Back last month, I finished a Polymer 80 compact frame, using a Brownell's slide, Alpha Wolf barrel, Shadow Systems slide parts, Glock frame pieces, Glock sights, and two Glock 10-rd magazines.
The frame itself was finished using sandpaper, files, and a hand drill. I spent a fair amount of time polishing the interface surfaces on the trigger components with Q-Tips and Mag polish. Ended up destroying two plastic rear sights before filing the life out of the third one to get it to go fully into the dovetail. At a guess, I spent between 8 to 10 hours all-in doing the build.
Took a bit of nudging and bumping the first time I put it together. The slide hung up at full draw the first time I cycled it, and it took a couple of pops on the back with the heel of my hand to get it to go forward. There was a distinct tendency for it to not go fully forward into battery, so I spent a bit of time filing / polishing the rail surfaces and cleaning out the recoil spring channel a bit more, followed by 30 minutes or so watching TV while racking the slide manually.
Not sure if it is the grip angle, the different trigger guard, the non-standard slide cuts, or a combination of the three, but I couldn't find a G19 holster that fit correctly. After a bit of looking, I did find a BladeTech holster that fits the slide/frame, probably because it's explicit sold as designed for the P80/Brownell's combination. The sand finish on the grip was irritating as hell IWB at 4:00 under a shirt, but a touch of 180 grit sandpaper on the off-hand side took care of that. Amazing how putting it together from a pile of parts removes most of the inhibitions associated with taking a tool to it.
End result?
First 50 rounds had 4 failures to go into battery. Took a touch of my thumb to get it to click in the last 1/8". The next 75 rounds had two failures to feed, back to back on a full magazine, with the magazine not fully locked into place at least one of those times.
And the 400 rounds since have just been a blast. It eats anything I feed it (round nose, flat nose, JHP, 115/124/147 grain) and just runs like a champ. With the polishing work, the trigger feel is very nice, not at all gritty, with acceptable take-up and a smooth release. It's so much fun that I'm thinking about building the full-size version.
I haven't totaled up the build cost and likely won't (which lets me have the following completely honest conversation with the better half: "How much did you spend on that?" "I dunno, I just kept buying pieces when they were on sale.").
Only complaint? After 4 weeks of looking, I still haven't found a 15 round pre-ban magazine at a price I'm willing to pay.
The frame itself was finished using sandpaper, files, and a hand drill. I spent a fair amount of time polishing the interface surfaces on the trigger components with Q-Tips and Mag polish. Ended up destroying two plastic rear sights before filing the life out of the third one to get it to go fully into the dovetail. At a guess, I spent between 8 to 10 hours all-in doing the build.
Took a bit of nudging and bumping the first time I put it together. The slide hung up at full draw the first time I cycled it, and it took a couple of pops on the back with the heel of my hand to get it to go forward. There was a distinct tendency for it to not go fully forward into battery, so I spent a bit of time filing / polishing the rail surfaces and cleaning out the recoil spring channel a bit more, followed by 30 minutes or so watching TV while racking the slide manually.
Not sure if it is the grip angle, the different trigger guard, the non-standard slide cuts, or a combination of the three, but I couldn't find a G19 holster that fit correctly. After a bit of looking, I did find a BladeTech holster that fits the slide/frame, probably because it's explicit sold as designed for the P80/Brownell's combination. The sand finish on the grip was irritating as hell IWB at 4:00 under a shirt, but a touch of 180 grit sandpaper on the off-hand side took care of that. Amazing how putting it together from a pile of parts removes most of the inhibitions associated with taking a tool to it.
End result?
First 50 rounds had 4 failures to go into battery. Took a touch of my thumb to get it to click in the last 1/8". The next 75 rounds had two failures to feed, back to back on a full magazine, with the magazine not fully locked into place at least one of those times.
And the 400 rounds since have just been a blast. It eats anything I feed it (round nose, flat nose, JHP, 115/124/147 grain) and just runs like a champ. With the polishing work, the trigger feel is very nice, not at all gritty, with acceptable take-up and a smooth release. It's so much fun that I'm thinking about building the full-size version.
I haven't totaled up the build cost and likely won't (which lets me have the following completely honest conversation with the better half: "How much did you spend on that?" "I dunno, I just kept buying pieces when they were on sale.").
Only complaint? After 4 weeks of looking, I still haven't found a 15 round pre-ban magazine at a price I'm willing to pay.
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