The Current Glock Slide Finish

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I know there's a thread from early 2014 asking if Glock changed their slide finish. I'm sure most people know by now that they have a number of times. I just wanted to gripe about the current one...

Looking at the slide, can you tell which of these two guns has 150 rounds through it, and which has 5000 rounds through it? If you look really closely you'd probably draw the wrong conclusion.

IMG_2211.jpg

I bought my G19 in mid-late 2012 and love the finish on that gun. I did my best to show it with the pictures here, but the finish on that is a bit shinier and has more texture to it. It also seems to be hard as diamonds because you can drag a ring or gun tools across it and it doesn't scratch. I don't baby my G19 and the finish looks brand new.

IMG_2217.jpg

Now contrast that with my 2-day old, 150-rounds-fired G20. Already there are little superficial scratches which clearly seem to be permanent. In my opinion this current flat, smooth finish looks cheaper than the one on my 2012 G19. Having said that, I don't mind some usage scratches. The new finish just doesn't inspire the confidence that the old one did.

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I've always been unclear on exactly what the deal with with all the tenifer, melonite, blah blah blah. My understanding was always that the tenifer was a very thin coating on the steel and that the finish has nothing to do with what the hard coat is beneath it. I'm no expert though. Either way I wish they'd use something harder than the current external finish because my 150-round Glock has more scratches than my 5000-round Glock.

End Rant.
 
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no question to me that the glock finishing process isn't the same quality.

my gen 3 glock 23 has been mildly abused over the course of many range trips, whereas a gen 4 G26 slide looks about the same.

i have noticed that pushing the rear sight i also have to be more careful with the slide pushing equipment no to cause any marring of slide. the gen 3 slide feels harder overall.
 
Tenifer was a surface hardening treatment, and the visible black finish is just a regular phosphate coating. The new finish wears differently than Gen 2's. I don't worry about it, because it's just a Glock.
 
I have Glocks in like 3 levels of finish, and yeah, I like the old 2008 one on my G19 the best, but I have 3 newer guns (all bought within the past couple of years or so) with the "smooth finish" and I don't think the new finish is quite as durable, but this "issue" is so far down on the radar that it doesn't matter to me. It's a Glock. I bought the things so I could beat on them and not care. Both of your guns look "mildly used" to me. The "scratches" on the G20 are so minor its hard to see it.

The more important thing is, though... how does your G20 shoot? [laugh]

-Mike
 
Ya the scratches on my G20 are hardly there. Not a big deal, I just couldn't help but note that you can throw my G19 on gravel and see less evidence of it.

Might have missed the joke regarding how the G20 shoots? Normal factory loads don't seem to recoil any harder than a 9mm in a G19. I was almost disappointed it didn't thump harder.
 
Ya the scratches on my G20 are hardly there. Not a big deal, I just couldn't help but note that you can throw my G19 on gravel and see less evidence of it.

Might have missed the joke regarding how the G20 shoots? Normal factory loads don't seem to recoil any harder than a 9mm in a G19. I was almost disappointed it didn't thump harder.

No joke, just insinuating that the function of the gun is more important than its looks. [laugh] You should stoke that thing up with some Underwood 10mm. If it's anything like his .357 Sig loads I tried recently in a friend's M&P Compact, you won't be disappointed in the amount of juice you're gonna get.

As an aside, I just cleaned my G26Gen4 which has this finish... a gun which I've basically been carrying from last fall until mid Febuary or so when I finally put the G42 into service. The 26 only has appreciable wear on the bump on the Extractor (LCI bump, basically), which I suspect is from holstering action. The gun lives in Kydex when its carried. It's never touched a leather holster. I'm beginning to think that some of these complaints may be about process/QC as opposed to just the quality of the finish itself. My G17Gen4 is the same way more or less. It is kinda disheartening, but IMHO balanced out by the fact that, anecdotally speaking I've seen a precipitous increase in QC incidents from nearly all the major manufacturers when it comes to polymer handguns since Obamascare 1 happened. My guess is they've all tried to jack up production numbers in some way or another because of demand, and quality suffers a little in the process. Maybe some of these guys could take a cue from HK (or even Walther!) and beef things up a bit on that end, but that's probably wishful thinking. It's kinda ironic... HK has questionable design decisions in a lot of cases but when it comes to QC, it seems like the overwhelming majority of the guns they sell are consistently good. On the other hand, Glock, S&W, Springfield have all had bad runs of guns or large blocks of guns with weird problems, particularly post 2008.

