When you want to improve your pistol’s capabilities, performance, and appearance, custom Glock slides are the answer. To get the most from your aftermarket parts and accessories, however, your Glock training practices have to step up. Training helps you prepare to shoot better at the range, in competitions, and when your gun is needed for self-defense. Learn how to train to make the most of your upgraded Glock slide.
Why Choose a Custom Glock Slide?
Glocks are renowned for the reliability of their efficient design, but when it comes to their slides, they’re downright minimalist. Custom Glock slides can give your gun a unique look, add features for a better shooting experience, and make installing top-tier accessories easier. Aftermarket slides are perfect for rehabbing a well-used pistol or tailoring a newer commercial pistol to your shooting needs.
What to Expect When You Switch to a Custom Glock Slide
As long as you choose a custom Glock slide from a reputable manufacturer, you should still get the same reliability and efficiency Glock is known for, but that doesn’t mean it will be the same shooting experience. Even if every customization you make on your gun is 100% focused on addressing a shooting or tactical need you’ve identified, researched, and found a solution for, you’ll still have to put in the Glock training time to retrain your muscle memory to use your custom gun’s features:
- Sight Picture – Whether you’re adding modern optics or sticking with your new slide’s iron sights, they won’t feel exactly the same as your stock sights. It will take time to zero an optic, get comfortable with your new sight picture, or make the perfect aiming sightline with your new slide an automatic reflex as the gun rises.
- Weight – Aftermarket slides can be lighter or heavier than OEM slides, and their weight distribution can make the gun feel far different in your hand. This can be especially pronounced if your new slide features multiple large cut-outs–areas where the material has been removed from the slide for better cooling, to lighten the weight, or to show off a premium barrel.
- Racking – Your custom Glock slide may have deeper serrations for a better grip, or the recoil spring may have lighter or heavier resistance. The simple act of chambering a round can feel far different and require more focus to make sure you don’t short-rack your weapon.
- Recoil – When you fire your gun, the same forces that push the bullet downrange force the slide back, extracting and ejecting the spent casing before the slide returns, chambering a new round. Your slide weight and recoil spring can affect the recoil you have to control to keep the weapon on target and ready for follow-up shots.
- Accessories – Modern optics, tactical lights, lasers, and other accessories can all alter how your weapon feels, responds, or is used in the field. When every shot counts, you need your reactions to be automatic, and that means putting in the Glock training with the equipment you’ll be using before you need it in real life.
Glock Training and Shooting Drills
In order to retrain your muscle memory to your custom Glock slide and upgrades, it’s best to use a combination of dry and live-fire training. This lets you practice the small movements and skills that are used to successfully carry, draw, move, and shoot with your weapon effectively. Keep these safety tips in mind throughout your Glock training.
- Assume Your Gun is Loaded Until You Have Verified It is Unloaded and Made Safe – A core tenet of firearm safety, it’s especially important with dry-fire training that may be performed indoors at home. Before beginning and anytime your gun leaves your immediate custody, ensure it’s unloaded and verify the chamber and magazine are empty.
- Follow All Range Rules – This is part of basic range etiquette, but it’s even more important when getting used to a gun that will still feel unfamiliar in your hands at times. Error on the side of caution and make sure you’re practicing proper range safety.
- Remember to Break In Your Upgraded Gun in a Controlled Manner – While adding a custom slide can be a beginner-friendly upgrade, it still offers plenty of opportunities for mechanical failures. Approach your test firing after an upgrade methodically, verifying the weapon is functioning properly. Take it slow for the first few boxes before returning to normal shooting drills.
Dry-Fire Training Drills
Dry-fire training is an effective way to get comfortable with the feel of your handgun and its new upgrades. The manual cycling also helps ensure all parts are properly seated and lets you use your eyes, ears, and touch to check for any issues without the distractions of a live range. For increased realism, visibly fake dummy training bullets, often called snap caps, may be used in a magazine to fully simulate loading and extracting rounds from the chamber.
- Cycle, Tap, and Squeeze – Make sure the gun is unloaded. Rack the slide, tap the back plate with the meat of your palm firmly, and squeeze the trigger to release the striker on an empty chamber. This puts your weapon through its full range of motion, seating parts, working lubrication into all the nooks and crannies of its action, and giving you a chance to feel any signs of catching, binding, or sticking.
- Draw and Fire – With the weapon unloaded, set up a safe corner of the room to avoid pointing the gun at anyone who may enter your area. Get used to drawing your pistol with its custom Glock slide and all accessories installed and firing. Your new slide may have deeper serrations, cutouts, or accessories projecting in unfamiliar ways, and before you begin carrying, you need to make sure you can draw it efficiently.
- Trigger Work – Dry-fire training is perfect for working on your trigger pull. Pick a set aiming point or use a square of painter’s tape to make one on a bare wall. Rack the slide, ensuring your weapon is unloaded, then aim at your mark. Pull the trigger slowly and smoothly through the breakover, keeping the aiming mark sighted perfectly. This can help train you out of jerking the trigger or throwing shots due to anticipation of the break.
Live-Fire Training
When it comes down to it, how you train is how you shoot. Practicing the fundamentals at the range builds the muscle memory you need to shoot properly under pressure. Once again, the basic rules of gun safety and your range’s rules dictate the limits of your training. Targets can be set at any range, but seven yards is a good, all-purpose handgun engagement base level. It’s far enough away to require proper stance and aiming but close enough that it simulates defensive scenarios. Adjust as needed.
- Slow and Steady – This is perfect for your first outing with a new custom Glock slide, sighting in your weapon, or anytime you want to really hone in on the mechanics of your shooting. From a low-ready or holstered position, draw, aim, and fire a controlled cadence of one shot every two seconds. Feel your trigger pool, the recoil traveling up your arms to be controlled, and the gun returning to the target for the next round.
- Accuracy and Precision – This exercise gives you longer, faster engagement windows to work on keeping your focus, stance, aim, and trigger mechanics sound through multiple rounds. From holstered or low-ready, aim and fire six rounds back-to-back, aiming for tight groups well positioned on your aiming point.
- 2X4s – This exercise is all about accuracy and proper reloading on a locked slide. You’ll need two magazines, one with two rounds and one with four. If possible, place a pad or some kind of cushion directly under where your gun will be to catch the magazine so you can practice letting it drop, as you would in a tactical situation. Load your two-round magazine, and from holster or low-ready, aim and shoot at the target’s head on a silhouette target, a smaller bullseye on a multi-target, or the center of the next to topmost ring on a traditional large bullseye. When the slide locks on the empty magazine, eject it, load your 4-round magazine, and release the slide. Aim and fire center mass on your target.
Get a Custom Glock Slide for Your Pistol
We offer Glock slides that help you shoot better without breaking the bank. Whether you’re customizing a competition pistol or need a gun you can count on when every shot counts, we have you covered. Order your Glock slides and barrels from Patmos Arms today.