Do it yourself Limited Gun

I’ve talked a lot about USPSA and IDPA guns here on the blog, and today I wanted to talk about a relatively simple way that you can build your own gun for Limited Division competition – you get all the pride of ownership of having put the package together yourself, and at the same time you will be able to learn a lot about the internal function of your firearm.  The platform for our “do it yourself” Limited Gun isn’t going to be a 1911 – it’s actually going to be a Glock 35, which is the longslide “competition” Glock in .40 S&W.  For the sake of the post, I’m going to assume that you want to turn your Glock into a full on custom rod-hot, so we’re going to do an example of taking the modifactions to the literal max.

To start with, you’re going to head over to Brownells and purchase their excellent “All-in-one” Glock tool, which is quite literally all the tools you’ll need to perform this build.  Once you have the tools, you can then start on building the pistol.  As an aside, I’m not going to go into detailed instructions on how to put all the parts together in this post, I’m merely going to list all the components for the uber-Glock.

Step 1 of the actual build is to get yourself a new frame.  Bear in mind that all these steps are optional, as the Glock 35 out of the box is ready to go for Limited division in USPSA, but since we’re playing with pretend money, we might as well have some fun, right?  So we go over to CCF Race Frames  and pick up a new frame for the gun.  Personally, I’d go with the alloy option, as it balances the desired attribute of making the gun a little heavier without making it too heavy.

Now that we have our frame, we need to do something about the trigger.  Stock Glock 35s have a pretty good trigger out of the box for a Glock, but it’s not great.  That means our next stop is Glockworx, to pick up one of their Fulcrum Ultimate Trigger kits.  The neat thing about the Fulcrum is that it is actually 100% drop-in (this is also a neat feature of Glocks in general, i.e. they’re easy to work with), which means that just like every other step of this build, you can do it at home.  The Fulcrum trigger also comes with a new striker for your Glock, which is designed to be lighter and thus make the gun function faster.

Now we have trigger and frame, so let’s move on to the upper half of the gun.  Starting with the barrel, we toss out the factory Glock barrel and replace it with a Storm Lake Glock barrel.  I have a Storm Lake barrel in my Glock 24, and it’s superbly accurate.  This is a well made precision barrel, which is capable of delivering all the accuracy you’re going to need for IPSC.

We’re not done yet though, because this wouldn’t be the uber-Glock without the addition of a Caspian slide.  Caspian is well known for their custom 1911s and parts, however their Glock slides are top of the line as well.

As we get near the end of the build, we still need to get a couple of key parts.  While not in possession of a great website, IMSI does make some excellent springs for your Glock pistol, including a complete set for replacing the polymer guide rod in your Glock with a steel guide rod and 13 pound recoil spring. Once we have the new recoil spring, the last item we need for our competition Glock to be complete is to replace the factory sights mounted on the gun. Trijicon, Novak, and a whole raft of manufacturers make aftermarket sights for the Glock pistol, and it’s up to you to choose the model that best fits you. Personally, I tend to prefer an all black rear sight with a fiber optic front sight for competition; I’ve always had problems with the “three dot” system when I’m trying to shoot quickly. With one fiber optic (or tritium insert) I find that my eyes are naturally drawn right to the front sight, which is where they should be. With three dots, I’ve noticed a bit of hesitation in picking up the front post, as for some reason it takes my brain just a fraction of a second longer to figure out which dot it should be focused on.

That’s it for the uber-Glock build – all the parts and toys you need to turn your factory Glock 35, or Glock 22 into a hot-rod Limited Gun. I should also point out that all these modifications would make the gun not legal for use in IDPA. Additionally, the best part about all of these modifications? They’re all totally optional. Unlike a bone stock 1911 (which I am not knocking, so don’t kill me), a Glock 35 is ready to go for competition right out of the box.

12 Comments

  1. Compared to a bone stock 1911?
    Shouldn’t a Glock 35 be compared to a bone stock Gold Cup?

  2. Fair enough. I suppose a better comparison would have been to compare the Glock 35 to a Para 16-40 Limited or a gun that’s designed out of the box for competition.

    But then I wouldn’t have been able to rile up the 1911 guys. 😉

  3. Caleb,
    So if you replace the frame, slide, barrel, trigger, striker, guide rod, sights and springs…what are you left with from the original gun?

    Or am I missing sarcasm?

  4. Magazine release, slide lock, locking block for the barrel and all the standard Glock pins.

    Not a whole lot, to answer the question. In fact, it would probably be better to just buy all the parts and build it that way.

    The point though is the modularity of the pistol – the only mod I’d do out of all of those would be the trigger, a new barrel, and new sights.

  5. Have you ever tried out the CCF Raceframes? They don’t have a great reputation for durability or reliability.

    Also, don’t forget the magazine extensions!

    – CJR

  6. I have, actually – that’s why if I were building the gun, I’d leave the stock Glock frame on it. I figure if it’s good enough for Dave Sevigny, it’s good enough for me.

  7. I would throw a little more kerosene on the fire here and ask, beg, PLEAD with shooters to LEAVE THEIR GLOCK ALONE! ! ! I still occasionally show up with a box-stock G-35 and shoot at my local IPSC matches (Silver Medal in the last Aloha State games I participated in , not enough practice to get the gold). I see guys with uber-Glocks, and they all have two things in common. They all shoot faster than I do, and their guns all have reliability issues. I win matches with box stock Glocks because they never malfunction. I seldom win a stage. I always place in the top 3 in the final standings. Leave the springs, striker, trigger, slide, frame, etc ALONE. Put new sights on if you want. Shoot, clean, repeat.

  8. This is solid advice – like I’ve said, the Glock is ready to go right out of the box. Personally, I like Storm Lake Barrels and I like the Glockworx trigger so I change those items, but formerflyer is right – other than the sights, there is nothing on that gun that needs to be changed to make it competitive.

  9. Eh, yes and no. You can be competitive with a bone-stock Glock in Production. You can’t in Limited – at the very least you need +5 magazine extensions, just to keep up with the guys running S*Is.

    My first, and fondly remembered, Limited gun was a Glock 35 with all the competition chi-chis. I shot that gun to several 1st and 2nd place finishes at section and area matches, and it very rarely malfunctioned. That said, Glocks do tend to run better when left mostly stock. If I were to go back to a Glock, I’d shave down the trigger safety, install a set of Dawson sights, and add Tru-Grip grip tape to the frame.

    -CJR

  10. Yeah, I probably should have been a little more clear about that.

    However, Dave Sevigny won the Limited-10 division with a mostly stock Glock 35.

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