With apologies to the companies making the following aftermarket slides, frame modifications, and other tune-up parts for GLOCK pistols, I’m corralling y’all into a single post here. Readers, expect to find photos and info from Agency Arms, American Defense Manufacturing, Hoplite Systems, Industry Armament, Lone Wolf Distributors, Salient Arms International, VooDoo Innovations, and ZEV Technologies below . . .
Alphabetical seems fair, so that lead photo is an Agency Arms build. They’ve created a “sight tracker,” compensated Glock on top of a modified Lone Wolf Timberwolf frame.
That’s right, the front sight isn’t on the slide at all. It stays still while the slide reciprocates. Between that and the compensator, the idea is that you don’t lose focus of the front sight while shooting and can, therefore, shoot faster while staying on target.
American Defense Manufacturing is known for AR-15 parts — particularly optics mounts — and complete rifles. Looks like they might be branching out into hot rodding Glocks.
The spiffiest part may actually be under the slide. I’m kind of digging the slab-sided barrel look.
Hoplite Systems makes titanium parts for the AR platform as well as for Glocks (e.g. pins, mag release, etc), and they’re now starting work on Ti slides.
Needless to say, it’s really light. The pistol was very obviously much lighter than a factory G19. How much does the slide weigh? They wouldn’t say, as they’re still tinkering with it.
Industry Armament (which recently purchased Predator Tactical) had this competition-ready gun in their booth, although it’s clearly a Taran Tactical gun. Not sure if they’re in cahoots, but I’m sure somebody will set us straight in the comments.
I already did a post on the new stuff from Lone Wolf, but figured I’d add a little more here. They’re selling the blank slide shown in that other post, and they’ve also announced a whole bunch of new slide cuts that you can order through the website. Just a few of them:
Okay, for some reason I only got a single photo of a Salient Arms Glock…
But here’s a cool one from their site. Unless I’m mistaken, this is also on a modified Timberwolf frame.
VooDoo Innovations, a brand owned by Adams Arms (noted makers of gas-piston AR systems), got into extended, threaded Glock barrels last year and now they’re going whole slide.
Joe already showed off some of Zev’s “Gucci Glocks,” but they belong in this roundup as well, of course.
This guy was in SilencerCo’s booth during Range Day, but that’s all I know about it:
And with that, I think we’ve covered about 1/4 of the companies heavily customizing Glocks for the 2016 SHOT Show. Maybe I’ll get ’em all next year.
Full Ti slide? Oh, heck yeah!
I’ve got one on a Taurus 24/7. It was great, and I carried it for almost 5 years, before the recall. It’s ridiculously light compared to my glock.
Of course, with less slide weight comes a trade off. It has a slightly stiffer snap to its recoil, but also doesn’t care about load power. Even ludicrously underpowered rounds still cycle.
Full Ti slide? Ouch!
Honest question: what is point of milling out the slide like that?
Just looks cool, or does it have function?
Lightening a slide makes the gun more reliable when shooting loads that just meet power factor. Some people buy them for looks as well.
Couldn’t a recoil spring change out do the same thing for less?
Yes, but you have a heavy pistol, with a weight adding RMR on it, and it can slow things down a bit. A light spring, with a heavy slide can push the nose down when it goes back into battery as well. The whole idea is to keep the gun on one plane, while getting shots off fast and accurately.
When shooting competition, is only factory ammo allowed?
Reason I’m asking, with a featherweight slide and a real light load, the less reciprocating mass would let you get back on target quicker…
lightening the slide does not make a gun more reliable.
That’s ridiculous.
It makes the gun look cool and it makes it lighter.
There are two things that affect slide speed when you fire a round. 1) Mass 2) recoil spring strength.
If you lighten the slide you need to install a stiffer spring or the slide could bottom out with more powerful ammo. You may choose not to and it might run fine. But this is why small micro 9 mms with small, light slides have much stiffer springs than larger 9mms with heavier slides. My 8 year old could rack the slide on my 9mm 1911, but the slide on my Kahr PM9 was so stiff, my wife could barely budge it. And she has no trouble with Glocks.
Don
It does make it more reliable “when shooting loads that just meet power factor.” as R Taylor qualified it. It’s a competition thingy. Optimize the gun for firing the minimal load.required for a specific class. Have other guns with standard slides for firing standard duty rounds.
I am sure someone has logic to justify the money they would spend on it. The company will say it does all kinds of things, because they want to make money.
It might shave a 1/1000th off on recoil, and ounce or so on an already light gun and maybe a nanosecond on re-acquiring the sights. 99.99999% of the reason is for the owner to show off his or her fancy Glock. Nothing wrong with that at all, but just be honest about it.
