Skinny Glock Clone Impresses With Features

Glock clones are pretty easy to find these days. So many smaller manufacturers use Glock as their design starting point that you sometimes have to look twice to make sure that you’re not looking at a Glock.

To be fair, Glock has an earned reputation for making a dependable firearm. And when push comes to shove, dependable is more important that any other consideration.

After all, the life that you save may be your own.

Occasionally, though, a manufacturer puts out a Glock Clone that impresses with it’s improvements on the original Glock designs. For example, today, we’re looking at a pistol by Stoeger. You may remember Stoeger from our review of their STR-9 pistol which was noticeably like a Glock 43X (you can read that review here).

Now, we’re looking at another model in Stoeger’s STR-9 line, the STR-9 Thinline. Mike Hardesty writes,

The ThinLine is an inch-wide, 21-ounce-empty pistol with three double-stack magazines. Right there, you get my attention. Plus, it’s compensated and has an optics cut. 

Let’s be blunt: That’s a lot to get excited about. And while no gun is perfect in every aspect for every shooter, Hardesty is clearly impressed with this one.

Take, for example, what he has to say about this pistol’s compensator:

Speaking of the slide, Stoeger has done something unique, from my perspective. They have extended the slide about a half-inch from the end of the barrel and made two cuts in it that partially wrap around the sides and the top. The barrel was left untouched. This is one of the few times I’ve seen a compensator cut that doesn’t cut the barrel as well as the slide. Interesting. Plus – it works. Recoil came mostly straight back, and the muzzle didn’t rise much.

And the pistol comes with a street price that will likely be below $450.

There’s a lot to like in this gun.

So, if you’re a Glock fan but want to also take advantage of the possibilities available with newer pistol models (keeping up with new technology isn’t Glock’s selling point), the Stoeger STR-9 Thinline may be a pistol to look into.