If you’ve never watched the 1998 action flick Ronin, you are missing out. It’s easy to see Heat as the default De Niro action flick of the 1990s. Ronin is a bit of a sleeper amongst the gun community. It doesn’t excel in gun handling or realism like Heat, but it’s a ton of fun. The film follows a number of former secret agents, special ops, and criminals hired as mercenaries for a mission.
The name Ronin is a reference to masterless samurai. The team includes De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, and even Sean Bean. (Sean Bean lives through this one.) The movie takes place in Nice and Paris, and we get realistic car chases, gun fights, and more. The movie is great; go watch it, thank me later. What I want to call attention to is a particular Glock 17L featured in the film.
It might be the coolest handgun of the 1990s, and it’s most certainly the coolest Glock of the 1990s.
Gregor and the Glock 17L
The film’s main bad guy, Gregor, carries the gun. Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård plays Gregor, who is a German computer specialist and associate of the KGB. He’s cold, calculated, and plays a good foil to the high-speed agents and special operations types. He’s not the best in a gunfight, but he’ll shoot you while you sleep or in the back in a heartbeat.
His gun of choice, one we see him use to threaten children at a park to get his way, is a Glock 17L. The long slide and barrel of the Glock 17L is already an interesting and high-speed choice. Even in 1998, the Glock 17L was a high-speed firearm. Gregor’s model is heavily customized and looks more like a race gun than a combat pistol.
The Ronin Glock features a Bushnell HOLOsight. Bushnell licensed the HOLOsight design from EOTech, and it was the first holographic optic. Special operations forces fielded the HOLOsight, including Delta units at the time. The benefits of a holographic optic are numerous and well-known.
Seeing this on a rifle isn’t that big of a surprise, but seeing it on a Glock was out of this world in 1998. Red dots on handguns are old hat these days, but a rifle-sized optic on a Glock 17L was incredibly rare at this point in firearm technology.
How To Mount a HOLOsight on a Glock
Mounting a rifle-sized optic on a handgun isn’t easy. You can’t slap it on the slide and call it a day. The Ronin Glock used a specialized mount that attached to the frame. The specific mount is the Seidler Mount 2. The Seidler Mounts seem to have been popular amongst sports shooters in France, which makes sense since the film takes place in France.
To use this mount and optic, the front and rear sights are removed. We see Gregor shoot the Glock without the mount and optic, and the sights are clearly gone. The benefit of this type of mount comes down to the lack of movement when the gun is fired. Tracking the dot is super easy with systems like this.
The downside being the bulk and size, as well as the height over bore. It sits fairly high above the barrel.
Beyond the Sight
The Ronin Glock 17L is often shown in use with a suppressor. Which one? Great question. I’m not a suppressor historian and couldn’t tell you what cans were in France in 1998. It appears to be fairly small, and due to some excessive muzzle flash, it appears to be fake.
The other oddball addition is the presence of an extended magazine. It’s just a hair longer, maybe a 20-rounder. The complete package makes for an extremely modern system for 1998. The Glock 17L fitted with a red dot, specialized mount, and extended magazine reeks of an open competition gun.
The armorer, Christophe Maratier, is an extremely experienced armorer and has worked on movies like John Wick 4, the Taken series, and many more. He’s clearly a competent armorer and highly knowledgeable.
The Ronin Glock
I love seeing stuff like this in movies. Someone in the armory or costume department took the time to make a hero gun. Or, in this case, a villain gun. A hero or villain gun stands out from the pack and is present in a lot of action movies. The Glock 17L dolled up to the max represents a high-tech handgun of this era.
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