Some of these examples are clearly just for looks, but saying “1/1000th” of recoil… Get your hands on a Glock properly setup for competition and you’ll understand it’s a lot more than “showing off”.
Good luck with that, in ANY human realm. The masters, and a very few sane people, realize your money is generally better spent on training and practice that on gizmos that might make you 1% faster, when the best people are doing it in half the time you are.
But, it’s a profitable thing, everywhere….
What, no foam dice?, Baby Moon hub caps? Thrush mufflers? Show some imagination!
needs curb feelers.
Or fake testicles to hang under the barrel?
YES! Fake bull nuts!!! On a customized glawk!!! That says all you need to know!
GLUTS!
Cup holder and toilet paper bracket.
Dumb question, but — wouldn’t a titanium slide, being much lighter, play havoc with the reliability of the action? And batter the living hell out of the frame? The reciprocal weight of the slide is a large part of the formula for making the action work ain’t it?
Yes – if you have a lighter slide – you’ll need a stiffer spring.
The goal of these modifications is usually to reduce recoil on the slide and the magnitude of the moment of force at the point of your wrist to make faster follow up shots more accurately. – and bling bling of course.
Yes. It goes like this.
Lighten slide – stiffen recoil spring – oops it outruns the mag – lets stiffen mag spring – oops separated feedlips and unseated mags – ok now lets stiffen the mainspring/striker spring – oops pierced primers and trigger pull too heavy – lets lighten sear/trigger spring – oops hammer/striker follows gives me a Glock18 without a stamp – lets get light weight trigger bow and shoe – oops they break – ok lets hold the trigger down while dropping the slide during reload – oops i dropped the slide THEN pulled the trigger – go to jail
They say they did a bunch of testing and the factory stock spring works the best. Glock frames have never been known to care about recoil. Hot house max load 10mm in a gun tuned to run the weakest, .40-power-level 10mm on the market (and reliably runs weak .40, in fact)? Sure. All day every day.
I’d say you are most likely right. Stiffening the recoil spring too much only reduces reliability margin on the backward stroke and speeds up unnecessarily on the forward stroke. This is hearsay but on 1911 forum somebody said they shot a commander without a recoil spring for several hundred rounds to no ill effect. But factually too light a recoil spring does reduce the velocity consistency (i heard this from Buffalo Bore and verified it with my G20) and reduce the life of the extractor on a recoil-operated gun by prematurely initiating the “pulling” process (trial and error on my 2011s). The best way to counter this is a slight increase in both recoil and main springs’ poundage coupled with a decreased sear spring poundage to restore the trigger pull safely.
Jeremy,
This was a great idea! All of the aftermarket parts to perfect Perfection, all in one easy-to-ignore package. Well done! 🙂
I’m laughing so hard right now. Ordinarily I would have scanned and split, but for some reason I started reading the comments…glad I did.
It’s good to see companies offering so many options for the Glock platform. I’m glad they are doing it for those who like and shoot Glocks. Hell, I’m just glad people are investing in making more firearms products AT ALL. That is definitely a great thing.
But personally, I sort of just go meh. Not like putting lipstick on a pig, because Glock is popular and the People have spoken. It just doesn’t connect to me. Doesn’t feel right in the hand, etc. So, meh…
I fear that I am indeed becoming my grandfather, who was a notable contrarian and curmudgeon. I think my only recourse is to buy another CZ handgun, some classic revolver, or maybe a lever action in a funky, old caliber…
That! That! Front sight on barrel! That’s your solution for what you are trying to solve with a red dot on the slide!
Seems like multiple companies are starting to play with the “small compensator sight tracker” setup geared towards carry/tactical pistols, not just competition – STI preview their Costa Carry Comp tactical 2011 with a similar setup at SHOT this year as well.
I am entirely in support of this mechanism becoming more mainstream, and not just intended for competition pistols
This x100
Joe and I shot that gun and I got a bunch of photos and such. Expect an STI post next week, which will include that one.
Jeremy, I’ll be on the lookout for that article!
This concept would seem to make the most sense with some medium-sized double-stack 9mms, using a slightly smaller slide, with compensator fit within the frame (at least partially), using one large or two medium sized ports at best to get the most out of factory ammo gas pressure and volume, without adding too much weight or bulk to the front of the pistol. Pretty much like what’s been done to the pictured Glock and how STI did the Costa Carry Comp 2011.
It’s always escaped me as to why certain competition components aren’t more regularly adapted for carry/tactical use, considering the mods done on competition pistols are generally to make them faster, more accurate, easier to shoot, etc.
