Nice!

9,400 rounds on all the parts? Sounds like a good life span!

quote:

Originally posted by Riley:
Nice!

9,400 rounds on all the parts? Sounds like a good life span!

It better last longer than that....It better match my 19 that I retired with 265k rounds through it.

Well, I meant a good lifespan for the springs and wear parts. The gun should last practically otherwise.

I have shot USPSA carry optics since March, and have Glock 19/17/34 pistols with some combination of RMR, DP Pro, DP and a T1. MOS and direct milled. Also have CZ Shadows with the DP Pro. There is no perfect, or even near perfect optic.

The RMR has excellent battery life, good switchology and allows BUIS. Many need tape on the battery to improve contact and avoid the dot blinking out, despite Trijicon's efforts to fix them. As mentioned, the display is small enough to limit gaming utility. The big achilles heel is the RMR is terrible in significant rain, and water on the emitter splits the dot in many dots, and precludes use of the BUIS. How do I know this -- it rained 28 out of 30 days in August in Alaska.

The DP Pro has a large, clear display, The dot is strong. It is actually OK in the rain. The battery life sucks bad enough that it is not viable for practical EDC. It is also so big, it makes BUIS smaller than trees a no go. (The regular DP is no longer supported by Leupold, although it has better battery life than the Pro.)

I like the T1 that I have on an Atom slide. However it suffers from lack of auto intensity and a big rheostat to print in EDC. The display is pretty small in width. Hopefully the new Aimpoint pistol optic will be the category buster.

The Atom slide is limited by adapter plates -- they only work with a RMR, T1 and legacy DP (not the Pro).

No experience with the new Romer pistol optic.

In my testing, surprisingly, the Glock 19 cycled with the dot measurably better than the 17 or 34. Same with the DP Pro vs the RMR, measurably better in gaming use.

I really love my Shadow with the DP Pro.

Hope this saves some others from wasting time and money.

quote:

Originally posted by Riley:
Well, I meant a good lifespan for the springs and wear parts. The gun should last practically otherwise.

Yeah, all the original parts so far. I'll be changing the recoil spring soon (using aftermarket single spring on a tungsten rod). Other than that, will let everything else chug along until a stoppage.

Agony, since you seem to be very well informed and experienced with the RMR setup, who do you recommend for milling a slide?
I was thinking of sending one of mine to Suarez, but wanted to check first.

Thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by TAP:
Agony, since you seem to be very well informed and experienced with the RMR setup, who do you recommend for milling a slide?
I was thinking of sending one of mine to Suarez, but wanted to check first.

Thanks!

Whenever I get my 19 slide milled, I'm sending it to ATEi.

quote:

Originally posted by TAP:
Agony, since you seem to be very well informed and experienced with the RMR setup, who do you recommend for milling a slide?
I was thinking of sending one of mine to Suarez, but wanted to check first.

Thanks!

along with ATEi as a agony pointed out

here are a few others i have heard good things about

http://www.landmprecisiongunworks.com/

http://jagerwerkseng.com/

http://www.fire-4-effect.com/default.asp

I would recommend L&M based on my experience.

Monthly update:

The RMR Glock 17 is now at 10,701 rounds.
The ETS 22 round mags are at 15,173 rounds.

The good:
Trijicon RMR is fine.
I was able to fix the 'pop' sound and resistance when pressing the Vickers extended mag release...(some plastic was starting to wear on one of the corners of the release, which would get caught on the hole in the frame).
The barrel is fine.
The Surefire light is fine.

The bad:
I tried bending the spring on the Ghost Bullet slide lock lever. Still got failures to lock back on every mag. At first I thought it was the ETS mags, so I tried them in my Glock 19 and they work without any issues, locking back the slide on empty with authority.
I replaced the Ghost with an OEM slide lock, brand new.
Unfortunately,even with the OEM slide lock/release lever I was getting consistent failures to lock the slide on empty with ETS, Magpul, and OEM mags.
Upon closer inspection I think there is some peening in the cutout on the Unity slide. Hmm. Not good. There's something to be said about a good carbon steel slide vs the use of stainless steel used in the Unity as well as most aftermarket slides.
I will be calling Unity Tactical to discuss the issue.

