Photos by James Walters and Nathan Reynolds.

Recent estimates show that approximately 60 percent of American law enforcement agencies issue some sort of polymer frame pistol. The same features that made polymer pistols so practical for police service were not lost on civilian shooters, who have embraced the genre as home defense, concealed carry, trail and competition handguns. With an ever-growing market, it wasn’t long before every major handgun company added one or more polymer-frame pistols to their lines.

One of the reasons for the meteoric rise in the popularity of “plastic pistols” was that modern polymers provide equal, if not superior, resistance to wear, abrasion, solvents, oils and environmental extremes than metal-frame pistols. They do not require separate grip panels, allowing the use of high-capacity magazines without increasing the bulk of the grip, which means that people with smaller hands can handle them easily.

Polymer frames flex under recoil, absorbing some of the recoil, so they shoot “softer” than heavier handguns. They are also lighter, which is a big plus, especially if you’re a police officer who has to carry a gun all day or a licensed civilian carrying one under light clothing.

While there are many polymer-frame pistols we could have included in this test, we decided to limit it to four of the .45 ACPs most popular with American police agencies and civilian shooters and thus obtained samples of the Glock 21SF, Springfield XD 45, Smith & Wesson M&P45 and Taurus 24/7 Pro SSP.

All four are striker-fired pistols that utilize a variation of the double-action trigger system. Unlike the trigger mechanisms of the Glock, Springfield and Smith & Wesson--all of which require that the slide be retracted slightly to reset the striker when dry firing or to try a second go at a recalcitrant primer--the Taurus has a very light double-action trigger stroke with a single-action type let-off. If the cartridge fails to fire, simply pulling the trigger on the Taurus allows multiple strikes on the cartridge without having to rack the slide to reset the striker.

While the M&P was the only one to feature interchangeable grips inserts so the shooter could adapt it to his particular hand size, all of the test pistols proved to have ergonomically pleasing grips.

Accuracy Results
Black Hills .45 ACP	Bullet Weight (gr.)	Avg Velocity (fps)	Avg Group (in.)
Glock 21 SF	230	824	2.5
Smith & Wesson M&P45	230	800	2.5
Springfield XD 45	230	786	2.6
Taurus 24/7 Pro	230	783	2.8
Notes: Accuracy results average of three five-shot groups at 50 feet fired from an MTM rest.

Our quartet of handguns featured high-tech metal finishes, rails for mounting tactical lights or laser sights, fixed sights and have magazine capacities ranging from 10 to 13 rounds.

Springfield’s XD, the Taurus and the M&P45 all featured external safety devices, although on the latter it is an optional feature. The M&P’s magazine releases can be switched from port to starboard, but the Glock 21SF and XD come with mag release buttons on their left and right sides. Ambidextrous slide releases were present on the M&P, and all four had some means of providing visual and/or tactile indication when their chamber was loaded.

The Glock was the only one that used polymer (albeit metal lined) magazines rather than stainless steel cartridge containers.

The only other significant difference was with the Taurus, which had a shorter barrel and grip frame than the other guns. But, overall, the four pistols have more in common than not, so I was looking forward to see how they compared. To do so, I contacted my good friends Larry Mefford, Jim Tosco, Butch Simpson and Paul Brinkman, all of whom are avid action pistol shooters, albeit of varying levels of expertise.

Of all the test pistols, only the Taurus 24/7 Pro offers second-strike capability in the event of an ammo-related misfire. It’s also the least expensive of the bunch. Photos by James Walters and Nathan Reynolds.