn’t having any issues with it once I got used to it. Double action shots were long and smooth as expected.

You don’t have to pull the PX4 trigger to take it down. You also don’t have to press any levers or do anything special. Just press down on the two notches on the frame and the slide can go forward and pull off the frame. Many people consider pulling the trigger on the Glock to facilitate takedown a serious safety issue. Again, if given a choice I’d prefer a pistol that doesn’t require pulling the trigger to field strip, but I don’t really have a problem with the Glock. Just make sure it is UNLOADED before taking down.

Between the Glock and the PX4, I would have to say I still prefer the Glock trigger just by a slight edge, but that might be because I am used to the Glock more. I can shoot the PX4 trigger just as accurately though.

Recoil:

I started with a Glock 19, and then switched to a Glock 26. The first thing I noticed when I shot the 26 for the first time was that it had a lot more snap than I thought it would compared to the 19. I changed the recoil spring on the 26 from factory 16# to a Wolff all steel setup using an 18# spring. This took away the snap and made the 26 so much more comfortable to shoot. I haven’t had any function problems with the 18# setup even with lighter ammunition, although I almost always shoot a 147gr handload around 950 fps these days. Where I am going with this is that my G26 shoots much softer now than it did when it arrived from the factory.

After 3 shooting sessions with the PX4 I can say that it has less recoil than my G26 does, maybe 25%. I’ve read that the 40S&W PX4 is very nice to shoot and there have been numerous posts where people love the 40S&W version because they say it feels like a 9mm. When I was at OPS I can tell you that it is most likely because Beretta has the 40S&W PX4 sprung heavier to handle the heavier loads of the 40S&W.

Recoil is such a subjective thing. You really aren’t going to get around the laws of physics, but you can certainly change how it feels. Consider a revolver for a second, all that recoil goes to the shooter immediately. With an automatic, the recoil goes to the barrel/slide first, then the slide moves rearward at a specific rate, then the slide usually stops at its most rearward travel where any remaining energy is transferred to the shooter. This could turn into a heavier spring / lighter spring debate, but my take on it is this: Competition shooters like lighter recoil springs because it increases slide speed. I also think they are so used to recoil that they don’t care about the slide slamming into its most rearward travel and hitting them with the recoil all at once. They also tend to shoot lighter loads which make this easier. With a heavier load like a 9mm +P or 40S&W, I can tell you that I much prefer a heavier spring that soaks up a little more energy before the slide goes to its most rearward position. When people say the recoil is so much more comfortable on this pistol or that pistol I often wonder if it has a heavier slide or a heavier spring and that it the whole difference in addition to the bore axis. The PX4 has a low bore axis light the Glock.

One downside to a heavier spring however is limpwristing. If you have weaker powered ammunition and don’t have a firm grasp on the frame, a heavier spring will contribute to limpwrist style jams. I tested both the PX4 and my G26 (18# spring) with my 147gr 950 fps handload and I couldn’t get either them to fail by holding them very weakly.

What about the PX4 rotary barrel and its effect on recoil? Perhaps it makes a difference, I am not sure. One nice thing about it is that I would think it would really help on those calibers known to have torque in their recoil. I don’t notice torque in my G27 with 180gr loads which really surprised me, but maybe the faster 40S&W loads would benefit from torque reduction because of the rotary barrel. If this is true, I sure wonder how the PX4 45 would shoot. I had a G30 that the torque of the recoil just drove me nuts.

The PX4 has the Glock beaten in light recoil. You could probably get the Glock close to the PX4’s recoil by putting in a heavier spring, but then you might have function issues with lighter ammunition.

Barrel:

I was disappointed in my PX4’s velocity. Being a full size, I expected a small jump in velocity. It actually has only a 4” barrel which I think really should have been 4.5” for its overall size. It also does not have polygonal rifling which usually provides a little boost in speed. It shoots about 30 fps SLOWER than my G26 which has a 3.46” polygonal barrel. To compare, I’ll bet a G17 would have added 50 fps to the velocity for its extra inch in length. You could however shoot lead bullets in the PX4's traditional rifled barrel.

The best thing about the rotary barrel to me is the way it locks up, I doubt you’ll have any lockup issues with this setup. This is the one thing I don’t love about Glocks. The way the Glock barrel locks up it can have issues not going up all the way. This can lead to a light off center primer strike which may not fire or may leave brass without enough chamber support. Once a Glock is well worn if it has a good recoil spring this will likely not be an issue, but I once had a tight extractor in a Glock that would not lockup fully every 20 rounds or so.

I’m not going to get into barrel support as my PX4 is a 9mm and Glock 9mm’s are known to be quite supported. This may be more of an issue in 40S&W Glocks, but my G27 actually has fairily good support for a 40S&W. I will say that there is barely any feed ramp on the PX4 rotary barrel as rounds are loaded into it in an almost straight line from the magazine. I’d be surprised if people have fail to feeds with this setup.

