Rival Arms Glock Builds

Whatever your opinion of the looks and handling of Glock pistols, they area tremendously popular handgun. The Glock is a baseline for personal defense. They are reliable and respond well to a trained shooter. If you instead go with a less expensive firearm, consider what corners have been cut; if you pay more, consider what you are getting for the additional money. The Glock is durable and has survived well in long term use, even if nobody buys them for aesthetics.

I used to call the 1911 "Old Ugly" but Glocks are worse with a black, business-like, angular, and homely look. Firearms have been the object of customization for hundreds of years and it was only a matter of time before Glock pistols had their share of accessories. Barrels and sights came first, then custom dust covers and triggers. Now we have gorgeously machined aftermarket slides that offer not only crazy good looking lines but improved durability and function.

Glocks are responsive to modification and are easily modified by those with skills. The slide is the first priority for many and an aftermarket slide is often less expensive than having forward cocking serrations cut into an existing slide. Rival Arms (Rival-Arms.com) offers a number of slides, barrels, frame parts, and sights for Glocks. Their Precision Upgrade slides have a number of custom features Top: Rival Arms slide as delivered. made with very distinctive and attractive machining.

In addition to iron sights, they are also optics ready with a removable top plate to allow mounting a Ruggedized Miniature Reflex type red dot sight. On my build I added a set of fixed sights with a narrow front post in order to maximize accuracy and make the set up compatible with ared dot optic. The result is useful on many levels, offering real versatility. The windowed slide has gained a great deal of popularity for its lighter weight and awesome looks.

This type of slide is even popular in the cinema and has a similar look to firearms used Far The dovetail cut is standard for the Glock pistol.

in the John Wick movies and other shows. A combination of popular aesthetics and tactical design is a winner. When re-engineering Glock slides, Rival Arms made certain that the front and rear cocking serrations offer good abrasion and adhesion when firing without abrading the holster unnecessarily. How to do this is simple enough but I learned more than a little when putting together my first example. It isn’t more or less difficult than the 1911, as an example, but there are considerations.

The Rival Arms slide did not include internal parts or sights so I added a Slide Completion Kit for Glock 17 GEN 3 (Brownells 100- 025-310WB) which contained an extractor with loaded chamber indicator, extractor depressor plunger and spring, firing pin, firing pin safety and spring, firing pin channel liner, firing pin spring cups, firing pin spacer sleeve, slide cover plate, and recoil spring assembly. It isn’t difficult to fit these parts to the slide.

Each part fit without any type of added effort, just as if the Rival Arms slide were a Glock slide. The Rival Arms slide with matching barrel in Bronze PVD fit along with the Slide Completion Kit retails for $680.98, not including my fee for assembly. I checked for both higher and lower prices and this seems the average retail for these parts. Rival’s barrel mated with their slide like a Far For this particular instance the fit was ideal. factory fit.

Assembly time would increase greatly if you choose to a gunsmith-fit barrel requiring standard fitting instead. The barrel was snug but did not require fitting for a good fit to the slide. The customer went with a suppressor-ready threaded barrel with protector. I added a rubber O-ring to the barrel to set between the barrel and thread protector to allow good tightening but easy removal as the thread protector must be removed to remove the barrel from the slide during routine maintenance.

This barrel features conventional rifling. While offering potentially more accuracy, the true advantage for high volume competitors over Glock’s standard polygonal/hexagonal rifling is use of non-jacketed bullets. Lead bullets in polygonal’s shallow rifling provides nowhere for lead build up, coating the barrel and possibly increasing pressure and leading to a blown cartridge case head. While some have gotten by with very hard cast bullets (hard cast isn’t the same as soft lead) this is a safety factor.

Shooters using thousands of lead bullets in practice for economy should go with a conventionally rifled barrel. The handgun was assembled with both a Generation 3 and a Generation 4 slide before settling on a Gen 3 with the smaller opening for the recoil spring rod and guide and the appropriate size guide rod. The set up was simple enough, with all parts flowing together and the final fit good.

