If you are working on a Polymer80 build or even wanting to overhaul your existing Glock, there are a ton of parts on eBay. You can find some good deals but I would recommend you stick with reputable brands and sellers. For the sellers, I would look for lots of sales – at least over 30 and ideally hundreds – and very good scores. There are cheap imports/knock-offs showing up so beware no-name stuff.
The following are all real-time listing on eBay so you can go there and find parts.
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The factory sights on Glocks leave a lot to be desired in my opinion. I like fiber optic sights but also want sights that generate their own light at night. Fortunitely, TruGlo has upgrade sights for Glocks that can do just that. They are the TFX Pro model sights.
The fiber optics use daylight and are very nicely visible. I know there is a trend for red dot optics on pistols but I would rather opt for simplicity. The other really nice thing about these sights is that they use tritium to generate their own light at night – some sights make you charge them with a flashlight but not these. The only issue to bear in mind is that the Tritium isotopes with flouresce for about 10 years and then be dead. My thinking is that is a loooonnnngggg time from now plus it just would affect the night use at that time.
So, let’s get to it, Installation has two discrete steps – replacing the back sight and then the front sight. Both of these can be done by most home gunsmiths because the Glock design is pretty forgiving. Some pistols require a top notch MGW sight pusher to be removed but not the Glocks. The below is based on my experience installing these sights both on my Polymer 80 based Glock 17 and 34 Gen 3 compatible pistols.
Tools & Supplies
I’m kind of like Tim The Toolman Taylor, if you remember the show Home Improvement. I like tools and don”t need much an excuse to buy one in order to try and do the job the right way. When it comes to the rear sight, some guys use a 3/9″ piece of Delrin or wood dowel to tap the old sight out. Because of my hand tremor, that’s risky for me so I looked into sight pushers and decided to go with the Wheeler Engineering Armorer’s Handgun Sight Tool.
For the front sight, a dedicated Glock front sight tool can make the job a ton easier because they are shallow and have a magnet that will hold the tiny screw in position while you get it started. A regular nut driver is too deep and the tiny screw will fall into it vs. being held nicely in position.
You will need some medium Loc-Tite to secure the front sight screw.
Tape to wrap the slide and protect it is a recommended. I use painter’s tape.
Getting Started
Make sure the weapon is unloaded and clear – no magazine and nothing in the chamber.
Remove the slide
Remove the spring and the barrel to get them out of the way – you don’t need to remove anything else.
Wrap slide with painters tape to protect it from scratches leaving the two sights exposed.
I did my back sight first and then my front sight.
Procedure – Back Sight
To remove the back sight. I followed the instructions with the Wheeler unit and flipped the pusher over to use the angled face. Mine was set for straight-edged sights from the factory.
I also oiled all of the threads on the Wheeler.
I secured the slide in the Wheeler unit taking care to make sure the slide was the right height so the pusher would engage the sight and not bind on the slide.
The factory Glock rear sight pushed out incredibly easily. I can see why some guys just drive them out. However, I really liked the control the Wheeler gave me.
I then lined up the replacement sight and pushed it into place – checking over and over and making minor adjustments to ensure it was in the center.
The Truglo has secured by a set screw that I backed out, put a dab of blue/medium Loc-Tite on and then tightened down.
That was it for the back now on to the front.
Procedure – Front Sight
Turn the slide upside down and you will see a small hex head screw that must be removed. I used my Glock Front Sight tool for that.
Push or tap out the original sight.
The replacement TruGlo unit is a tight fit I had to firmly press it into position. It is an interference fit so don’t remove a ton of material so it just falls into the slot cut in the slide. It needs to be pressed in as this helps with alignment and retention.
Put blue/medium Loc-Tite on the screw before reassembly. This is mandatory. If you do not, it will shoot loose over time and you will lose your front sight.
Use the Front Sight tool to reinstall the screw with the Loc-tite and tighten it down.
Done.
Conclusion
I really like the TruGlo TFX Pro sights. They are very visible both during the day due to the fiber optics and at night due to the Tritium. They were well worth the investment. I hope this helps you out.
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at [email protected]. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
Folks, Polymer80 is making some solid 80% frames that you can easily machine into a lower receiver that accepts Glock parts. The design of the frame and jig are elegantly simple and the quality of the end product is really up to you. The great news is that you don’t need to be a machinist to do the work. You just need to be patient, follow instructions and pay attention to details.
If you haven’t done so yet, be sure to check out Polymer80’s own How To page. I definitely recommend watching the videos and reading the relevant PDF before you begin.
In my last post, I linked to a number of resources you can use to guide you through your build. My aim is to give you a bunch of tips that can help you turn out a quality receiver. Let’s hit the four categories of things you will need to do.
Drill Six Short Holes As Labeled On The Jig
If you are concerned that this will take a ton of work, Polymer80 has designed a frame (what will ultimately become your pistol’s lower receiver). Folks, you drill six holes – the jig is marked with the exact spot and which size drill bit they supply that you should use.
