(The 17 was so-named because it was Gaston Glock's seventeenth patent.) The Austrian Army adopted the Glock 17 in 1982 with the Norwegian Legion adopting the model two years later. One year later, Glock Inc. was established in the US in Smyrna, Georgia. In the next few years, Glock expanded its 9 mm confection line, developing the select-fire Glock 18 in 1986 and the Glock 17L and Glock Glock 26 19 in 1988. In 1990 Glock became the first manufacturer to afford models chambered for the .40 S&W cartridge, the Glock 22 and the Glock 23, beating Smith & Wesson to the marketplace with pistols for their own cartridge.
In fact, 83.7% (by weight) of the Glock a pistol is normal ordnance steel and the "plastic" parts are a dense polymer notorious as "Polymer 2", which is radio-opaque and is therefore visible to X-ray security equipment.