Glock 17 Competition Upgrades (Post#2)

Time for a long overdue post on the 'upgrades' for the not so stock Glock 17 pistol. 

(We have changed the connector) I must say though if you will be shooting in the IPSC Production Division changing the connector might take you below the minimum trigger pull so Polishing may be your only option.

You may be previewed to this info but I'm saying it also, what you'll read on the web is-> Glock trigger this... Glock trigger that... G17 trigger... ohh you get the drift. 

Being that I'm trying to get the gun working well for mainly IPSC shooting matches, I cannot say this enough, this will be suggested only for competition purposes! Having completed the first post which I did rename #1, it is time to move on the the gun talk. I will try to keep the chatter more about the gun and whatever parts as I see fit.

All that trigger talk out there I believe that there is one thing that the stock Glock 17 FALLS SHORT on RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX, that's the SIGHTS. More so the stock front one which is PLASTIC. If one can get a firm grip on the front sight you can basically pull it right off of the gun. For gun and shooter that is not good at all. You may bump it, get it snagged, the gun may fall, you may be shooting under a barrier or through a port or window and hit it, or even if you transport it without care the front sight might get smashed, deformed, scraped, or worse yet knocked off.

Based on your needs (competition,carry, home defence, duty, night etc.) I strongly suggest that one of the first things you do is get metal sights that fits your requirements. Glock has a replacement metal sight set that looks exactly to it's stock setup. For competition, something with fiber optics are great, you'll have to decide what combination best is for you and there are lots of those out there. 

Competition Sights.

Personally I think that a plain rear sight helps the eye focus and aids the brain to lock in to a brighter (lighted) front sight faster than any other combination out there. Thanks to Dave Sevigny for his signature competition series, who had figured this out long before I did and together with Warren Tatical came up with great combos for (day) carry and competition use, take your pick. I have got installed on the G17:

• Sevigny Competition Sight Set

This set features an all metal construction, a serrated front sight with an area for the fibre optic rod (comes with red and green rods with extra lengths on both) a metal screw (for mounting) and a fixed solid plain rear sight with an allen screw to help lock it onto the slide.

Regardless of what competition you're shooting, either steel or paper targets, or even the weather condition you're shooting in, rain or sun these sights are great. On presentation of the gun to the target my eye seem to automatically zoom in to the fibre optic rod and I can easily obtain the sight picture required for the shot(s).

More later...

Glock 17 Competition Upgrades (Post#1)

First Steps on Stock Glock 17 

I started shooting this brand new G17, no double taps at first as I was told to break it in by my good friend who was kind enough to start me out with it. Thanks buddy! This break in, included slow fire with 5 rounds strings for the first 100 rounds or so. Slowly building up the string to 10 and then the full mag of 17 before I reached 600 rounds through the firearm.

During this time I regularly field stripped the gun and checked visually for any signs of anything, not sure of what I was looking for. This went on as I started reading Glock forums and looking at various videos related to the Glock.

Then came my big chance to be part of a competition, now I had been shooting practical pistol competitions for sometime with a Glock34, once in a while using some of my good friends firearms which included a well used G17, a SIG P226, a Bul M5 and a Springfield Armory XD. I very quickly found out that this new G17 was somewhat different even with my bulls eye shooting during the break in period and I saw a difference in groupings not knowing what to expect I suspected that the G17 would be a major change while trying to keep my Hit Factor up.

So having gone through that and hearing the results being read out at that and and a few other competitions, most of which I would rather forget, I realized that I needed to either make this G17 better especially the trigger, as this was said on the forums or find a gun that I could shoot in competitions and use this as my primary Concealed Carry Weapon. Having two guns did not make sense to me, more so the point of practical pistol competitions is to prepare you for a practical situation while adding the competition stress and the fun part to it. At least I think so about IPSC matches anyway.

Better Trigger for Stock G17

After some research I decided that I need to change the connector to the 3.5 pound one (which is the stock for the G34) and do this trigger polish job I was reading so much about. So I detailed stripped the G17 got out the things I needed to polish:

• Trigger Bar
• Connector
• Firing Pin Safety

Grabbed me some metal polish (used Autosol which is readily available at the service station) some cotton wool, cotton buds and a lint free cloth and polished these parts all over until they were shiny and like brand new silver.

Upon reassembling the firearm I was eager to dry fire and see the big difference, on the first dry fire... Click... hmm nothing noted different, racked again... CLICK... still nothing noted as different as compared to what seemed like ages ago when I last dry fired the firearm before I stared polishing. This went on for a while and then I thought maybe at the range I'll notice it when I live fire the thing. 

Sure enough on range day my first round BOOM looked at the target 10 metres away and not a hole in the letter sized paper target I was aiming at. I was totally surprised by but found that I definitely had a faster, smoother and  slightly lighter trigger to deal with thus I would blame this change on that miss. Polish job successful, especially in helping the trigger but now I have to learn to shoot again. LOL the rest was all good and from the second shot as my mistakes lessened I got to be very pleased with the almost stock Glock 17 with it's polished trigger essentials, for now.

More to come.