The Glock P80 is back: after the last limited edition, dated back to 2020, the Austrian company recently announced the launch of a new collectors' edition of the first generation of the Glock 17 pistol, known as the P80: more specifically, a modern reproduction of the handgun that won the 1981 Austrian Army trials to replace the Colt 1911-A1, Browning High Power and Walther P1 pistols in service back in the day.

The first Glock pistols were delivered to the Austrian Army in 1982, and wouldn't be available on the global commercial markets until 1985, initially to a mixed response, tending leaning on coldness and mistrust. Before the Glock, the only major service pistol to have been manufactured with a polymer frame had been the Heckler & Koch VP70, and results had been less than stellar.

Nobody, back in the day, could have imagined that the half-plastic toy with a weird polygon rifling, a trigger safety and an incredibly small amounts of components would have grown in the turn of less than a decade to become the gold standard by which all handguns for service and defensive purposes worldwide would have been judged for almost forty years – and by which, far and wide, they still are judged to this day.

The new limited edition of the Glock P80 has all the features that an Austrian soldier or police officer would find in his new, odd-looking service pistol back in 1982, with a single exception: the original bath salt nitrocarburizing treatment ("Tenifer") on the slide has been replaced with the gas nitrocarburizing treatment currently found on all serial-production Glocks.

Everything else remains just the same, including the black polymer frame with its crackle-style "wraparound" slip-proof texture on the grip and in front of the trigger guard – and of course with no rail in sight on the dust cover, as that kind of interface and the related accessories, now all too common, were still a long way ahead in 1982. The so-called Universal Glock Rail would debut on the Generation 3 Glock pistols, sixteen years later, in 1998.

The collector's edition Glock P80 is sold in a rigid black polymer box (a replica of Glock's original "Tupperware" case of the 1980s and 1990s), and comes with two 17-rounds magazines, a speed loader, a replica of the original instruction manual, a cleaning rod and swab, and a certificate of authenticity. All contained in a collector's edition rigid cardboard box.

Serious collectors, firearms historians, Glock enthusiasts, and those shooters who were too young in the 1980s and 1990s and want to have a taste of the very special appeal that Glock had back in the day – when they were a glimpse on the future of the firearms industry, rather than a recognized global standard – need not to go any further. Reach out to your closest Glock dealer today for further information concerning local availability and pricing.