The Glock wins on velocity, but loses on lockup. I’d call barrel a fair draw between the two.

Comfort / Control Features:

I have always found Glock’s comfortable, even the large frame 45/10mm ones. To me both feel equally good in my hands. The PX4 does offer a small and large backstrap as well which is nice. My wife said the smallest backstrap grip felt better to her.

The decocker safety on the PX4 is easy to use and operate. You can also get an optional slim lever group for the decocker safety if you want to minimize the width of the weapon. The slim lever group will also convert it from a F Model to a G Model (no safety).

I always use the slingshot method to close a slide, but if you are one to activate the slide stop, you would prefer the PX4 over the Glock. The PX4 has a nice side slide stop you can activate easily.

You can reverse the direction on the PX4 magazine release and change it to 1 of 3 different sizes as well.

The trigger is smooth and very comfortable compared to the Glock trigger within a trigger. I always change out the horrible target trigger with the smooth Glock equivalent, but the PX4 trigger is still more comfortable.

I think the PX4 wins this category because it is more configurable.

(continued...)
 

alank2

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Jul 14, 2005
Messages
2,561
Reaction score
460
Location
Broken Arrow
Concealment:

If I compare the PX4 to the G17, both are full size and would be difficult to conceal. I’m going by the manufacturer length and height and the Glock 17 is 7.3” x 5.3” and the PX4 is 7.6” x 5.5”. I measured the width's myself because it is so hard to get an accurate width from specs. The Glock slide is 1.006” wide and the Glock frame is 1.166” in the middle of the grip. The PX4’s slide is tapered and its widest portion is at the bottom where it meets the slide and this width is 1.137”. In about the middle of the slide it is at 1.009 and it is smaller at the top of the slide. The frame at the grip is 1.177” wide. What really hurts the PX4’s width is if you look at its overall width on the large decocker safety which has little ears that stick out to form an overall width of 1.400”. The left side slide lock also sticks off the frame 0.191". You can get low profile decocker and low profile slide lock parts if you want to slim it.

Even though the Glock 17 isn’t really that much smaller, it is smaller and what controls it has (slide stop) are flush against the frame so I would give it the edge in concealment.

Magazines / Capacity:

I was surprised when I found I could order PX4 magazines as cheap as Glock magazines! I really thought Glock was unbeatable in the magazine department, but you can order 17rd or 20rd magazines made by MDS (owned by Beretta) which are the same thing as Beretta magazines except for the MDS instead of PB stamp at the low price of $17.

You can get Glock magazines at least for 9mm in 10 round, 15 round, 17 round, and 31 round (all before the +2 extension). You can get PX4 9mm magazines in 10 round, 15 round, 17 round, and 20 round.

The OAL of the PX4 magazine is a little shorter than Glock. I don’t think you could get the 9mm maximum oal of 1.169 in them. My 1.142 handloads had a little room, but not a ton.

Looks:

Also very subjective, but I don’t find Glock’s particularly great looking. They are absolutely functional and their beauty is in their function I think. The PX4 on the other hand usually invokes some sort of response ranging from really nice looking to horrible. I personally think the PX4 is really cool and futuristic looking as the sales media suggests!

I think the PX4 wins because I like its looks better.

Maintenance:

This is a very easy victory for the Glock. I have never seen a pistol as easy to take down to every last spring and part as the Glock. I could take a Glock apart to every spring and part within 5 minutes with only a Glock disassembly tool. I could take it mostly apart without that same tool. Glock has to be commended for its mechanism. You won’t find extra parts that don’t really need to be there or extra complication. In my opinion this is one of the greatest things about a Glock. Maintenance is also very simple, a couple drops of oil the rails, connector, and a little on the barrel hood and you are good to go.

The PX4 like so many others pistols, is much more complicated. You’ll need punches, good eyesight, flashlight, and some skill. I pulled the PX4 trigger mechanism out last night because I made the mistake of putting a little oil down in it like I am so used to doing with the Glock. What I didn’t realize was that the sear actually faces the back of the magazine. So that oil I put in there was finding its way around the sear and once I saw the way it is built I realized that adding oil there could let oil get into the witness holes of the magazine and compromise the ammunition. No problem right? The PX4 literature suggests that the whole hammer mechanism comes right out, it even suggested you could do it in the field. Well, it took me about 2 hours last night to get it apart, clean it up, add some grease instead of oil to the right places, and put it back together. Remove grip insert, push pin, remove hammer spring retainer, punch another pin out, hold down a spring a push out hammer pin, pull mechanism from frame. Not impossible, but it took a little work. The hard part was holding down a little spring and pushing the hammer pin which was in a very small area with no light and I could have used a third hand to do it. Once I got the hammer group out, it was easily to take apart. The components were of good quality, but I didn’t care for the way they riveted the two sides of the housing together. I wouldn’t advise doing any dry firing without the slide on as the hammer would pound on the riveted bar between these two sides and I wonder how well it would take the abuse. I also saw a rubber O ring that I didn’t like that had the job of holding a pin in that contained two metal parts and a spring to apply some tension to those two parts. Compared to a Glock we are talking serious complication here. I guess it is DA/SA so I can understand it to a certain degree. I cleaned off all the parts and got it back together again without too much difficulty. Getting the trigger bar put back in the hammer group before seating it in the frame was a little bit of an ordeal too, but not too bad. I guess my point here is that unless you are mechanically inclined, I would have someone else perform any serious maintenance tasks.

