G19 Gen 5 MOS now with Burris Fastfire III

[Trey Veston]

I know when I was researching what sight to use, finding pics of the new G19 Gen 5 MOS with this particular sight installed was difficult, so I thought I'd make a post so people could find something to reference when thinking about the same combo.

Bought the G19 about a month ago and it is a joy to shoot. Just a very natural pointing pistol for me and is my carry gun. Also hope to use it for GSSF as well. The bad part was that I have astigmatism and am very near-sighted, so I wear progressive glasses. I bought new glasses this summer and the near-sight section was much smaller, making using sights nearly impossible. They are always blurry. I bought a cheap $50 reflex sight off of Amazon to test out on my G29. Unfortunately, the astigmatism causes the red dot to be distorted, making it not much better than standard sights. I shot one GSSF match with it and my scores were just slightly better than with open sights.

I read the reviews of the Burris, and it was supposedly parallax free and would be clear for folks with astigmatism. It's not, unfortunately... The damn dot is still blurry and distorted. But the sight itself is impressively light and well-made. Definitely a step up from the Amazon/China stuff.

It fits the Glock 9mm slide width perfectly and looks good.

I had three carry holsters for the G19 and the sight only works with one; some off-brand OWB kydex I got off of Amazon that I didn't really like. So now I'm in search of an optics-friendly IWB holster with sweat guard.

The install itself was easy, but only because I researched and learned that I needed some aftermarket screws. Bought some M3-.05 x 8mm screws and filed them down to 7mm length. The Glock 6mm screws are too short and the 8mm screws are too long. The new screws were $.25 each and are perfect now.

My go to the range tomorrow to see if my 25yd groups will shrink.



I wish the dot looked this clear with my eyes; looks like something from an ink-blot test to me...

 

[Trey Veston]

And no; not planning on adding suppressor sights even though it's a carry gun.

My brother, stepdad, and I were talking about it the other night. Brother is a veteran cop and now a Detective who has been involved in shootings. Dad is a retired Chief of Police and FBI guy.

I trust their opinion and input into such things. The current defensive drill that local cops (and me) are using is to draw and fire two rounds point shooting as soon as the firearm clears the holster, then while backing up, the firearm is brought up and two more shots are fired using the sights.

We talked about the odds of first even being involved in a defensive shooting, which are miniscule. Then the odds of being in a defensive shooting where aimed fire vs. point shooting was required, then the scenario of being in a defensive shooting, where aimed fire was needed, and the red dot malfunctioned. We agreed that the odds of such were astronomically tiny.

 

[dave333]

I ran a FF3 in a dovetail mount on a modified CZ P-09 for a season and a half of USPSA shooting major 9 rounds through it. Also had it mounted to a .40 cal P-09 for a year prior to that shooting Action pistol matches. It never lost zero or failed me in any way, and I beat it up pretty good both physically and putting no telling how many thousands of rounds of extremely hot ammo through it. Im very impressed with the ruggedness of the FF3. Mine looks like hell now but if I was going to battle with a dot I would take it.

 

[thomas15]

My go to the range tomorrow to see if my 25yd groups will shrink.

Have you had a chance to try it out yet? If so what are your thoughts?

 

[Trey Veston]

Have you had a chance to try it out yet? If so what are your thoughts?

Groups at 25yds shrunk considerably, while groups at shorter distances stayed the same. That confirms that it was my eyes that were the limiting factor in long-range accuracy. *sigh* I guess I'm just not quite ready to acknowledge that I'm getting old.

I only had a couple of hours to test it out so used whatever two types of reloads were in the range bag, along with random 9mm factory ammo. I also installed a leftover Storm Lake barrel that I had bought for my old Gen 4 G19.

The sight and pistol performed perfectly and there were no issues. After approximately 100 rounds, the sight remained firmly attached.

The pistol definitely prefers lighter bullets with my 115gr Hornady FNJ with 5.5gr of Ramshot Silhouette the most accurate. The pistol is now officially approved for confident carry since it has turned in a best group of 1 7/8" with a 2" average for that load. The factory Remington UMC 115gr JHPs were the most accurate factory ammo with averages of around 2.5".





Least accurate, oddly enough, were 124gr Speer Gold Dots over 5.5gr of Ramshot Silhouette.



But, I only ran the four different loads I happened to have with me and will do more testing later.

The Storm Lake barrel proved to be horribly inaccurate; same as it was in the older G19. Groups sizes increased nearly 100% in some cases. Done with that barrel.

 

[thomas15]

Thank you for your response. Allow me to describe my situation, I have a number of Glocks. As I mention from time to time most of my shooting is revolver and that mainly Steel Challenge. I want to spend more time this year shooting other guns so given that I have enough gear to shoot USPSA production this seems like the place to start.

From my collection of Glocks I have identified two that I want to use in the immediate future. The first is a Gen 4 G17, this gun has a drop in trigger, springs and rods and so forth and Dawson Precision fixed sights. The other is a brand new Gen 5 G34 MOA. Actually what I want to so is put a dot on the G17 using a dovetail mount and put match adjustable iron sights on the G34. I think that once I get going, I will shoot the G17 in carry optics in USPSA and Steel Challenge. I have right now a Burris FF3 mounted on an AR style rimfire rifle using the picatinny mount, I will take that off and do a direct dovetail mount to the G17. I think this is easy to do.

Cost will be $50.00 for the dovetail mount and about $125.00 for the sights for the G34 plus I will need to replace the dot on my rifle, this will be a C-MORE Railway about $250.00 I think the C-MORE will be a better dot for the rifle due to the bigger glass although I have no real complaints with the FF3. Add to that about another $100.00 for trigger/misc. upgrades on the G34 but this will give me 2 reasonably decent guns, one production the other carry optics and gives me what I think will be an improvement over the FF3 on my rifle, all this for roughly $500 I will leave the upgrades to the G34 for last and start shooting it stock for now.

Thing is I have never shot a slide mounted dot and while I have a favorable opinion of the FF3 I want to get some users opinions and that is why I asked you what you think of the arrangement. Like you I shoot with dot sights as my eyesight isn't what it used to be. When I remount the FF3 it will be the 3rd gun it's been on. Since it has been a while since I first mounted it I had forgotten that the picatinny base is separate for the sight. But seeing the picture you posted gave me the idea to look at the instruction manual and determine that I can do a direct dovetail mount on the G17, I'm going to get a EGW mount for that.