Oh well. We'll see how it goes.

9 month since build update:

The RMR Glock is now at 13,601 rounds.

The ETS 22 round mags are now at 18,925 rounds....
I use these mags for my G34 also, so I've used them in a couple matches and to test a new barrel. That's why the numbers are greater in the mags than the RMR Glock. Plus I had them a few months before the RMR. In fact this month they are a year old.
I can honestly say these mags are as good as factory. Maybe not at first since I had to replace a couple springs on ETS' dime, and had to remove some excess flash, but since then they have been boringly reliable.

The good:
Everything is still running strong.
Hopefully my Omega 9k can will get broken out of atf jail soon so I can try the RMR Glock with the new can.

Also, I've FINALLY figured out the correct sized O-ring for 9mm threaded barrels. If you do a search online, most folks recommend the Viton ID 12mm OD 14mm x1mm O-rings.
These are too loose! When you tighten the thread protector down, the excess O-ring squirts out of the area between the protector and the barrel. Looks ugly.
The Viton ID 10mm, OD 12mm x1.5mm is the correct size. Tightening down the thread protector and the O-ring stays in place without pinching it. And they work in all of my guns with 1/2x28 threads.

Nothing bad to report today.
The issue with the slide stop lever was remedied with an older well-used OEM standard one I had laying around. Gun runs perfectly still.

The battery in the Trijicon is still going strong. The sight hasn't been turned off since the gun was built. I haven't had any issues with the dot disappearing under fire. I haven't had to tighten down the bolts since I used blue loctite and torqued to spec.

The trigger feels great. The round count has started to show diminishing returns on break-in. It feels as good as it did after the 2k round mark.

Barrel is holding up well. The melonite finish is quite tough. The only areas where the coating has worn off is at the front of the barrel hood. No barrel smilies. Everything looks brand new still.

Will update in January/Feb 2017

Oh, almost forgot...
I did replace the RMR Glock's recoil spring a month ago. I wasn't having issues, but thought it was time.

Thank you agony for this excellent write-up.

I'm enjoying the read and updates! I have a Suarez 17 RMR'd with all the whiz bang goodies they like to have on the guns. It's been great though I only have 5K on it.
I've switched back to my G19's for everything this year. I carry and shoot the 19 more than any other usually anyway.

Looking forward to your updates!

Yeah, I like to step away from this gun once in a while.
(The other day I took my old Beretta M9 to the range...havn't shot it in years).

Plus I've been spending a little more time with my EDC Glock 19....I started carrying AIWB a couple months ago, and practicing my draw.

It's kind of strange going back and forth from a red dot to iron sights. I found that after shooting the red dot for a while, when I'd go to acquiring a sight picture with irons I was automatically focusing on the target. Didn't take much to get back to front sight focus, but I found it funny how quickly the brain adjusts despite decades of front-sight mantra.

Hey Agony,

I couldn't find it scanning your introduction of that magwell into the project. Whose magwell is it, and how do you like it?
And, is it beneficial, let's say over a grip plug for aiding reloads?

It's an Agency Arms magwell but I can't speak to its use. I'm looking at the same one or a Taran.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Hey Agony,

I couldn't find it scanning your introduction of that magwell into the project. Whose magwell is it, and how do you like it?
And, is it beneficial, let's say over a grip plug for aiding reloads?

It's the Agency Arms magwell as Riley mentioned.
Like most low-profile magwells, they aren't going to give as much assistance as a full-sized funnel but any little bit that helps even a slight bit is better than nothing.

I chose the Agency because every mag baseplate I have works with it. Most magwells won't take the Vickers baseplates as they are wider. But they are my favorite. I had the Zev for a while but it didn't fit the Vickers baseplates.

The only 'minus' I see with this or any magwell is that when you're carrying concealed it does make the grip print a little more than a gun without it. I notice it more when carrying AIWB.

Great write up . Has any one looked at the Sig RMR? I think they are cut to be sig only , that may not be a good thing .

I haven't played with the Romeos yet. It should work on other guns as it mounts in different ways. There is a rear dovetail mount available for different pistols.

And if inclined, you could always get your slide cut to accept the Romeo. But if I were going that route and spending the money, I'd go with a tried-and-true RMR instead.