The Making Of A Glock Race Gun

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OneWound

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A couple of weeks ago, I asked if anyone would be interested in seeing take a stock Glock 17 Gen 3 into a race gun. I now have that! During this project, I'll be custom making my own compensator. I wish I could make more of my own parts, but I don't have enough time to make them sadly.

To start off, I took SJC's 11-port design and made it myself.
Op 2.jpg

To make this, I started off with 2" round 6061 AI stock. On a CNC lathe, I put a 3/8th reamer 2.1" in into the stock. I then using a 1/4" boring bar to make the counter-bore and the hole for a 1/2-28 Tap.
IMG_0246.jpg

When I took it home to see if I had the proper counter-bore length and to make sure it was budding where I wanted to, I discovered that the counter-bore was too long.
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To remedy the counter-bore problem, I said to heck with it and removed it.
To make the round piece of stock into a .5"x.5" square, I put it in a 4-jaw chuck. (Sadly, no pictures of machining the part). But here is the finished piece
IMG_0251.jpg

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If were paying close attention, you would notice that I am missing one port on the top. And you would be right! I forgot to add it late last night using a cam software, but thankfully this is a prototype piece and mistakes were meant to be made!

Here is it mounted to the gun
IMG_0253.jpg
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Another issue I had with this piece is that the 1/8th endmill I used to cut these slots seems to be about .020" to big, but I'll look at that tomorrow. Hopefully I will have more pictures added tomorrow of the final product!

P.S. I am not using 6061 AI for my final material choice.
 
UPDATE: I tried to make this in 1018 CRS, and well, I broke things! First, I broke the 1/2x28 Tap. I then flipped it around and broke the center drill on the otherside...it must be one of those days. I have 7075 AI coming in Monday, should be a lot nicer...I hope.
 
Yes I will be running Open Division. The reason I didn't start with a G34 is because I had a G17. I'm doing this more for fun, and it won't cost me a lot.
 
No I have not yet, the first one was a prototype made of 6061 AI to make sure all of the dimensions were fine and to see what changes I wanted to make. (I'll show those later on tonight). I was actually going to make it out of 1018 CRS, but that broke a tap and a centerdrill...so I ordered 7075 AI and it was at the shop today. Monday, I should have it completed.
 
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Just do the world one small favor, please do not disable any safety devices.

One guy in Pensacola shot himself in the stomach at the range a few years back,
because he had his g'smith disable the trigger safety...he dropped it, when it hit the ground
it went bang right into him...fortunately not anyone else. He survived.
Much squishy hit the fan that day, the range was sold within a year to the club
to get it out of county hands as they wanted nothing more to do with liability...

Upside, made folks very aware of what can easily go wrong...
definitely a learning situation...even for the schmuck.
Point of the story, some one other than the owner might get hurt if a safety is disabled...
and THAT liability is something NOBODY wants...not to mention the blood on their hands...
or the potential return fire...or the lawsuits...etc...etc...
 
Big, thanks for the warning. I was never planning on it. The point of making this race gun is to have something that is convertible to stock configuration if I ever have the need, not want, to sell it.
 
Seems line a bulky compensator would be the last thing needed for the Race Gun aspect, but that's just me.

It might be interesting to run and time a few drills with it stock, then run them again as features are added for comparison.

Years ago for the Blue Press, Rob Leatham and Arnt Myre did that, winner got $1000. They used a single stack 1911 to determine what feature had the most impact.

Long story short, (as memory serves) $1000 in features saved one second in elapsed time.

The biggest impact was a magwell.

Arnt edged out Rob for the $1000 prize
 
David, I do have to agree but that's what I've seen in most YouTube videos from people who are sponsored by major gun companies. So who knows?
 
UPDATE 2: So today, I got a nice 13" chunk of 2" 7075 round stock. And from that, I was able to start getting the final piece machined. On the pictures down below, you can see a black sharpie. That sharpie mark is going to represent the top of the compensator once it is completely machined on Monday. Yes that is the lazy way of doing it, but oh well it works quite well.
IMG_0256.jpg

IMG_0257.jpg

As well, I made a design change on my compensator. I have changed it from an 11-port design to a 10-port design because I wanted about a .100" wall thickness on everything. On my previous prototype, I had about .03" wall thickness on my 1/8" endmill (was hoping for .05") because a 1/8" endmill will apparently wiggle about .02" when it is .9" in a part and sticks out over 1.5" in its tool holder! The design change is shown below.
Part2.jpg
 
I believe, at this time, I can say that I've never seen a Glock Open gun that runs reliably. Don't know why, but they just seem to suck as an Open platform.

At the 2013 Pro Am I watched KC Eusebio of team Glock (obviously with unlimited resources to make his stuff work) get up to stage one, death jam, match basically over at that point. Get up on stage 2, same thing. I believe at that point he threw all his crap in the car and drove back to ATL to try to get the issues sorted out for steel challenge nationals the following weekend. He was on the squad behind me at Area 6 the same year, and had enough functional problems to cost him the win.

I have another more "local" type buddy who tries his level best to shoot an Open Glock, but his wont run either. I don't know how many times he's had it back to the smith.. a lot.

So, if this is an academic exercise , then cool. If it is for actual competitive use and needs to run, and you have not done real research into what it takes to make a Glock open gun, personally I'd recommend doing some of that before moving along too far with the build.
 
OneWound said:
Big, thanks for the warning. I was never planning on it. The point of making this race gun is to have something that is convertible to stock configuration if I ever have the need, not want, to sell it.
Click to expand...

Good man! :)

Its a warning passed on anytime I hear the words "Race Gun"...as some folks do go kinda nuts...
your project looks pretty darn neat so far!! Love the pics!!
 
ny32182 said:
I believe, at this time, I can say that I've never seen a Glock Open gun that runs reliably. Don't know why, but they just seem to suck as an Open platform.
Click to expand...

I shoot almost every week with a guy who has a Glock-based open gun. It runs pretty darn well. FWIW, I dislike Glocks and have no interest in them. I think the fact that they generally have to run 9mm major, as opposed to .38 super, poses some problems. But it certainly can be done.
 
Before I forget to ask, does anyone want blueprints of this compensator?
 
So close yet so far! I got done with everything today but taking off my counter-bore and parting off the tool. Here's the part almost completed :D!
IMG_0262.jpg

IMG_0264.jpg

I was able to attach it to the gun at least, and found out I'm maybe .03"(?) off from the compensator being level with the slide. Which is not bad considering everything was eyeballed. I'm thinking I'm going to add a 1/32 plastic washer or something to see if that helps. That shouldn't be too hard.
IMG_0261.jpg

Tomorrow we shall be complete!:evil:
P.S. I did get about a 15 second video of it doing one of the ports, but it's complete crap because the plastic panes are hard to see through. If anyone wants to see it, just give me a holler and I'll upload it on here.
 
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DONE!!!!

What a relief it is to be done...oh what a relief. Today, I was able to take off my counter-bore and part it off from the round piece of stock. I'd like to paint it or something, but does anyone have any experience working with 7075-T651 AI?
Anyways, from now on every part will be ordered because I no longer have access to CNC equipment. I'll try to have a video of me shooting it by the end of this week, no promises though. Spam picture time!
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And it works! Almost anyways...it's now stove piping. Could it be from the compensator lightly touching the recoil guide or do I need a lighter recoil spring?
 
I am skeptical as to whether if Aliminum alloy is a proper material for that application.
 
Test, if 7075 AI is good enough for an AR upper than it is good enough for me.
 
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