Glock 17 gen4 Endurance Test: Week 41

54,460 rounds

9 stoppages (+1 w/non-LCI extractor)

0 malfunctions

1 parts breakages

Much of this week was spent trying new gear.

While picking up some spare maintenance items at Glockparts.com I came across the Brass Stacker Reserve Round (Glockparts catalog link here). It’s a solid steel floorplate that comes with a metal locking plate and ISMI magazine spring. Weighing three quarters of an ounce more than the regular floorplate, it theoretically helps magazines drop free. But the biggest benefit is that without any significant change to the overall size of the magazine, the Reserve Round increases the magazine’s capacity by one.

While one round obviously isn’t a gigantic increase, would you go out and buy a 16rd G17 magazine? Probably not. One more is still better than one less. And from a training standpoint, being able to load 18 at a time into the gun is nice for a number of exercises like the Bill Drill.

I grabbed two of them and will use them during practice for the next few months to evaluate how well they hold up compared to stock floorplates and springs. For now, they are solely for range use.

Brass Stacker on top	Brass Stacker on left

I also gave the Ghost Ultimate connector a try momentarily this week. Not a fan.

It reduced trigger pull significantly, taking the G17 from 5? pounds to 4? pounds, a difference of ¾ pound. In fact it was so light that initially I decided not to try it live fire. But the Crimson Trace LG-850 Lasergrip is wide enough that it noticeably hinders my leverage on the trigger, so I decided to give it a whirl. My friend joshs tried it and remarked on the lack of perceptible reset. Undeterred, I decided to do some group shooting. The trigger breaks very abruptly compared to the nice roll of the Lone Wolf 3.5 connector that I use, and seems to break slightly farther forward as well. In addition, the reset comment by joshs proved true and the combination of imperceptible reset and different break point made resetting the gun… odd. So it came out and the LW3.5 went back in.

I also put 400 rounds through my new Glock 26. Once it’s had 500 rounds of ball ammo and another 200 rounds of JHP through it with no stoppages, it will graduate from range status to backup/NPE use.

Otherwise, most of this week was devoted to working with the Crimson Trace LG-850 Lasergrip.

Zero seems to be holding steady, though I did have to make very minor adjustments to both windage and elevation after removing and replacing the grips during the connector swaps.

I’m slowly re-acclimating to the laser. After comparing notes with joshs, I realized I was bringing the pistol to the center of my face when shooting with the laser rather than putting it in the same line from right eye to target used for iron sight shooting. The result of the misplaced gun was a tendency to send shots high and right when shooting fast. When I really focused on putting the gun where it needed to be, things went very well.

For example, just two weeks ago I tried the 99 Drill with the LG-850 and scored a disappointing 71 (-9, -2, -12, -5). This week, after about a thousand rounds of dedicated laser-sighted practice, that went up to 93 (-1, -3, -1, -1). All three of the misses on string two were the second shot after the reload, and I distinctly saw the gun centered in front of me again instead of lined up with my right eye.

I shot Press Six with the laser, as well, and scored a satisfactory 56 out of 62 (-0, -0, -1, -0, -3, -2).

Next was the iHack, which is the pistol-forum.com Drill of the Week. Compared to a score of 31 out of 36 with the iron sights, I managed only 27/36 with the laser. At five yards, the 2″ circle is difficult because the laser dot is offset from the muzzle. That results in shots going about one inch high and left. Unless I took the time to aim for the bottom right corner of the 2″ dot, I ran the risk of sending shots outside the circle.

Each day of practice this week I shot the F.A.S.T. cold three times with the laser.

Wednesday:

• 4.76 (clean): 1.60, .54 / 1.92 / .24, .23, .23
• 4.89 (clean): 1.66, .47 / 1.96 / .27, .27, .26
• 4.38 (clean): 1.39, .43 / 1.85 / .24, .23, .24

Friday:

• 6.73  (-1 head): 1.39, .48 / 2.14 / .25, .24, .23
• 4.48 (clean): 1.42, .46 / 1.87 / .24, .25, .24
• 4.47 (clean): 1.38, .41 / 1.99 / .24, .25, .20

As Friday’s first run proves, one disadvantage to the laser is that it’s easy to see your misses. That slowed my reload while I paused a few moments to swear at myself mentally.

Overall, I remain happy with the LG-850. I do wish it wasn’t affecting my trigger pull so much, but hopefully that is something that can be fixed over time. It’s also reinforcing my experience from previous years of laser use, which is that shooting well with the laser requires extra time and effort, not less time and effort.

See you next week!

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

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

• Week 40
• Week 39
• Week 38
• Week 37
• Week 36
• Week 35
• Week 34
• Week 33
• Week 32
• Week 31
• Week 30
• Week 29
• Week 28
• Week 27
• Week 26
• Week 25
• Week 24
• Week 23
• Week 22
• Week 21
• Week 20
• Week 19
• Week 18
• 25,000 Rounds with the G17 gen4
• Week 17
• Week 15
• Week 13
• Week 12
• Week 11
• Week 10
• 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