The gun would be left on the seabed for one-month increments, after each of which it would be retrieved, rinsed in fresh water, disassembled, examined and then returned to the sea. A total of six months was decided upon, since it was December, 1999 and I was in Hawaii teaching and would return for another class with Arnold and some U.S. Navy SpecWar personnel the following June (June, 2000). The next day, I arranged for a friend of mine who was a diver to administer the program and we were off and running.
Six months later, I returned as described above and found the gun to be relatively unscathed even though, other than the five times it was rinsed in
fresh water and examined, it had spent the last six months at the bottom of the Pacific.
I joined a friend of mine who in addition to being a serious shooting enthusiast is also an expert diver. I donned a wetsuit, SCUBA gear, the test Glock holstered around my middle, my dive camera hanging from my neck and boarded a towed sled behind his Jet Ski.
The net result of all of this was that the Glock, which was equipped with an underwater firing pin kit, worked fine...even submerged. Using 9mm 115 and 124-grain ball ammunition, not a single malfunction was noted, which stimulated my mind even more.
Upon rinsing it in fresh water and detail-stripping it, we determined that virtually nothing had happened. Other than some almost microscopic rusting on the slide release lever and a small pit on the edge of the top of the slide, the pistol was completely intact.