Posted: 8/18/2007 4:08:18 PM EDT
| has anyone polished the slide on a glock? I am willing to try on my model 27, any hints would be great |
Here is my G19 after a good polishing. I thought that the finish was too shiny and pimpish. Sorry about the other pistols in the pic, it is the only pic of my G19 in that state. Here is the after, this is a teflon coating with additional slide serrations. This was done by a local gunsmith.  Hopefully you can determine what exactly you want after viewing these pics. I spent alot of time and money on getting my G19 exactly how I wanted it. |
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AJE recently posted that he stripped the finish off of his Walther P22 slide by soaking it in a mixture of Hoppe's and mineral spirits. ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=5&f=27&t=47127 |
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While the tenifer treatment of the barrel and slide gives a fantastic surface hardness rating, it penetrates only molecules deep into the metal (i.e. that is why they call it surface hardening). Polishing metal does in fact remove molecules to smooth the surface. Does it remove all the tenifer? No, but Glock's underlying metal is softer than some competitors for durability and machining ease. Taking any tenifer'd surface metal off isn't my idea of a good plan. For strength and safety, I decided to have Tripp Research Cobra Chrome™ my slide on my custom G20/21L I developed. It's mat on the top to avoid glare issues and brushed like stainless on the sides for 'snap'.    If you are going to do it, do it right. (Recent photo below with a Lightning Strike stainless steel magwell installed as the one above was just a temp plastic one that I painted silver.)  |
Caspian's slides had cracking problems years ago and they faded from popularity for a while. Now they are back but I don't know of any differences in their design. Time will tell if the cracking issues come back. |
they still warn that improper fitting of their stainless slides could cause them to crack... i have not heard of this issue with their carbon steel or titanium slides. |
Not hardly. Stainless steel and two-tone Colts, Kimbers, Les Baers, Springfields, and Rock River 1911s are very popular and not even close to being considered pimp guns. My custom G20/21L slide didn't have a tenifer treatment and I wanted a surface treatment to ensure a high degree of corrosion resistance. The painted on approaches don't have the wear resistance that I was looking for so I opted for a plated metal coating for durability. It’s a range / competition gun rather than something for HD or SD (my stock G22 and G23 with TruGlo TFOs fill those needs) so I thought that the brushed stainless steel look might be a nice change from my other all black Glocks. Hard chroming gives me both the corrosion resistance I needed and the look I wanted. Having all your pistols look exactly the same is boring. I don’t collect Glocks, but rather I shoot them. My HD G22 has close to 40K rounds through it in 4 years, my range / competition G20/21L has just under 15K rounds in 3 years and my SD G23 has some 2K rounds. |
I'd still go that route rather than messing with a perfectly good Glock slide. |
dude, I said you could signal a plane. You could put a hook on it and use it as a lure, you can even use it as a mirror to shave  My friend who has a "bright" pistol said when he pulls it, they'll see it better than a black one, it will scare them  really
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Go back and read my second post again carefully as I answered that question already. I said, "My custom G20/21L slide didn't have a tenifer treatment and I wanted a surface treatment to ensure a high degree of corrosion resistance." So you were wrong stating that my custom slide would, "pretty much be impervious to anything." I went on to mention another practical reason for it, slide finish wear resistance, when I said, "The painted on approaches don't have the wear resistance that I was looking for so I opted for a plated metal coating for durability." You see, while the tenifer treatment surface hardens the metal, it does nothing to increase the durability of the surface black applied over it. The Cobra Chrome™ plated surface is very hard and therefore, much more durable than any bluing compound made. That means that my slide isn't susceptible to holster wear marks like all blued pistols and revolvers are (including Glocks). And, concerning the reflective nature of my brushed slide, I have attempted photos of my G22 and G23 (stock slide) that had more glare off them than off the brushed chrome slide. I guess that means that if the sun is right, you can signal a plane with any Glock's slide. Bottom line is that we each have our unique idea of what we want in the various weapons that we include in our hobby. The various choices aren't universally agreed to but that's OK because it is our personal hobby. We don't need anyone's permission to OK our choices. Sometimes that is forgotten during the banter here. As I stated, I have my stock G22 (w/TruGlo TFOs) for HD role and G23 (w/TruGlo TFOs) for CCW and think they fill those roles well. Others have made different choices. Both are right. |
