In the history of firearms there have been extremely talented designers who have created pistols that have gone down in history: Colt, Smith & Wesson, Luger, Browning... just to mention the most popular names known even to non-experts.

But certainly, Gaston Glock has earned his place in history, with what we can undoubtedly call the most famous pistol of the contemporary era.

Gaston Glock – the Wien-born, Austrian entrepreneur and designer known for establishing and being the driving force behind a company that was single-handedly responsible for the biggest revolution in handguns after World War II – passed away on Wednesday, December 27, 2023, as officially announced in the late afternoon by the Company itself.

Born in 1929, Gaston Glock founded Glock, GmbH as a manufacturer of curtain rods in 1963 in Deutsch-Wagram, Lower Austria. In the 1970s, Glock GmbH would begin supplying the Austrian Armed Forces with knives, entrenching tools, and plastic grenade shells. Gaston Glock wouldn’t venture in the field of firearms until 1980, when at age 52 he submitted his P80 pistol prototype to the trial that sought to select a new sidearm for the Austrian military and gendarmerie in replacement of the old Browning HP and Walther P.38/P1 still in service in the day.

Little did he know that the P80 – later known commercially as the Glock 17 – would be the foundation stone of a complete revolution in the field of service, defensive, tactical, and sport shooting pistols, building the basis for a handgun series that today branches into nine calibers and over fifty individual variants, and is in military or law enforcement use in no less than fifty Countries, with millions of samples sold to civilian customers worldwide. As of 2021, Gaston Glock’s personal and family fortune was estimated by Forbes at $1.1 billion.

Known for shying away from public appearences and confrontation, keeping to his lakefront mansion in Carinthia, Gaston Glock however personally managed the company he founded up until the last day. He is survived by his wife, Kathrin, sons Robert and Gaston Jr., and daughter Brigitte.