Glock 17 gen4 Endurance Test: Week 10

The G17 spent three days on the range this week, two teaching in Connecticut and one practice.

The Glock is beginning to aggravate the middle knuckle of the middle finger of my shooting hand. It got to the point today that I had to take a break from 2H and SHO work and do nothing but WHO shooting. After about 300 rounds of that, the middle knuckle of the middle finger of my left hand was screaming, too. But it was a great opportunity to work on my WHO press outs, which is something sorely needed with the seven pound trigger on my G17.

I shot a 90 on JodyH‘s 99 Drill today. For the first time ever, I cleaned the first stage (10 reps of 3 shots to a 3×5 at 7yd from concealment with a par time of 2.5 seconds). I dropped three shots on the reload stage, two at the 10yd stage, and an embarrassing four (out of nine) at 15yd. The misses at 15yd weren’t even close. I was either anticipating or doing something unspeakable to the trigger because two of the shots landed 3-4″ below the 3×5 target.

I’m definitely finding the orange-painted Heinie front sight much harder to lock onto visually than the Hackathorn front I’d been using. I’ll probably try to get my hands on a set of the new Trijicon HD sights next.

The G17 has gone just over 7,500 rounds since it was last cleaned and while it isn’t having any reliability issues the trigger pull has become gritty and generally insufferable. As such, I will break down and clean it this weekend… much as it pains me, at least detail stripping the Glock only takes thirty seconds.

I had thirty rounds left over at the end of today’s session and rather than go home with a partial box (which is the Eighth Deadly Sin, I believe) I did some stupid stuff:

• A few years back I became obsessed with the ability to hit a 8.5×11 sheet of paper ten times from concealment in three seconds at five yards. It’s a nonsensical drill but it was something I wanted to achieve. It’s been quite a while since I thought about it but, well, I had that extra ammo today. So I gave it a try at 7yd and made all ten hits.
• Having more ammo left, I tried getting ten hits on half a sheet of paper at 7yd in 3 seconds from concealment. Again, got all my hits. I was able to do this by folding the original sheet of paper in half because all ten of my shots the first time ended up in the bottom half of the target (anticipation, party of ten your table is ready).
• Having ten rounds left — and not surprisingly, top half of the target without a bullet hole in it  — I tried doing it on a quarter sheet. Suffice to say I didn’t get all the shots off, didn’t hit all the shots I fired, and don’t think I’ll be trying that again anytime soon.

Between a Memorial Day cookout/shoot and one or two practice sessions this coming week, the G17 should see some good high round count use. The next weekend I’m off to Southnarc’s AMIS class which won’t involve any live fire but probably will involve me getting shot in the face repeatedly. Which means it’s probably good there won’t be any live fire.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

Previous Glock 17 gen4 Endurance Test posts at pistol-training.com:

• Week 9
• Week 8
• Week 6
• Week 5
• Week 4
• Week 3
• Week 2
• Week 1
• 99.8%
• It Lives
• Week Zero
• When Will It Stop?
• Announcement