Depends on the purpose of the pistol. If it's a toy or a game gun, yeah, I'll mod the heck out of it. If it's meant for CCW, generally no. Maybe sights but that's about it. Considered Mag Guts for my 365 mags and probably would do it but the total investment per mag is stupid so I soldier on with factory.

Any gun in my house could be considered a self defense weapon. Heaven forbid the need to use in self defense, so in a word; No.

It depends on the gun. I have made a few changes on Glock frames, as they are cheaper to replace than any other pistol frame. So if it gets messed up, another costs only about $100 or so.

With that said, I like to remove a little material under the trigger guard on my Glock pistol, as it seems to alleviate some rubbing/pain to my middle finger while shooting it. I have also added some texturing to the grip area and modified the beaver tail pieces and cut them down, so I don't get slide bite and it doesn't increase the grip size too much.

The nice things about Glocks is they are cheap to mess around with,compared to other brands and I can fit them to my needs.

I have yet to even put an optic on any gun I have. I keep thinking I should try one but I can’t pull the trigger on it still.

I generally change sights on newly acquired handguns. Any Colt 1911 that comes with a delrin mainspring housing gets a new steel or aluminum MSH depending on the frame material. I've changed springs on 1911s and various revolvers. I guess I do modify my guns sometimes.....

Depends on the purpose, for a defensive handgun, no modifications except for grips and sights. I will drop in a service pack for a used Sig.

S&W Revolvers, I'll swap the grips and tighten the sights. For my Ruger Service Six, I replaced all my springs except the cylinder release because it was an older revolver and it's easy to work on.

It depends on the gun and how it's used. If it's a range toy I'll tune the trigger, grips or Sights to what works best for me. If it's a carry gun the sights may get replaced or grips swapped to ugly rubbers but items that effect function are untouched.

For example my P365 has a pretty miserable trigger in terms of crispness or feel but it fires every single time and I can shoot a poor trigger accurately so feel doesn't mean a thing. As for the "X-Ray" sights, they are horrible and at some point I'm just going to paint the dots white. For those not aware of it when the P239 was a widely used carry pistol the tritium tubes were twice the diameter of current and much brighter as a result. I have a P239 purchased in 2008 and the sights on it are about 2 times more visible than on my 1 year old P365.

All my DA/SA pistols have had trigger work and new sights. When I owned strikers in the past, no, just a G17 drop in factory trigger. DA/SA I don’t worry about modifying them and I carry all of them at one point or the other. DA remains at 10#.

Honestly it’s rare that I don’t modify a firearm in some fashion.

My 365XMac got Ameriglos to replace the OEM sights (useless to me, LOL), and the curved trigger to replace the straight blade.

Other than sights, any weapon I carry for self defense, no.
If it is a
Plinker a range toy or target pistol
Yes

I pretty regularly put SRT’s into my Sigs and have done that to my HK’s too. I have changed sights, replaced hammer struts, triggers, and occasionally strut springs. I consider replacement of recoil springs maintenance as they are a part that wears out with use. I often play with my 1911 trigger pulls, most commonly my old Commander. There I had the trigger about 2 lbs, but increased it to 3.5 lbs when I started to carry it. I also replaced the safety, as the original one was too light. I put in something you could feel and even hear the soft “CLICK” when you took it off.

I have also done a little work for a couple older guys who needed their guns “FIXED”.

Nope. I shoot them as is.

It's the carpenter, not the tool.

I know too many people who modify stuff or get too much cool guy geardo shit.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
Nope. I shoot them as is.

It's the carpenter, not the tool.

I know too many people who modify stuff or get too much cool guy geardo shit.

I’m curious. Why is it all the truly talented “carpenters”, IE dudes that shoot people for a living, use heavily modified firearms, but the civilian crowd insists that buzzwords win gunfights?

When I look at the lot of them, I've made some changes to most of them. Some heavily. And I don't mean hanging shit off them.

It is similar to "mil-spec" discussions with people with a military background and non military background. Each is thinking a different thing.

There is a section of gun owners that honestly believe the firearm that they bought was EXACTLY as the designer wanted it to be. That every single facet of their new toy was just like JMB envisioned it to be. That nobody from marketing or legal had any hand in the end product. To change anything is obviously not only sacrilege, it also clearly will impair reliability. You will never convince those guys. Ever.

Sometimes.
I wanted a version of the large frame S&W used in the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies, and I had an old 1917, so I figured I'd do an interpretation thereof, so...

Tim

I don’t always modify pistols, but when I do, I only use OE parts.

My SIGs see the most work (trigger jobs, night sights, grips, maybe SRT). My Glocks only get night sights and the factory extended slide release. My HKs get the lockout devices removed and the control levers reconfigured (V1-V3 or LEM).

You don't know what you are missing. Grayguns Parts are probably better quality than the OE parts they replace. And you pay for said quality. lol

I have used good quality non OE parts dozens of times. Grayguns, Cajun Gun Works, Wolff, Dawson, Wilson Combat, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
You don't know what you are missing. Grayguns Parts are probably better quality than the OE parts they replace. And you pay for said quality. lol

I have used good quality non OE parts dozens of times. Grayguns, Cajun Gun Works, Wolff, Dawson, Wilson Combat, etc.

The top of my post was a Dos Equis joke more than anything else. I’ve used quality aftermarket parts before. But to me, they were almost never worth the money (for Glock or SIG anyway, I never actually bought anything aftermarket before for an HK). The parts maybe added to the overall intrigue, but they didn’t do anything for me at the range. Regarding GGI, I was actually going to buy their hammer, SRT kit, and strut for a project, but I ended up spending the money on something else. GGI’s parts are undoubtedly of higher quality than SIG’s OE parts, but I still find it hard to believe that they’d surpass the work the SIG Armorer has done for me in the past (which he did without replacing any parts).

I would take that bet. I doubt the SA made a non short reset gun into a short reset gun without swapping parts.

GGI parts are expensive. Worth it? That is a personal call that only you can make.

I haven't sent out a gun to be worked on in probably at least a decade or two. I am going to say something that many will disagree with. The days of requiring a skilled gunsmith to get your gun to a very high level is in the past. Caveat: if we are talking to the absolute finest level then a skilled talented gunsmith is essential. But to quote Ernest Langdon, "my kit will get you 90% of what I can do". That is from memory but it is close. I have 2 LTT's that Ernest did his handiwork on. I have about 5 more 92's that I installed all his kits on. I would love to tell you his 2 are the best of that bunch. They aren't. They are good but the best one is my 40 year old 92F with his kit. It is just so smooth it isn't funny. His kits are amazing, I think they are 95% at least. lol

Nowadays parts are built to such tight tolerances that the required hand fitting/work that used to be necessary just isn't required anymore. If you bought a complete kit from Cajun Gun Works installed it and compared it to the same gun but sent in for the work, the odds are you couldn't tell the difference. Decades ago that was most definitely not the case. The tech and machinery necessary to create these very tight tolerance kits that would fit without gunsmithing just didn't exist.

I go back to my first point. I also like to know how my guns work. No better way than to be sitting at your desk with a confused look on your face and a blotter full of pins and parts. lol