Improving the Glock Model 23 With Aftermarket Parts

Back in 1986, when the Glock Model 17 first became available in the U. S., the talking heads on the nightly news were in a frenzy over this new polymer-framed pistol, claiming it was "the skyjacker’s dream come true." According to these self-proclaimed experts, the Glock could not be detected by airport X-ray machines or metal-detectors because they were made of "plastic." None of the wizards making these claims took the time to actually see what an X-ray of a Glock might look like.

As you can see from the X-ray photograph below, the Glock’s metal parts show up so clearly that any third-grader would know it’s a pistol, so it should present no problem to a trained security agent. And, of course, it contains more than enough metal to set off any metal-detection system. With all that flap being history now, the Glock has gone on to capture a huge chunk of the law-enforcement market as well as the interest of many conceal-carry permit holders.

In this report, I’ll go over some of the aftermarket parts that are available for customizing or "slicking up" the Glock Model 23. I’ll tell you which of these parts, in my experience, are actually beneficial to the form, fit, and function of this handgun, and I’ll cover the fabrication of a couple of special tools that you’ll find useful when working with the Glock. Many of the comments I’ll make and tips I offer will be applicable to other models in the Glock line.

A number of aftermarket parts are available to make it more user-friendly. Modifying the Slide Before beginning any disassembly, make sure that the magazine is out of the pistol. Pull the slide to the rear and check to see that the chamber is empty. Make sure your work area is clear of any live ammunition, and because we’ll be dealing with pins and springs, be sure you’re wearing your safety glasses.

With that completed, point the pistol in a safe direction and pull the trigger so the firing pin is in the relaxed, forward position. Retract the slide slightly and, while doing so, pull down on both sides of the slide lock. The slide can now be pushed off toward the front. The slide assembly contains the barrel, recoil-spring assembly, firing-pin group, extractor, and the sights. To remove the recoil-spring assembly, position the slide so that the bottom side is up and push the rear

end of the recoil spring unit toward the muzzle end slightly and lift it up and out. The barrel can now be removed from the slide. The factory recoil-spring assembly is a captured unit, with a plug on the front end of the guide rod that holds the recoil spring in place on the rod. The factory guide rod is made from polymer and does flex a bit under recoil. Some Glock owners feel that a steel replacement guide rod creates a more rigid condition and therefore better accuracy.

The steel aftermarket guide rod shown here is made by Wolff Gun Springs and requires the use of Wolff’s 17-pound recoil spring. That’s because the Wolff guide rod has an outside diameter of .270 inch, while the polymer factory guide rod has a diameter of .230 inch. You’ll notice that the Glock recoil spring has flat coils.

If you choose to use this spring with an aftermarket steel guide rod, you’ll need to make sure that the replacement guide rod has a diameter of .230 to .232 inch to fit into the inside diameter of the original spring. The one problem I found with the Wolff guide rod is the lack of an assembly-pin hole. It’s extremely tough to try and hold a compressed recoil spring in place on a guide rod under 17 pounds of stored energy and then slip the assembly into place.

The solution to that problem is to first drill a 1/16-inch-diameter hole through the guide rod about 1/4 inch back from the front end. The Wolff guide rod is quite hard, so the use of a carbide drill is recommended to get this done. I made up a handy little tool to push the recoil spring down so a straightened paper clip can be slipped into the hole that you just drilled. This tool is made of aluminum with an outside front diameter of .437 (7/16) inch at a length of 1 inch.

A letter "I" drill is then used to cut a hole into the front end of this tool to a depth of 1.000 inch. A 1/8inch-wide slot is then milled (or filed) on the centerline of the tool for a length of 1/2 inch. A plastic handle with a 1/4-20 threaded shank is then installed into the pushing end of this tool. In use, the tool pushes down on

the recoil spring until the front face of the spring passes the 1/16-inch-diameter hole in the guide rod. While the spring is held in place, a straightened paper clip is inserted into the hole holding the spring back. The guide rod with the spring captured by the paper clip is then put into place below the barrel. While holding the recoil guide rod and spring in place with your hand, the paper clip is pulled out and the tension from the recoil spring keeps it there.

If the pistol’s owner prefers a captured, shock-absorbing buffer system, the dual-action buffer-spring system like the one offered by Fire Dragon can be considered. This is a drop-in system that will cut down on muzzle flip, making target acquisition much quicker. If part of the upgrade calls for replacing the front sight with one of the fiber-optic types or one of the various styles of night sites now available, this would be a good time to get that done.

In the example shown here, the front is being replaced with a fiberoptic sight from Novak. To make the swap, start by securing the slide in a vise with protected jaw faces, making sure you have access to the front end of the slide. To remove the factory front sight, you’ll need to get a pointed pick in through the recoil-spring guide hole and pry the tiny plug out of the center of the split shank on the bottom of the factory front sight.

The front sight is an expendable component, which will probably be ruined when removed, but a replacement sight from Glock only costs around a dollar and a half. Once you have the little plug out, you can either push the front sight out from the inside of the slide or use needle-nose pliers to twist it out from the top of the slide. Use caution here to not mar the slide’s top surface. The Novak fiber-optic front sight Reassembly is in reverse order. uses a tiny hex screw to secure the replacement sight in place.

A driver bit is easy to make up if you desire to do so. When making the one shown here, I started with a 3-inch-long, 1/4- 20 hex-socket machine screw. These screws require the use of a 3/16 inch hex wrench, which is exactly the size of the hex-head screw that secures the

Above left and Novak sight in place. For the one I made, the outside diameter of the head was turned to a diameter of around .270 inch, but this could be ground down just as easily. I then drilled and tapped a black-plastic handle to accept the 1/4-20 thread, held in place with permanent threadlocking compound. I also applied a little dab of threadlocker to the threaded shank of the Novak sight, and then used the driver bit to snug the sight into place after verifying that it was set parallel to the bore line.

