Asking, “What is the best Glock?” is a lot like asking, “What is the best Honda?” The answer really depends on what your personal needs are. If you’re looking to hit the drifting circuit tracks with a quick little coupe, the answer isn’t going to be the Odyssey minivan. Alternatively, you shouldn't buy a two-door RWD Civic Type-R if you have a big family and live in a snowy, mountainous area.

To determine which Glock is the best Glock for you, you first have to determine what your realistic needs are and then find the best model that fits those needs. Thus, let’s break down our needs categories into four common groups to help narrow our search significantly.

In the following categories, I’ll limit each choice to one that fulfills three critical criteria:

• Stopping power
• Capacity
• Size

Normally, for these guides, I would also add reliability, but we’re talking about Glocks. So flawless reliability is a given for every pistol.

This will ignite a firestorm in the comments, but I want to limit us to a gun that checks the most boxes for this category. Yes, you can conceal carry the long-barreled 10mm Glock 40 MOS, but is that really the best option?

The question is rhetorical, but the answer is no.

Instead, the ideal concealed carry Glock should be one that offers realistic concealability, capacity, and terminal ballistic efficacy. For this reason, I will take the Glock 19 off the table immediately. 

Yes, I know it’s James Yeager-approved, and everyone under the sun will tell you it’s the Swiss Army Knife of handguns that works in every situation. But it’s also as thick as an old GameBoy. To conceal a Glock 19, you must have a quality holster and dress around the gun. 

The best Glock for concealed carry should be one that conceals effortlessly while still being easy to shoot and having respectable stopping power. But don’t forget, this gun also needs decent ammunition capacity, so I can’t recommend the Glock 43. Yes, it is excellent for concealed carry, but with a measly six-round magazine capacity, it’s not much better than a revolver. 

Instead, my suggestion is th G43x. At nearly half an inch slimmer than the venerable 19, the 43x virtually vanishes when tucked into a waistband. Plus, with a ten-round capacity magazine - and even greater capacity spare mags available - the G43x gives shooters plenty of firepower to deter an attacker.

Regarding stopping power, the G43x is chambered in 9mm luger, making it a solid choice for two-way shooting ranges. No, it won’t stop an attacker if you shoot them just anywhere, but with proper defensive ammunition and shot placement, the G43x is a reliable fight-stopper.

This might seem counter-intuitive, but competition and home defense guns share many of the same traits. They must both be extremely reliable, accurate, and have capacious magazines. After all, if you’re fighting for your life in your own home, who cares how big the hand gun is, as long as it can be easily fired with one hand.

Still, we must closely examine the terminal ballistics of any given pistol’s cartridge for this category. Yes, a Desert Eagle in .50AE will put huge holes in an attacker, but it also has a very real possibility of over-penetrating. Depending on your neighborhood and the layout of your house, this can be a non-sequitur.

For this reason, I’m advising against 10mm auto, as many of the defensive loads for the gun have penetrative qualities appropriate for hunting bears or dangerous game and not shooting armed attackers with nothing but drywall behind them as a backstop.

That’s why, for home defense, I have two major recommendations based on caliber: full-sized .45 ACP or 9mm MOS Glocks. 

For 9mm, I recommend either the Glock 17 MOS or the Glock 34 MOS, as both have a little extra barrel length to fully maximize the effectiveness of a defensive round at close range. They also have a nice extra-long sight radius, but I recommend a quality pistol optic like those from Trijicon or Holosun. 

As for the .45 ACP guns, I recommend the G21 MOS or G41 MOS, as both have a great optic mounting capability and plenty of barrel length to maximize the efficacy of the round. If you’re scratching your head thinking, “What about capacity? The .45-caliber Glocks only hold 15 rounds!” Hang on, I’ll address that. 

Both the 9mm and .45 Auto Glocks have access to some truly excellent extended magazines from KRISS USA. These are modified factory Glock mags with gigantic extensions that more than double the standard magazine’s capacity.

In the case of the 9mm, the KRISS USA ex2 magazine bumps the round count up to 40 rounds, while the .45 auto version goes up to 30! Yes, the guns will become totally unconcealable at that point and double in weight, but with adrenaline coursing through your veins, you won’t notice at all.

More importantly, this extra capacity ensures that 99% of the time, you won’t have to reload during a firefight unless there’s a coordinated home invasion occurring. If you’re concerned about that event, buy two extra magazines and place them by the gun. Now you have around 100 rounds on standby.

Lastly, for all of these guns, I recommend a quality pistol light to ensure that whatever you’re putting rounds into is, in fact, a hostile and not your cat or your kid sneaking back into the house after curfew.

Thus far, all of our categories have dealt with two-legged advisories, but what about four-legged ones?

Let me start by saying that pistol hunting is not for amateur hunters or novice shooters. It requires rock-steady aim, advanced knowledge of animal biology, and expert self-control to ensure that the animal is within range for an ethical, clean kill.

I’ve personally only hunted with a handgun twice, and both times, it was with a long-barreled 10mm and within 35 yards. In both instances, I waited until I had a perfect shot on the animal’s vitals and was within perfect range before taking the shot. If you’re scowling about hunting with a 10mm, let me add that the first 165lb whitetail I took dropped where I shot her, while the 200lb buck only ran ten yards before falling. 

Both shots were challenging with my heart pounding, and I say that as someone who has put more than 15,000 rounds through various Glock pistols over their lifetime.

Based on the anecdote above, I’m sure you’ve surmised which Glock I will recommend, but here it goes anyway - the G20 MOS and G40 MOS.

Both guns offer excellent performance in terms of accuracy and terminal ballistics. This is especially true with hard-cast lead rounds or hunting-specific ammunition. Both pistols also make excellent back-packing handguns, where their increased ballistic performance makes them ideal for putting down dangerous game that might attack you or your loved ones.

Despite this increased performance over 9mm and .45 Auto, the Glock 20 MOS 10mm has very manageable recoil. With follow-up shots being surprisingly easy. So much so that I can run my steel plate rack at a reasonable speed at 15 yards using a red dot mounted to the 20 MOS. 

The only downside to these handguns is the cost of ammunition. 10mm Auto isn’t a cheap plinking round by any stretch. Expect to pay around 40 cents per round - which isn’t terrible compared to .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum. 

Let me conclude with a piece of advice: 10mm is an excellent short-range hunting round for small-to-medium game. But if you’re shooting beyond 50 yards and you want to run a handgun, stick to something a little more potent like a .44 Magnum from a long-barreled revolver. 

So, which Glock is best? Like I said at the beginning, it depends. Personally, I really like my full-sized Glock G17 9mm with a suppressor and night sights. This isn’t the best Glock for everyone, but as someone who has put over 10,000 rounds through this gun, it fits me like a glove. 

For everyone else, they’ll have to delve into what they actually want to do with their Glock pistol before deciding on which model is best for them.