Seems companies and consumers are just starting to learn that things like dot optics, magwells, and compensators aren’t exclusively helpful during competition. This prospect excites me.
I’m a big fan of sighttracker. But a comp on a carry gun seems to me it directs the flash up into your night adapted vision, and blows debris into your eyes when you shoot from retention. YMMV
I’m personally currently saving up for a new nightstand pistol build. I’ve chosen the EAA/Tanfoglio Witness Elite Limited, generally considered a competition pistol, to use as the base and adapt it to a role of tactical/home defense duty. It’s a well-developed and engineered pistol with a great record of not just daily reliability but reliability IN competition (a level above in terms of reliability demands), so I know it will run like a top and will be very unlikely to jam should I ever need it. I’ll be adding a frame-mounted miniature red dot (frame-mounted because I prefer the appearance and it’s easier to track the dot than a slide-mounted optic, and since I won’t be carrying the pistol in a holster the slightly added bulk isn’t much of a concern), and porting the barrel. These modifications in addition to the factory magwell and the double-stack 9mm platform will make it a superb defensive weapon, and more so a FUN range gun; Which will make me want to take it to the range and practice with it even more so
This is not new stuff. I have a 1911 made by a moderately famous builder from New Hampshire (whose name escapes me) that has a comp built into the barrel and the front sight also attached to the barrel.
Don
everyones saying that it makes these ugly(ier) hell, i only like these models of glock LOL then again the lonewolf ones just look ridiculous. i really like the honeycomb one though and some of the cutout slides
I have a question for anyone who knows: if you want your slide milled to accept the red dot sights, what does that generally cost?
and can a decent gunsmith do that or do you have to send it out to a machine shop?
I have heard the small red dots for pistols cost an arm and a leg so at this point I am just curious, not planning to do it anytime soon.
thanks
Bill
A “decent gunsmith”? Probably not. Slide milling isn’t something you do with a dremel and set of files. It would be easy for someone not well versed in such activities to screw a slide up bad. Slide milling costs run the gamut as do the red dots suitable for pistol mounting. Lots of folks out there that will do the basic slide milling for a specific sight up to and including the sight itself, suppressor-height sights, etc. Google red dot sights on pistols and you’ll discover a ton of folks out there, including those noted above.
Thanks for the answer Ken.
Newsflash: If it’s a Lone Wolf or other aftermarket frame with a Zev/ADM/or whoever’s slide/barrel/trigger/whoever’s everything else, it ain’t a Glock. Just sayin’.
“This guy” bottom photo at the SilencerCo booth would be one of Ben’s
http://www.boresightsolutions.com
A VooDoo Innovations upper was added to one of our rental house guns (a G17.) It didn’t last a day (400 rounds) before the front sight mount cracked and the unit came off. An anomaly?
As a Glock owner among others, I think that 2 things are in play:
1. Some people like to customize their things either for performance, bling, or simply to personalize whatever it is. If you have the cash to spend, who am I to say you shouldn’t do it. I’ll leave that mentality to the anti-gun crowd.
2. While I own and like Glocks for their reliability, reasonable price, and huge aftermarket support, in all fairness, they are actually not a pretty gun and while I know all the Glock aficionados hearts will skip a beat, the triggers really are terrible. I upgrade (or would like to) the triggers in my 1911s, ARs, AKs, 22s, pellet guns, etc and most are good to begin with. While Glock triggers are functional, nobody can argue that a better trigger is just plain” better”. Anyone in competition at high levels does it, long range shooter do it. They all do it for the same reason…it make them a better shot with whatever gun they are shooting and to that end, Glock triggers leave a lot to be desired. I do most of my own gunsmith work but in the case of my G34 that I will be using to shoot steel competitions I feel that only a full trigger kit will make me happy.
BTW, sorry to go off topic. Great article. Just sick of all the Glock fans reminding the world of “Perfection”. If they were perfect, there wouldn’t be thousands of posts on how to improve the triggers. To Glock’s credit, they do make a very reliable gun and as far as I can tell, the magazines are first rate. If I had it my way, I would have them offer a frame mounted safety and single action design in their long slide guns as an option. Right now I’m sure that Glock lovers worldwide just felt a tremor in the Force. Sorry guys! Just my wish/opinion.
Be advised that despite the photos of the Agency NOC pistol with an RMR on it, what they sell you will require new sights and some gunsmithing if you opt to mount one. I have spoken with them, they say a “sight tracker” isn’t supposed to be run with an RMR. Of course, one can understand the front sight is largely meaningless with an RMR. But if you think you might like to mount an RMR from time-to-time, understand it’s going to be a PITA to do so because of all the iron sight work required. I wish they didn’t advertise it with photos showing an RMR on it.
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