I own two Glocks purchased back in 98 and around 2000 and they are pretty much impervious to holster wear and straches. They still look brand new. Some call it the "frying pan" finish, but I don't think its a finish at all. I believe its part of the tenifer process just like salt bath nitrate.

Recently bought a G17 and the dam thing is scratched up after just a few holster draws. The finish now is something that is sprayed on to look like parkerising. Could be just water based paint for all we know. Spray paint would probably hold up 10x better than this crap.

Glock is cutting corners somewhere. How else can I explain their $499.00 price now vs $525.00 I paid for my G19 back in 2000. I still have the reciept.

Or is it that Tenifer is so environmentally toxic that they can no longer do it?

The outside layer of the finish is indeed trash. Glock is still using a treatment similar to tennifer though, nitrocarburizing or something like that that. It's essentially a gas/mist version of the bath method they used to use as far as I know. In any which case the corrosion resistance is still the same. Even before they had to stop using tennifer the cosmetic finish could be inconsistent from year to year, I've had one gen 3 with a delicate finish and another with the tough one. The delicate stuff you're talking about will APPEAR to wear faster but the metal treatment is similar to tennifer in that you can scrape all the finish off the outside and the gun will still be protected.

I'm not talking trash, but if you wanted a safe queen I'd look elsewhere since it is a common issue with glocks now. If it's a shooter I wouldn't worry about it, it's only cosmetic. Mine has a good portion of the finish worn through and even though I sweat like a pig I haven't had any rust issues.

I haven't seen much wear on mine yet, but I do miss the older finish. It had a more pleasing dark black "wet" looking coating if that makes sense, where my current G43 looks more like a "dry" graphite grey color.

Went through the glock armorers course in 2013.  The instructor told us the process for the coating is called Nitration. Because tenifer has a toxic by product that can't be used in America.

It's a finish.  The process for corrosion resistance supposedly has no effect of changing the color of the steel.  The finish is what does that.

That's just what you paid at the time, not what they cost...

Around 2000(ish) the blue label price for a small frame Glock was $325 IIRC, now they are $398.  So Glock prices are not going down if that's what you were implying.

As for the current finish, Glock now uses gaseous ferritic nitrocarburizing (soft nitride) on the slides, which does wear quicker than the older "frying pan" finish, but in reality if your looking for a show pistol you should not be looking at a Glock anyway.  My issued G17 shows plenty of honest wear, but I have never had any issues with corrosion, which is what actually matters.

Send your slide to Jagerwerks and have it disassembled, Cerakoted, your new sights installed, reassembled, and shipped back to you for $50.  

Pretty tough to beat, and Cerakote is as tough (if not tougher) than the Tenifer finish was, and you get to pick the color.

http://jagerwerks.com/cerakote-1/

All of this.  

There was a matte finish for a while that was decent, but the other matte finish sucked.  The frying pan was the best

Tennifer is a brand name one company's nitrocarburizing technique.  In Europe I believe tennifer is slang for nitrocarburizing, sort of like how "Kleenex" essentially means "tissue" even if it's not the Kleenex brand.  They use a slightly different version now because it's cheaper and more consistent, I believe I read somewhere they do gaseous ferritic nitrocarburizing now.  Think boiling vs steaming.  Either way, your food is getting cooked.  

The finish on the outside is not nitrocarburizing, it's some proprietary coating on top of the nitro.  If you were actually rubbing off the nitrocarburized layer you'd have raw steel exposed to the elements which would rust very quickly.  I believe their rationale for the new style is that it's less reflective than the old "frying pan" finish. I'd bet there's a cost factor in there too, but all of this is only speculation because their manufacturing process isn't public.  Keep that in mind when reading responses and the Wikipedia article I posted.

Functionally the new coating should be just as corrosion resistant as the old one.  Cosmetically it is easier to wear but less reflective.  Glocks aren't exactly known for their cosmetics, so cost was probably a higher priority than a shiny finish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferritic_nitrocarburizing

This is a great deal. I'll consider it if my 17 gets more beat up. Always wanted a different color Glock anyways.

Thanks.

Tenifer does not wear off with holster wear. It is PRE phosphate coating treatment of the metal.

What wears off is the shitty phosphate coating that Glock is using now. Even with it worn off your slide and barrel are protected.

I am a fan of the fryin pan finish myself. Around 2010 - 2015 Glock did batches of what I call frying pan lite. It's not as Orange peelish as the original but is black and glossy. I've owned and have seen 19.4's and 17.4's with this at the same time the new matte grey finish has been offered.

With that said I did pick up a USA made 17.3 this morning due to it having the frying pan lite finish as I HATE the matte grey.

Attached File

Well I sent my G4 19 slide back to Glock for refinishing, in the notes I said I wanted that frying pan finish LOL, two week turnaround time and $45 so we will see how well it turns out...

I didn't know that was an option.  Do they do anything special with the sights (install new?)?

I think you can get them to install factory night sights, but they won't don much else?  I stripped my slide except for the channel liner

You will definitely have to let us know.

