I've been bouncing back and forth between a 26 and a 19 for years as my everyday carry gun. I never had any issues with either when carrying traditional lateral hip.

I did start carrying and training from appendix carry last year. Carrying the 26 or 43 is super easy, to the point where I forget the gun is there. However, carrying a 19 presented a little more of a challenge. The butt tended to protrude more, and was--in my eyes at least--more prone to printing. This was confirmed when a while ago one of my patients asked me, "is that a gun?"

That's when I knew something had to be done.
You may say, well why don't you just stick to the 26 or the 43 for AIWB? The problem is, these guns don't have a rail, so no light unless I add a Streamlight TLR6 or some other light that clips to the front of the trigger guard. Yeah, that's a possibility. However I wasn't too impressed with these offerings and prefer the durability and dependability of the Surefire X300 and XC1.

But I also love my 19 with the Trijicon RMR. Having shot with an RMR almost exclusively over the past year and a half, I miss not having it when carrying iron sights.

So the best option in my mind was to somehow place a 19 slide with the RMR on a 26-sized frame with a rail. Lone Wolf makes an adapter to place a 19 slide on a 26 frame, but that doesn't solve the lack of rail.

I decided I needed to have the 19 frame cut down to accept the Glock 26 10-round flush mags. People have been doing this for years, and is well-documented online. However I frankly didn't have the balls to potentially ruin a frame.

I could've sent it out to a pro to do it, but the cost was laughable.
So I bit the bullet and decided to do it myself.

After a quick trip to the store to get some new cutting discs for the Dremel and some sandpaper in various grits, I drew up the plans in my mind. It seems easy to simply hack the lower end off of the grip, but as you can see the 26/27 frames have a little lip on the front and backstrap. This adds essential purchase on the gun with the minimal amount of real estate available. It also keeps the fleshy part of the hand from preventing mags from dropping freely.

I stared at a 26 stacked atop a 19 for several days before I started.


Here you can see the fore and aft lips on the 26.


I then did a field strip of both guns, and went further with the 19 frame and removed the trigger assembly and light.


I left the mag release and the take-down lever even though it wasn't a big deal to remove them. I mainly wanted the 3 take-down holes clear so I could more accurately line-up the 19 frame with the 26 frame.


I used the rear trigger housing pin and the locking block pin holes to align the two frames.




A pretty good view of the size disparity between the compact and subcompact frames.

Then using masking tape, I marked the first cut line, which would be around the area where the fore/aft lips end.


Then I introduced Mr. Glock to Mr. Dremel. Shook off the willies, and prepared myself to dive in....

Rod Stewart once crooned, 'The first cut is the deepest...' and he was not wrong.

Made the first cut and knew I was committed.


Once the lower grip was removed, I was really surprised at how flexible Glock plastic really is...the piece flexes easily when pinched.


After the first cut, re-measured and taped off again, to get closer to the shape of the 26 magwell. I did leave room for sanding/shaping.
Which is important since you can take material away but can't put it back.


I used the dremel to get close, and rigged a steel flat file by wrapping sandpaper around it. Didn't use any other tools. I went from grits 100, 220, 320, 400, and 600 as the work progressed. Here is the rough cut and shaping.


I went nice and slow, sanding and reshaping, until the 10 round mag sat flush and seated/ejected properly.


If you're going to attempt this, placing the frame in a padded vice makes life a lot easier.

Online, most folks were cutting away the back wall of the magwell. I thought it would be nice to retain the wall in order to assist in shoving mags in there without having to rig up some kind of buttplug to fit. So I carefully tapered and thinned the back wall.
Here it is nearly finished prior to final sanding and polish.

Agony, you are TRULY a man of many talents.

Bravo!

After carefully sanding at the high grits, and then hand polishing with denim to a matte luster, I stopped. I didn't want to take off any more material than necessary.


Here is the finished product with the flush OEM 10 round 26 mag.


As seen, I took off a little too much material on the left side of the grip. No biggie, and not very noticeable but it kinda bugs me.


The right side looks pretty even.


Here it is compared to the 26.


And with the 15 round OEM magazine seated.


In dry handling the gun for a day and a half, it feels good. Sizewize with my eyes closed, it was difficult to tell the difference between it and the 26. However the area at the lip of the backstrap protrudes more than the 26. The 26 is rounded in that area. I will eventually either figure out a way to melt it so it can be formed to be closer to that of the 26, or at least remove a couple rows of the texturing and smoothen/curve the rear lip slightly to make it a little more comfy in the hand.

