Alright, I had a little time on my hands while the kids played outside.

I decided to smooth down the lower end of the backstrap to get rid of the annoying hotspots I was getting while gripping the gun. Again, I'm trying to avoid having to stipple the gun because it's just more work I don't want to do, and I like the texture of the gen4 frame/finger-grooves.

I stripped down the frame again, clamped it into a vise. I taped off the area I didn't want material to be removed, and layered it so it acted like a guide for sanding.
Using stips of sandpaper from 220-320-400-600-800-1000 I buffed the texture bumps off, with a motion akin to shining shoes. Back and forth until the bumps were essentially gone. I also radiused the edge to make it smoother. Afterwards I buffed it with denim. That's it.

This little bit of work changed the feel completely. No hotspots, no sharp edge under my shirt. And no change in the grippiness of the gun in hand.

Gave it a good cleaning, reassemble, load, holster, and in my pants it goes.

Here it is after starting to sand with 220grit.


After the texture removed, at the 400grit stage.


Almost done:


After final buffing.

So I do have to ask...
With a conventional iron sight setup, I do understand this mod and have a bunch of friends who have it. I have even been considering to do this to my Boresight Gen3 19 since it already has grip reduced and epoxied, just cut and go.

Now, since you're doing the RMR thing, the sight radius is irrelevant, why not just having a G26 slide milled, unless the cost is a concern? It'll pack even smaller.

As an aside, what prints for me with Glocks in AIWB is a rear of slide, the rectangular part of it. So, doesn't matter, G26, G19, all the same. I had that area radiused, Bowie offers this service. Looks a bit better, still not as discrete as I'd like.

Good work.

quote:

Originally posted by YVK:
So I do have to ask...
With a conventional iron sight setup, I do understand this mod and have a bunch of friends who have it. I have even been considering to do this to my Boresight Gen3 19 since it already has grip reduced and epoxied, just cut and go.

Now, since you're doing the RMR thing, the sight radius is irrelevant, why not just having a G26 slide milled, unless the cost is a concern? It'll pack even smaller.

As an aside, what prints for me with Glocks in AIWB is a rear of slide, the rectangular part of it. So, doesn't matter, G26, G19, all the same. I had that area radiused, Bowie offers this service. Looks a bit better, still not as discrete as I'd like.

Glock 26 has no rail.
Plus I still have other 19's and slides so I can swap the upper to an iron-sighted slide and gain the benefit of extended sight radius while minimizing printing.

Damn man, that's sweet.

You've got balls of steel with that Dremel!

There has got to be a way to bobtail that grip. Cold bore custom does it on glocks. Seems easy enough to do if you know how to use an epoxy or something.

That's awesome!

I plan on doing the same with a Compact 320 grip.

The SC grips lack one rail slot to mount my XC1. Figured I'd take my spare Compact grip and chop it down to SC grip size.

Perfect summer carry gun for me.

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:
There has got to be a way to bobtail that grip. Cold bore custom does it on glocks. Seems easy enough to do if you know how to use an epoxy or something.

Yeah I've been researching a bobtail solution but so far haven't seen one that I like. For now it feels fine. I'm sure down the road I'll tinker some more.

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.

Good post and interesting with all the pics. Question for you. You mentioned you carry aiwb, did the magwell print at all for you? Wouldn't mind having that but wondered if it would print much. My 19 pretty much has the same set up and just curious. I have zero problem concealing the 19 and prefer the grip much more the a cut down or 26 size, but wondered if the flared portion will cause a printing issue.

Pretty neat conversion; the subcomp tactical. A coworker did the same kind of conversion (though no reflex sight or WMP) to his Gen2 years ago. In hindsight he now regrets that he did it to a Gen2, but no regrets in ending up with a more carry-friendly gun for himself. He added a CT laser to his gun and it's served as his primary carry for years.

Me, I just don't feel the need. Maybe I've been carrying the compact frame for so long but when I've tried carrying them the G26/27 grip just doesn't offer any significant advantage for me.

quote:

Originally posted by Draggun:
Good post and interesting with all the pics. Question for you. You mentioned you carry aiwb, did the magwell print at all for you? Wouldn't mind having that but wondered if it would print much. My 19 pretty much has the same set up and just curious. I have zero problem concealing the 19 and prefer the grip much more the a cut down or 26 size, but wondered if the flared portion will cause a printing issue.

With the magwell printing is only slightly more noticeable.

Great post, I over this stuff.
I've never heard of the "denim buffing", very interesting. Can you give more details?

quote:

Originally posted by GCE61:
Great post, I over this stuff.
I've never heard of the "denim buffing", very interesting. Can you give more details?

An old rag made of denim is handy for a few things. It works great as a knife strop.

In this case, I use it to buff kydex and other plastics after sanding. It gives it a satin luster without overpolishing. Plus you don't get the little imperfections that occur with a dremel polishing tip...these and even a buffing wheel can heat up the plastic quickly and you get some melting. Which is okay if you can control it. I prefer manually doing it with a piece of denim. I use it in a motion like you uses when polishing shoes.

The back wall of the mag well is begging for that edge to be knocked down.

I think you covered this in a past post but how does the magwell install, I have a G17 that I cut down to G19 length and filled and recountoured the rear. I would love to install one of those on it.

quote:

Originally posted by dewhorse:
I think you covered this in a past post but how does the magwell install, I have a G17 that I cut down to G19 length and filled and recountoured the rear. I would love to install one of those on it.

What did you use as the fill for your cut down frame? Epoxy?

The Agency magwell is two pieces....you first install the grip plug, then the magwell slips on and is screwed to the plug. There is also a second set screw that goes through the small hole in the back of the Glock grip and secures the plug.

A little update on the 26L RMR gun:
Total rounds: 6700 (most of these fired after the gun was cut down).

I stopped using the magpul 19 mags in this gun, since I carry it with a stock oem 10 round G26 mag. I have a couple of the Magpul 26 mags, but honestly they stick out more than the factory so I don't use them. I've been rotating three 10 rounders and an oem 17 mag for reloads as I carry a 17 round mag as my spare.

I really love love love this gun.
It shoots almost as easily as my full sized 17RMR, and the recoil impulse is very similar to the 26. Which is to say, I tend to have better control with a 26 than a 19. It seems counter-intuitive but it has always been true for me. Something about how my strong hand grips the base of the rear strap much more securely than on a 19. Hence my follow up shots and rapidfire splits are a wee bit faster than with the 17.

The good:
No issues whatsoever with reliability.
No RMR flickering.
No failures.
Accuracy is on par with any other 19 or 17 in my stable.

The bad:

I really have to slam the 10 rounders into the gun to seat them properly. I may have to remove a wee bit more material around the magwell but since I would likely reload with a 17 round mag, it isn't too big an issue other than at the range.

The damned front sight loosened again.
This is the third time it has happened since shooting this gun.
I think it's an issue with Unity Tactical's propriety front sight. Either the thread pitch is off a bit, or simply out of spec.
I'm thinking about using a different screw to see if it works better.
If not, I may go with red loktite rather than blue.

It wouldn't be a big deal since the RMR is my primary sight, but for a carry gun, backup irons are essential.
Note, that it took a couple thousand rounds to loosen. I check it often.

I've been running it with the Glock Gadget rear slide plate, and now reholstering with my thumb on the Gadget has become instinctual.
Time will tell if it really is a necessary item, but it gives me a hell of lot more confidence when reholstering appendix carry.

The holster I made for the gun is running well, but the fabric is looking ugly and seperating from the kydex at the edges. I'm in the process of trying other spray adhesives to see if there's a more secure option.