Goodbye M&P, Hello Glock 34

After talking about it for a number of years I finally picked up a Glock 34 to shoot in competition.

I moved away from Glocks temporarily because I was having slide bite issues, and the new beavertail backstraps hadn’t been released yet for the Gen4 pistols. Now they are, and I’m back.

I’m not a “Glock guy” (see Episode 24 of the podcast) but I have found that I prefer them over the M&P’s I’ve been shooting for a while. They seem to fill my hand better and I like the way they point. Unfortunately though, out of the box they do require a bit more work to be ready to shoot, and I’ve got a lot of worked lined up for mine before I even bother to shoot it.

Remove the garbage plastic sights and push my Sevigny sights back into the slide. The stock Glock sights are just awful, and the factory adjustables that came on this Glock 34 are even worse.

Remove the extended slide release and replace with a regular sized Glock slide release. I never had a problem getting to the standard slide release, but  and after switching from the M&P Pro 9mm to my Glock 17 a couple of months ago, I found myself riding the slide release so much that the slide doesn’t lock back on empty.

Change the connector. In the past I’ve been pretty happy running the Zev 2lb Race connector with all of the stock springs. This nets me a short trigger in the 4lb range (don’t let the name of the connector fool you). I’m not sure exactly what connectors I have in the house right now, but I surely have something suitable for this pistol. I did swap in a standard Glock 3.5lb connector but took it back out because I wasn’t happy with it. I guess that’s the way it goes with mass produced cheap parts…

Clean up any grit in the trigger. This particular pistol seems pretty good, but I’ll still give the insides a good once over with a set of stones just to be sure everything is as smooth as can be.

Buy a holster. I ended up ordering a Glock 34 holster from D&D Holsters, which is a local company that makes kydex holsters for competition. I’ve been seeing their holsters around for years, but never got around to ordering one until now. Can’t wait to get it!

I also need magazine pouches. For far too long I’ve been using cobbled together junk, and it’s time to just buy a nice set and run them so I can quit complaining about gear. I’ve been curious about the Ghost mag pouches for some time now, as they tension the magazine with a leaf spring, and they work for just about any magazine should I ever find myself switching guns again.

Last night I hammered in the Sevigny sights and stoned a couple places on the trigger bar. Today I had the opportunity to hit the range with the Glock 34 and I couldn’t be happier. I backed up to 35 yards and had no problem ringing a piece of roughly 6″x6″ steel at that distance.

I’m happy.