I'm getting ready to send my Glock 19 gen 4 in for night sights, if I can get the frying pan finish I would like that. I have the frying pan finish on my Glock 26 gen 2.5 and I like it.

You know I've never really given it much thought but now that you mention it you've got me thinking...I really miss my older frying pan finished Glocks. It's a very satisfying finish, it makes my current untextured matte Glocks feel unfinished in comparison.

Yeah I have that finish on my G3-19 here is a pic of the slide I sent back  I know it's not the best picture

Glocks are handguns. Handguns are tools. The rest of my tools have wear on them from being used. My firearms are no different.

As long as my gun isn't rusting away like a piece of shit Freedom Group 870 I don't lose sleep over holster wear and minor blemishes.

Yes same here don't really care how they look, my 43 is beat up with big scratches in the black and other holster wear,  as long as it functions, but really wanted to see how well Glock does on the refinishing and it's fairly cheap and quick turnaround times...

Mossberg 500 baby!

+2

For the love of God.........

The metal TREATMENT(tenifer, nitrate, ky :) has nothing to do with the FINISH!

2 separate things.
You can not SEE the metal treatment.

But yeah the new Glock finishes SUCK.

shameless plug is shamless  lol

I fell for it

$80 to do a slide only?

There is always some deal going on. Add it to your cart.



Which brings it in line with local shops here.

Do not be a hater.....  Support our site vendors they support the sight and $80 is not bad for just a slide refinishing.  Consider if the vendor has to do a specific color just for your slide.  Now if the vendor was doing a whole lot of black finishes on 10 slides I would think he might cut a break because it does not cost him as much.

I keep hearing the old coating was toxic so they stopped using it but I have never see any proof. Gold refining should be similarly toxic and that is commonly done in the USA as far as I know. Does anyone know the real story? I have a "new" glock and I agree with the op the new finish is pretty crappy.

EPA rules prohibit it in the USA so to be uniform they changed over to the new method in Austria as well.  Tenifer uses cyanide salts for the nitrogen treatment.

There is very little that is "prohibited" in the US, we do have disposal requirements for certain types of waste though which can be expensive.  I've never seen anything except conjecture that it's prohibited, but it is probably more expensive than competing treatments.  If one treatment produces toxic waste, and another doesn't, it makes sense to avoid all of the disposal requirements and expenses for toxic waste.  

The whole "It's the EPA's fault they banned it!" has persisted despite there being little/no evidence to support it.  I'm guessing it's because some people love to hate the EPA, and the rest of us usually don't care enough to look into it.  For some reason gun culture is full of rumors like this, it seems more so than most other hobbies.

Also, tennifer is basically a "brand name" of a particular vendor for nitrocarburizing, they may have decided to use another vendor due to pricing, which means they can no longer call it tennifer.  I also recall that they use a different process now that uses gas instead of liquid, which supposedly is easier to control (and likely has less waste).  That's just a rumor though, as far as I know they don't publicly disclose the particular manufacturing steps of their pistols.


edit:  http://www.finishing.com/324/69.shtml has a good discussion.  Here's one particular quote that sticks out to me:



I've seen a few people point to glock's improved corrosion resistance when compared to other guns that use "melonite" or some other generic nitrocarburization as definitive proof that tennifer is different and better.  The problem is there are many different things that go into corrosion resistance, including steel type and the exact setup parameters of the nitrocarburization.  It's kind of like how you can have two different things chrome plated, and one of them may rust/degrade before the other depending on the underlying material, and how exactly the chrome was applied.  It's not a 1 variable problem, although it's often portrayed as one.  

So you can either try to balance all of the variables, and be careful what conclusions you draw and really not get anywhere and admit you don't have enough information to be sure, or you can blame the EPA and shoddy modern workmanship and have a simple definitive answer (although it may be wrong).  Option 2 is certainly easier, and you get to blame a government agency and talk about how much better things were back in the day, it's win win win.

Long story short they're treating the actual steel of the slide, that even if the finish rubs off it should still not rust. So even if it looks like it's bare steel, it's not.

Whatever that finish that goes over that to make the slide is total rubbish. It rubs off in a holster. Actually I just started rubbing it with my thumb and made it come off.

My wife has a G30 Gen 3 that she bought in 2008/9.  The finish is jet black with a slick orange peel texture.  I like it a lot.

My G22 gen 3 (circa 2014) and G27 Gen 4 (circa 2016) both have the shitty looking graphite gray smooth finish.  They aren't rusting, but I like the older finish better.

I guess I'm lucky my (2011) Glock 19.3 has the old finish. It had other problems, but now it's almost "perfection."

While my tennifer finished G17.3 seemed as if it did not wear as fast as the new style finish, it did have holster wear eventually almost identical to my G17.4. It does seem that the new finish does come off quicker but, with use, they'll all wear eventually so, it doesn't really bother me as much. For the record, I did like the looks of the tennifer finish though.

<shrug> I miss the old flat Parkerized-like finish of the gen2's. That stuff showed wear like crazy.