I'm still toying with the idea of doing a full grip stipple, but I'm not really a fan of stippling and find the gen4 texture to be near perfect for me. I also personally like the finger grooves and have no issues with the trigger guard as-is. So I'll leave it unstippled for now, unless I totally screw something up in the near future as I continue to tinker with it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: agony,

I finally was able to get it to the range yesterday for a quick 150 round test fire for function.

I used 124gr+P FMJ and JHP handloads. Most rounds through 10 round mags and a few through Magpul 15 rounders.

The gun fired flawlessly, and had zero issues with mag seating/dropping/locking/etc etc.

In shooting, I noticed that the gun shot softer than the 26, as the gun feels more muzzle heavy than either the stock 19 or a 26. Sight radius on this gun is pointless due to the rear sight placement.

Afterward I noticed a little hot spot in the fleshy hypothenar area of my dominant hand. The culprit is the non-rounded edge of the rear backstrap and several of the gen4 grip texture 'squares' right at the rear edge of the grip.

This week I'll figure out a way to remove the lowest couple lines of texturing and smooth them out, and may try to reshape the area too.

But for now, it's getting carried regularly, and I fear the old trusty 26 may be relegated to the safe forever. Which is a shame as it was a gift from my wife before we were married.

I did have one issue while shooting it yesterday.

I had a failure to feed. Dropped the mag, cleared the gun, and noticed one of the rounds had significant bullet setback.

A few months ago I had issues with a huge order I placed with Xtreme bullets, as they were all undersized. I have since stopped ordering from them. I still have a few thousand of their bullets from an old order last year and have trying to finish them up. I never had issues with that batch until now.

Perhaps, I thought, it was the case being out of spec. So I pulled the bullet and it measured 0.3537"...while others in the batch measure 0.355". I'm thoroughly finished with their products for good.

quote:

You may say, well why don't you just stick to the 26 or the 43 for AIWB? The problem is, these guns don't have a rail

There is a guy on Glocktalk that cut his own rails into a G26 and was able to mount a Viridian C5. I remember reading about it. The thread contained pictures and step by step instructions. You can find the thread by googling "Glock 26 with viridian c5".

I know a gunsmith who did this from those instructions. He said it wasn't hard.

I'll check that thread out, thanks. I wonder how the cut rail works with surefire lights.
It still wouldn't solve my desire to run it with the RMR without having to invest in getting my 26 slide milled.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Agony, you are TRULY a man of many talents.

Bravo!

Thanks, I appreciate your words of encouragement.
And I'm not so much talented as I am bored.

Wow that's great work!

Welcome to the club!!!

Keep saying I'm gonna do that to my 19 but can't work up the nerve. Who did the slide milling? What mag well is that in the first pic?

Impressive work on your part, well done! I went the other direction with the P229C Carry, grip remained the same, Sig shortened the slide & barrel

This message has been edited. Last edited by: CQB60,

I cheated completely to get a similar result. I put a sub compact grip module on my compact P250.

I had mine done by polymer refined when he was still in business. You're right, I can't find a better carry gun. I like the longer sight radius vs the G26, and it just balances better in the hand.

quote:

Originally posted by zdog16:
Welcome to the club!!!

Thanks, it was your post a week or so ago that got me off my butt to do this.

quote:

Originally posted by 4506:
Keep saying I'm gonna do that to my 19 but can't work up the nerve. Who did the slide milling? What mag well is that in the first pic?

The slide is made by Unity Tactical.
The magwell is an Agency Arms.
Here's the gun before I cut the grip.

That came out great.

It's a shame Glock doesn't offer the combo from the factory.

quote:

Originally posted by agony:

quote:

Originally posted by 4506:
Keep saying I'm gonna do that to my 19 but can't work up the nerve. Who did the slide milling? What mag well is that in the first pic?

The slide is made by Unity Tactical.
The magwell is an Agency Arms.
Here's the gun before I cut the grip.

Thanks for the info.

quote:

Originally posted by agony:

quote:

Originally posted by zdog16:
Welcome to the club!!!

Thanks, it was your post a week or so ago that got me off my butt to do this.

Awesome! Glad to provide the motivation. The size of this gun is sooooo nice!