The jig is clamped standing up and a hand drill is used to make the holes. Polymer80 supplies the drill bits for you. Note, my Ryobi cordless has a level indicator and it made it a lot easier to get things square.
Tips:
Stand the clamp on its side and secure it in a vise. It was not designed to be drilled laying on its side.
You want the jig to be held firmly at its bottom by the vise but do not crush/deform the plastic.
Using a drill with level indicators can greatly aid you in making a hole at right angles to the receiver.
Do not drill the holes straight through. Because the frame is relatively thin, it is forgiving if you drill a short hole slight off square, meaning not perpendicular. If you go straight through then you are way more likely to be way off, ruin the geometry and have just ruined the receiver, So, drill three holes on each side, six holes in total, being careful to line them up as best you can.
Take the time to read the jig markings – the M3 holes are for the pins that hold the blocks in place. The larger M4 bit is for the trigger pin.
After drilling, blow out your frame to get all the little pieces of plastic debris out. A common problem guys run into is having a small piece of plastic down in the slide stop spring channel that the recoil spring can hang up on. So, blow it out. I use compressed air in my shop but do what you can even if it means blowing with your mouth and visually inspecting the frame to make sure all the plastic scraps from drilling are gone.
Use a deburring tool or razor to carefully remove any waste plastic sticking out from either side of the plastic surface that you drill.
Remove the Tabs From The Top Of The Frame
This seems to freak people out because they think they are going to need a milling machine. You definitely do not need a milling machine – you can use a Dremel or file to remove the tabs. The trick here is to remove the tabs and have the end result look decent and not like a hack with a file went crazy and turned out something fugly.
My dad’s nail nippers – this tool is probably almost as old as me so maybe 40-50 years old. I’m using it to “nip” off each tab to reduce the amount of plastic I need to file or Dremel down.
Tips:
The first step is to get rid of as much of the tabs as you can with nail nippers. The idea is simple, snip off a bunch of the material so when you either Dremel or file the remainder down, you have less to deal with. On my Glock 34 build,I used an old pair of nail nippers (in the photo above) that belonged to my dad – my way of remembering him. On the second one, I took a cheap set of nippers and ground the head down so they would cut the tabs off even closer to flush. Either way works.
Leave the jig on if you want to play it safe. When you see red filings or dust from sanding, you know you are going to deep and need to stop,
You can either Dremel or file the balance down but when you get down near the surface start using a sanding block. Just take a piece of wood, wrap a strip of sand paper on it and then sand the receiver using even pressure. Start with 100-120 grit sandpaper and then go to 220, 440, and then 800. If you want to go higher, go right ahead but at some point your plastic is as smooth as it needs to be.
I use the little rubberized abrasive Dremel bits to smooth things out. You then apply a drop of oil and you will never know the tabs were there.
Clear Out the Barrel Channel
Again, the dreaded need for a milling machine seems to exist and again, you don’t need one. It is really important you do a nice clean job with a smooth finish or you will have seemingly random jams as the operating spring catches on some part of the frame that is still in the way.
Tips:
You want to only remove the designated slot they show in the instructions plus what needs to be removed is marked in the casting. Like I said, they put some thought into this.
DO NOT TRY TO REMOVE IT ALL AT ONCE!! You remove the material in sections.
If you decide to use their supplied end mill and put the frame in your drill press, do not treat the end mill but like a drill bit. An end mill bit requires a very rigid machine and that the operator has carefully and firmly secured the work piece. In short, you can’t plunge the end mill into the plastic with your hobby drill press without considerable vibration. The trick come down with the drill press (if you have one) and cut off a little crescent at a time. If you have mill, just ignore me – you know what to do I bet.
Some guys will use regular drill bits and drill a series of holes in the area that needs to be removed.
Unless you are a machinist and know what you are doing, don’t try to mill or drill material right up to the line where they say to stop at. Instead, remove material just shy of the line and then use a sandpaper to do the rest. I wrapped 100 grit sand paper around a dowel to rough in the shape and then went to 240 grit to finish up. You really do not need to go beyond that unless you want, The goal is to have a smooth surface that the barrel and spring will not catch on during operation.
We have a toolkit now that makes cleaning the barrel channel out way, way easier. Click here to read more.
Polish Metal Surfaces
When people make parts they usually get them close enough and call it even. This means there are small tooling marks, grooves, bumps and rough areas left in general. When you look at a firearm made by a high-end shop, you will notice that the surfaces are incredibly smooth – sometimes polished to a mirror-like surface.
Have you ever bought a firearm and at first it was really rough and over time in “wore in” or maybe somebody said “broke in”? What is happening is that the rough spots are smoothing out with wear. We identify the surfaces and do the same thing very easily.
These rubberized polishing bits for Dremels are awesome and you can get sets of them off Amazon.