-Mike
 
[smile] I already have an Underwood load on order. Eventually I'll look at reloading to make my own hot rounds, but I've had my eye on Underwood's options. The factory stuff I shot for the first time the other day was only in the 450-475ft-lb area. Underwood's loads look to go beyond 700ft-lbs from the G20's barrel.

As for the finish, time will tell what happens to mine. Even if the new finish does hold up, I think we can all agree the old one(s) was/were better.
 
As an aside after I made that post I cleaned my G30Gen4, which is only a month or so old, with 300 or so rounds through it, only carried one time so far. I found markings similar to what you have on your G20, although they seem more subdued. If your gun was made around the same time, maybe they had a bad finishing process during that time frame.

-Mike
 
.....do people seriously give a **** about scratches on guns? its a goddamned glock for ****s sake, not a $60,000 double.
 
.....do people seriously give a **** about scratches on guns? its a goddamned glock for ****s sake, not a $60,000 double.

True, this is. In my case at least id rate my level of annoyance at .01 or something. in a few years the "work wear" will mask it anyways. Rust, id have problems with, but this is mouse milk.
 
I love the old finish, i can holster it , leave it unclean and throw it in a range bag with the rest of the glocks , they bang around inside and dont get scratches.
 
.....do people seriously give a **** about scratches on guns? its a goddamned glock for ****s sake, not a $60,000 double.

Don't really care about scratches. In fact wear on a gun is sort of a point of pride in my eyes, but there's a difference between wear and a crappy finish. I'm just comparing the older Glock finish to the new one. The old one will wear but won't scratch unless it's intentional. The new one seems like it'll get scuffed up quickly.

Not really an aesthetics issue so much as a lack of quality issue.
 
As an aside after I made that post I cleaned my G30Gen4, which is only a month or so old, with 300 or so rounds through it, only carried one time so far. I found markings similar to what you have on your G20, although they seem more subdued. If your gun was made around the same time, maybe they had a bad finishing process during that time frame.

-Mike

.....do people seriously give a **** about scratches on guns? its a goddamned glock for ****s sake, not a $60,000 double.

I care very much about the finish on all my guns--from a Nagant to a Glock to a Garand to a Benelli--for one main reason: resale value.

Sure, Glocks are beater guns, but god forbid something should happen that puts my family and I on the road to the poor house, whether it be long-term unemployment or medical costs, etc.--my gun collection may well be on the chopping block to fix that issue.

So if Glock uses a shittier coating, thereby making the gun look more worn than it is, I'm may make less money on the resale than another earlier coating would have. So, as someone who also looks to his gun collection as also a bit of an investment should hard times arise, this isn't a trivial issue.
 
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Ive had them with all 3 finishes. The black teflon pan coating seems the best for wear and is on my newest usa made gen 4 and the older glocks i had previously.

The matte grey smooth on my austrian gen 4's seems thinner and probably is overall as there is no texture. At first i thought it was crappy. But after carrying a while it wears pretty good and cleans up easy.

I have another older austrian gen 4 that has a grey teflon pan finish and that wears great as well.

To me all of them are pretty darn good, much better than the vast majority of competitor finishes out there

If you want the old style finish, get a USA made Gen 4. I believe thats the finish they are putting on them now...at least what was on mine.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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So if Glock uses a shittier coating, thereby making the gun look more worn than it is, I'm may make less money on the resale than another earlier coating would have. So, as someone who also looks to his gun collection as also a bit of an investment should hard times arise, this isn't a trivial issue.


LOL. Sorry, but I disagree, the amount of money you would "lose" is dust in the wind, frankly. Let's say there are 4 grades of Glock pistols. 90% of them fall into the first 2 grades, the third grade is used LE guns, and the 4th grade is 100% dumpster fire, which is actually rare to see. I've (reluctantly, in most cases) had to sell about 10 Glock pistols, most in grade 1 or 2 condition, over the last 7 or so years and I never had a douche that said "I want 50 off because of that little bit of holster wear". These blems are so insignificant that most buyers on the secondary market aren't going to care- particularly the people who buy these guns. Grade 2 guns are pretty much worth the same as Grade 1 guns as far as Glocks go. These aren't golden hammers, these are the hammers people actually drive nails with, and when most people buy and sell the hammers, well, they're accustomed to a little bit of wear. [laugh]

If slide finish is paramount, get an HK or three. They've always had the best finish on a polymer framed handgun, the others don't even come close in terms of looks and durability, and corrosion resistance, although glock is pretty good at that function, but they've never been renowned for the finish they use, partially because it's never been a consistent theme for whatever reason.

-Mike
 
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