In some cases, changing the front sight may also require replacing the rear sight. A low-profile, adjustable replacement rear site is available from Glock. This sight has an outside envelope almost exactly the same as the fixed rear site provided by the Glock factory, and it comes with a little screwdriver to adjust windage and elevation. Factory sights are made of polymer and don’t take kindly to being drifted back and forth with a metal drift. This is where the Glock rearsight pushing tool will come in handy.

This tool will handle all of Glock’s factory rear sights and can be used to install or remove these sights without damage. To remove the firing pin, you first need to remove the slide cover plate. Push down on the firing-pin safety and then push the tail on the firing pin forward. Using a small flat-blade screwdriver, work the blade of the screwdriver into the gap at the top of the cover plate and the rear face of the slide.

Watch that the firing-pin spring doesn’t come flying out as you push the cover plate downward. The firing pin and spring, along with the extractor-depressor plunger and spring, can now be removed from the rear end of the slide. Once you have these components out of the slide, the firing-pin safety, firing-pin safety spring, and the extractor can be removed from the slide. If you plan to refinish the slide, the firing-pin channel liner will need to be removed.

The easiest way to remove the channel liner is with the factory removal and installation tool. Note that there are two tiny cups that hold the firing-pin spring on the firing pin, and use caution to not lose them. Look over the end of the extractor that engages the cartridge-case rim for any chips or burrs, and either remove the burrs or replace the extractor.

One good thing about Glock pistols is the fact that factory parts are virtually always a drop-in proposition, because of the extremely tight tolerances that are held during the manufacturing process. Upon reassembly, the factory firing-pin safety and spring will be replaced on this pistol with a Lightning Strike titanium safety plunger with a nitride coating.

Glock does not recommend that the safety plunger be lubed, so the self-lubricating properties of the titanium-nitride coating on the new plunger will ease its operation and make operation of the safety plunger more efficient. The factory slide cover plate furnished by Glock is made of polymer with some metal reinforcement along the outside rails. Should your customer desire to replace it, Lightning Strike also offers a solid-aluminum cover plate.

Frame Modifications When disassembling the Glock pistol frame, the sequence of how the pins are removed needs to be understood completely. Referring to the photograph at the bottom of page 10, the locking-block pin (A) is removed first by drifting this pin from left to right. The trigger-housing pin (B) is next, and only needs to be pushed out from left to right. The last pin, the trigger pin (C), is pushed out from the left to the right according to the Glock Armorer’s manual.

I’ve pushed this pin out from the right side and had no problems with it. This pin has radial grooves on each end, and it might be necessary to wiggle the slide stop around as you drift this pin out until the pin passes through the slide-stop

hole. The locking block can now be lifted up and out of the receiver frame. Then the trigger housing can be lifted up and out of the receiver. For this particular Model 23, the plan included replacing the magazine release with an extended release sold by Vickers Tactical. If you peer into the magazine channel in the grip frame, you’ll see a straight spring on the inside wall, behind the front outside face of the grip.

This is the return spring for the magazine release, and it can be removed by positioning the groove in the magazine release toward the middle of the magazine channel. Carefully pry this spring up and over into the groove in the magazine release with a small flat-blade screwdriver.

Next, pry the top of the spring up and out of the groove in the maga- A Word to Our Readers About American Gunsmith’ s Mailing-List Policy Like many other publishers, we make portions of our customer list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services we believe you may enjoy. Indeed, in all likelihood, we were able to first reach you only because another company graciously permitted us access to its customer list.

If, when we make our list available, you do not want to receive those offers and/or information, please let us kno merican Gunsmith Opt-Out Program, Norwalk, CT 06854-1631. Please be rrent mailing label. zine release. The original magazine release can now be removed from the frame and the extended magazine release installed. Except for the target models, all Glocks are shipped with a 5.5-pound connector.

With the trigger components out of the frame, if you plan to replace it with a 3.5-pound connector, this would be the time to do it. For the Model 23 I used in preparing this article, the trigger pull was simply smoothed up rather than lightened. This was done by cleaning up some of the rough edges from the stamping die. The areas depicted in the photos show where to clean things up using 400-grit emery paper on a polishing stick.

Here, we just want to clean the surfaces up and not remove any more metal than necessary. Once these areas have been polished, the trigger housing can be reinstalled into the frame. On this pistol, I installed an extended slide release to get the rear end of the release closer to the operator’s thumb and to I gain a bit more leverage to activate the release of the slide.

After installing the extended slide release, I installed the locking block back into its place in the frame and then replaced the trigger pin in the frame from the right side. You may need to wiggle the slide release a bit to get this pin through, but you need to make sure the slide release fits into the groove in the left end of the trigger pin. The last pin to be replaced is the first pin we removed, the lockingblock pin.

This pin is inserted into the right side of the frame and drifted into place until it reaches the area where the top tail of the slide-release spring is seen. Reach in from the front of the locking block with a small flat-blade screwdriver and push the top end of the slide release spring-end down until you can drift the locking-block pin past it. The top of the slide-release spring needs to rest on the bottom of the left end of the locking-block pin.

Finally, reinstall the slide assembly into the frame and operate the slide several times to ensure the striker cocks properly. Conclusions Once understood, the disassembly and reassembly of Glock pistols is very straightforward. Just be sure you adhere to the sequence in which pins are removed and then replaced. Because Glock pistols are machined to very tight tolerances, factory parts can usually be replaced without fitting. It’s no wonder that their ads boast of "Glock Perfection."

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