Tips:
With polishing the goal is always to remove as little material as possible using polishing bits, stones or really fine 1000+ grit sandpaper.
Polish the hardened locking block rail system bearing in mind how it contacts the slide. You just need to polish the parts that engage the rail and not everything.
Same goes with the rear rail module that is just stamped stainless steel
Look at the trigger and polish all surfaces that rub against each other – the connector, trigger bar, etc.
When you are done, lightly grease these surfaces (I like SuperLube) and then cycle the action by hand a few hundred times and the same goes for squeezing the trigger. You will find that the action will smooth out even further … unless you do an awesome job polishing and everything is already mirror smooth.
In Conclusion
I hope this helps you out. My two Polymer80 built pistols are the smoothest cycling pistols I own now.
6/20/2019 Update: The Glock 34-style pistol is now my favorite. It is a tack driver and I plan to replace the trigger at some point this summer or at least go with some reduced power springs to lighten the pull.
Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at [email protected]. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
If you haven’t heard about Polymer80, they make a number of 80% receivers including some remarkable Glock compatible frames. Now they aren’t just a cheap gimmick – I like the grip angle, the texture and the finger relief that all result in a far better feeling pistol than an actual Glock in my opinion. Now there are haters that say these are not Glocks – that’s fine, they aren’t. Then again, it’s not like we all buy ARs only made by Colt or Armalite either in comparison.
So I have been posting about how to do the builds [Click here for a Glock 17 using the PF940V2 frame post and here for one on Glock 19 using the PF940C frame post]. They are very straight forward, fun and can generate a reliable pistol. Like all things, there can be challenges and troubleshooting your build to understand why the slide is binding, the trigger isn’t resetting and so forth are all things that may happen. Luckily, there are also lots of videos and posts for understanding how to solve the challenges.
Be Sure to Read the Instructions First
I do recommend you read the instructions from Polymer80 before you do your build. If you didn’t read them and are now having challenges, I would recommend you go back and read the good instruction file they wrote and watch the video:
The slide doesn’t go all the way back: Check that the recoil spring is not catching on the channel you needed to mill out. Check that the slide stop spring is sitting flush and not catching on the spring. Sometimes plastic falls into that channel and keeps it from fully seating. (It would be a good idea to blow your frame out with compressed air to get all the loose plastic out). [Note, we have a tool to aid in the sanding of the barrel block area, click here to read about it]
Trigger not resetting – this is either an issue with how Polymer80 did some of the Rear Rail Modules (RRMs) or how the frame was drilled causing the RRM to move. If this happens, you will need to file a bit off the right side (when looking down at the receiver) of the RRM so the trigger bar doesn’t hit it. I’d also recommend checking that there aren’t burs/machining imperfections on any of the trigger’s metal parts that might cause binding.
Slide not cycling smoothly – The rail modules should be equal height. Again, there may have been an issue with drilling causing an alignment issue. See if you can bend/adjust the rail modules so they line up.
Trigger feels gritty – remove the trigger and polish all metal surfaces. Blow out the pistol and trigger areas to ensure there isn’t any plastic debris. Expect it to take a couple hundred rounds to smooth out.
Action feels gritty – again, polish everything. I like the small rubberized polishing bits for the Dremel as well as working with sandpaper up to 2000 grit. Always remember that your goal is to smooth and polish, not to remove a ton of material. Another option is to simply let the parts get to know each other and wear in. A ton of grittiness will disappear with use.
The pistol doubles, meaning it fires on the pull of the trigger and the release. This is most likely caused by using an aftermarket connector. If you are not using an OEM Glock connector, try using one and see what happens. I did a post about this if you’d like to read more, click here.
So, I hope this helps you out. Polymer80 Glock frames are well engineered and do work. There may be some issues you need to work through due to how you build the pistol and the parts you use but view overcoming them as part of your journey and don’t give up. The end result is definitely work it.
Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at [email protected]. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
Please note that any images shown were extracted from the videos and remain the property of their respective owner(s).
In the previous post, I told you about my finding Gunstreamer for firearms videos. What brought me there was that I was searching on Google for Polymer80 build videos.
On Gunstreamer I found this great video of a guy, who is obviously experienced in building Glock pistols, showing a build on a Polymer 80 Pf940V2 80% frame. He steps you through what needs to be done in terms of sanding, filing and drilling with the supplied jig and then he goes on to actually assembling the pistol.
I learned a lot watching the video – he has a solid informative style and shows you what he is doing.
Here’s the Video
Our Polymer80 Barrel Block Sanding Kit
We have a sanding toolkit to help you quickly and accurately clear out the barrel block area.
We have a sanding kit available for Polymer80 pistol builders that is designed to help you quickly and accurately sand the barrel block area so you can have a smooth functioning pistol. Click here to learn more.
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at [email protected]. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
Please note that all images were extracted from the video and remain the property of their respective owner(s).