Part of the work was to provide the customer with a viable competition handgun that would compliment his skills and part of

the project was experimental to determine the fit, finish, and accuracy potential of the set up. Glocks are consistent in manufacture but the step of trying the slide assembly on several frames was worthwhile. The finish on these parts is attractive but my customer wished even more contrast. It is possible to build a customized slide and barrel on Generation 3 and 4 frames with a completely black surface, but this customer wanted a bit of a showpiece. I agreed that the contrast is excellent.

Sights were chosen next, leading to much discussion. While night sights might be a good set up for home and personal defense, this Glock’s primary chore was competition and informal target practice. Sometimes bright sunlight strikes the tritium inserts and causes a glint that interferes with the sight picture. Looking over the list at Brownells, we went with Ameri Glo (AmeriGlo.com) Suppressor/Optic Height sights (Brownells 100-009- 854WB) at $44.99.

Rival Arms also offers competitively priced sights in several variations as well. These sights were chosen to work with optics and/or a suppressor in the future. The front blade is serrated on the rear face and relatively thin and has a very clean, precise sight picture for accurate shooting. When fitting the sights with the MGW (Maryland Gun Works) Sight Pro there was no difficulty of any type. The sights area good snug fit. The front sight screwed into place normally.

Testing The pistol was now ready for test firing. The slide and barrel were lubricated on the barrel hood and locking lugs and the rear of the cocking block per Glock recommendations. The magazines were factory Glock that have been in use for some time and proven reliable along with a Mag Pul magazine provided by the customer. Ammuni- Far According to the author’s test with a Tulster (Tulster. com) holster, among the best in service, yes.

Shown here with a Tru Glo (TruGlo.com) Tru Point light. tion was the reliable Black Hills Ammunition 9mm Luger 115 grain FMJ. Initial testing involved 118 rounds fired as quickly as possible to determine reliability. While firing quickly the shooters also fired at a row of six steel plates at a distance of 25 yards. The first shooter held the pistol at arm’s length and fired two shots into the berm. The pistol fired, fed, chambered, and ejected normally.

However, during the firing tests the pistol failed to fully go into battery about one in four times during the initial testing. Three full magazines were fired with these results. The fourth magazine—now at 68 cartridges—suffered two failures to fully lock into battery. The following magazines, totaling 50 rounds, fired without event.

Add the cost of ammunition to the firing test. ($125.20 for 200 rounds from TargetSportsUSA.com) puts the total The fit is fine and the combination is a good one. cost at $851.17 without shipping and labor costs. This will aid in the quote. The customer may prefer to do the break-in firing but if you do it, you’ll know exactly what is going on. The pistol was taken home and cleaned. We experienced a modest break in period.

Routine cleaning can be done by wiping the breech face in the slide and then cleaning the barrel. Every 1,000 rounds the slide should be stripped and cleaned of grit, dirt, unburned powder, carbon, and brass shavings. Since this pistol uses a well made but non-standard slide, the extractor, extractor depressor plunger, firing pin, and firing pin safety were closely examined. There was no eccentric or excess wear. Neither was there any wear on the barrel where it meets the slide or slide window.

The pistol was returned to the firing range with sixty rounds of a handload consisting of the Oregon Trail 125 grain RNL bullet and enough Hodgdon Titegroup powder for 1,050 feet per second. The Black Hills Ammunition 124 grain JHP was also tested. The lead bullet load gave good results and acceptable accuracy. Firing a magazine of the Black Hills Ammunition 124 grain JHP without issue, a number of five shot groups were fired from a solid bench rest at 25 yards.

The Rival Arms/Glock combination exhibited accuracy of 1.9 to 2.5 inches for a five shot group at 75 feet. Summary Fitting was not needed and the barrel and slide fit together well. The sight dovetails were fine for standard dimension Glock sights without any extra effort needed to fit and zero the sights. Cleaning the slide may require slightly more effort since there are slide windows but this is minimal. Fit to a Glock Generation 3 or 4 frame is good.

A consideration is that it seems the barrel and slide may need a breakin period. This is reasonable for a custom grade part that is designed to provide good accuracy in long term use. In short, the Rival Arms combination is good and well worth its price. AG