The PX4 is more work to lubricate. I use grease on the barrel everywhere you can see where it rotates. It is easy to know where as there will be silver showing through the blueing to indicate. A little oil for the rails, but don’t add any oil to the hammer group as I did!

Longevity with a Glock is not even a serious question as they have had hundreds of thousands of rounds on them without wearing out. I have read that the PX4 also has a good track record in this regard with posts of people who personally put 14K on it with very little wear and another report of 80K with no problems.

As I said in the beginning of this category, Glock wins this category VERY easily.

Sights:

Glock has a dovetailed rear sight and a screwed on or staked on front sight. The basic sights it comes with are plastic in the Dot and U configuration.

The PX4 has both of its sights dovetailed and comes with metal 3 Dot Superluminova sights.

In the base configuration the PX4 wins because both are dovetailed, it has metal sights, I prefer the 3 Dot configuration, and they are glow in the dark sights which might help some.

Either way, I would recommend replacing them with Trijicon’s or buying them with the Trijicon’s already installed.

The PX4 wins in the sight department.

Reliability:

I’m only going on my thoughts here as I’ve only shot 260 rounds so far, but I think I am going to call reliability a draw between them. The PX4 loads ammunition more straight into the chamber, has lighter recoil without having to change to a heavier spring, and has a superior lockup, but the Glock has less going on internally and probably less to go wrong or break.

Warranty:

Glock wins this one. You can get an old beat up Glock and send it into Glock and they will rebuild it free and send it back. Doesn’t matter if you are the first, second, tenth owner.

Beretta has a 1 year warranty, but will extend it to 3 years when you register with them. I have read that they take care of their customers even past 3 years, but I’m not sure to what extent. I have certainly read more complaints of Beretta warranty service than Glock.

After Market Support:

Glock also wins this one. There is so much after market support you can build a Glock that isn’t a Glock! Get yourself an aluminum race frame, Lone Wolf stainless slide, and anyone’s barrel plus the internal parts and you can build a Glock with no Glock frame, no Glock slide, and no Glock barrel. The other thing is that Glock parts are cheap and plentiful. I can place an order with www.glockparts.com and I know in 2 days they will be sitting in my mailbox, probably delivered for $2. With the PX4 you can order parts from Italy (takes 3 weeks) and get them much faster than you can ordering them from Beretta USA.

Overall:

I think that the PX4 and the Glock platform are both great. I really had a hard time deciding between a G17 or the PX4 9mm. I still don’t know if I would have liked a G17 more than the PX4, or the PX4 more than a G17. I will say one thing, I'd have a hard time parting with the PX4 so I guess that says something!

Hopefully some of the above info will help someone decide which they would prefer!

Good Luck,

Alan
 

No.343

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Oct 31, 2005
Messages
701
Reaction score
6
Location
Moore, OK
Thanks, Alan. That was a well written article. I think you did a good job in being fair between the two platforms. I've been considering a Px4. I value your article.
 

alank2

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Jul 14, 2005
Messages
2,561
Reaction score
460
Location
Broken Arrow
Hi,

great article; but in true gun rag fashion, you didnt pick an overall winner!
-So pick one!!!:)

I can't really say there is a clear winner. Each has strengths over the other one so it depends on which strengths someone values. I only have a G26 to compare against the PX4, but even I don't know if I could pick a winner even if I got my hands on a G17 to compare side by side.

Thanks!

Alan
 

alank2

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Jul 14, 2005
Messages
2,561
Reaction score
460
Location
Broken Arrow
Hi,

One more thing that occurred to me today that is nice about the PX4:

Dry fire practice is much easier with with a restrike capable gun. Load up that snap cap and practice!

Thanks,

Alan
 

alank2

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Jul 14, 2005
Messages
2,561
Reaction score
460
Location
Broken Arrow
Hi,

Here are some pictures:

[Broken External Image]

[Broken External Image]

[Broken External Image]

[Broken External Image]

[Broken External Image]

[Broken External Image]

[Broken External Image]

[Broken External Image]

Thanks,

Alan
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom