Glock Slide Cuts - Question

[Mntneer357]

I realize this may be a dumb question, so I'll beg forgiveness in advance. I legitimately do not know. I'd like to ask the P-F cognoscenti for guidance...

I have been seeing what seems like a lot of "boutique shops" chopping up the slides of Glocks. On the side, on top, pretty much everywhere they could think to remove metal, someone has. My question is does this serve some legitimate, functional purpose, or is this yet another case of "fools and money being parted"? I completely understand and agree that "because I wanted to" is sometimes reason enough. I was mostly curious IF these modifications improved function somehow.

I appreciate y'all's time and direction.

Slainte!

[jondoe297]

One of my buddies is into the "glock chopping/gun bling" thing. If you ask him, you'd think that a Glock is completely unusable unless you spend $2k+ getting it "customized" by Zev/Salient/etc.
To answer your question though, for the vast majority of people who spend the money on it, it falls under fools and their money being parted (at least in my opinion).

[Gio]

In my opinion, these modifications are all for show and have no functional purpose, outside of adding forward cocking serrations, which are more of a personal preference than necessary. Removing weight from a Glock slide is extremely detrimental to reliability. Combine that with adding a light on the gun or +p ammo and it will compound the problem.

No one I know of who shoots a Glock at a high level cuts any weight off their slides.

[Beat Trash]

Forward slide serrations would be nice to have. But to me, it's not a big enough of an issue to justify the cost of having the slide cut and refinished.

Some people like to have their Glock pistol looking special. Kind of in the same way that a snow flake is special. I wonder how these same people react when wear marks start to show up on the slide from holster wear.

I actually like the wear marks on the edges of the slide that occur from holster wear and other wear marks from honest training and usage of the gun. To me it gives my gun character.

[voodoo_man]

I got a slide with front side serrations and top "dragon scale" serrations done.

I intended on using an RMR on this slide and needed extra grip space in case I could not get to the rear of the gun in a pinch grip.

If I was not using an RMR I would not get serrations.

[SLG]

I like front cocking serrations, but not much else.

Regardless of my personal preference, it is essential to spend mucho dinero on rocking your glock, otherwise you won't be able to properly defend yourself.

[Mntneer357]

Thank you very much to those who have taken the time to reply. I appreciate y'all sharing your knowledge.

I *thought* all these "modifications" looked to be mainly cosmetic, (and still highly questionable even then) but what the hell do I know? I'm not 'zactly on the bleeding edge here. I wholeheartedly agree that FCS are legitimately desirable, for some users. But slides that look like Swiss cheese and gold barrels? I'm sitting there thinking to myself "is there some serious purpose for this kind of thing?"

FWIW, I shoot & carry Glocks. They're what work for me at this point of my life and my level of training. The only thing I do to them is add Trijicon night sights. But, I'm always trying to learn and I had to ask about this newish trend I'm seeing.

[martin_j001]

I very much like and prefer to have front cocking serrations myself, so I started looking into the companies that offer the work. Ended up purchasing a Zev slide when they went on sale over Black Friday, which allowed me to try an RMR as well. Luckily for me, the model that went on sale was not one with the cut-outs or "windows", which do not appeal to me in a major way.

[PD Sgt.]

While there are some arguments for forward slide serrations, I have never owned a Glock that needed them (for me) to chamber check the pistol; they are not that heavily sprung and there is no mainspring/hammer resistance to overcome. I feel the same way about one handed manipulations; the sights I use are squared off and allow me to clear/charge the weapon.

I have concerns that substantially lightening the slide can change the mechanics and reliability of the pistol, especially if one does not alter the recoil spring weight. I personally like to be able to use the stock weights so that I know wherever I go I can find a stock RSA that will work in my pistols, I do not need a special non captured spring weight to run my tacti-blaster.

I get that a lot of these mods come from the competition world and allow faster splits and flatter shooting. The problem is they also bring a narrower window of reliability in a lot of cases. I have been to several classes where as the day went on and guns got dirtier, the Zev or Salient guns began malfunctioning while my stock 17 kept plugging along.

Personally, I think for the money some spend on the cuts/windows, you would be better off with a quality barrel fit which actually should gain some accuracy as long as the chamber accepts your favorite ammo, and more practice ammo for the gun.

[Mntneer357]

The problem is they also bring a narrower window of reliability in a lot of cases. I have been to several classes where as the day went on and guns got dirtier, the Zev or Salient guns began malfunctioning while my stock 17 kept plugging along.

Honestly, **that** was the first thing that crossed my mind when I started seeing some of these pistols. I figure when you start screwing with the geometry & design parameters of a thing, you're heading for reliability headaches. I figure Glock had engineers that set the damn thing up to run reliably, why give Murphy a chance to come dick that up??

Personally, I think for the money some spend on the cuts/windows, you would be better off with a quality barrel fit which actually should gain some accuracy as long as the chamber accepts your favorite ammo, and more practice ammo for the gun.

In my given situation, more ammo for training is pretty much tops on the list.