I fell to peer pressure and bought a Glock

A

Alex Johnson

New member
I've been looking around for a pistol for IDPA and finally decided on a used Glock 22. I'm basically a single action shooter, but figured I might as well find out what everyone is talking about, and besides the Glock was there with extra magazines and a holster for about $450. Are there any good sights that show dissassembly instructions for the Glock pistol? I've also heard that you shouldn't shoot lead bullets through it, why would that be?
 
The instruction manual has all the field stripping instruction you'll need. The polygonal rifling isn't compatible with soft lead bullets. It causes small amounts of lead to build up inside the barrel and chamber area causing dangerously high pressure to build up causing failure at some point.
 
This site has pretty good instructions for fully stripping your Glock: http://www.topglock.com/info/info.htm

Just go slow, lay your parts out left to right in the order you took them out you won't have any trouble. Actually at Glockmeister they have more pictures but the text gets kind of confusing.

I'm a total clutz mechanically and had the total strip and clean done in about 30 minutes. Never had to refer back to the instructions after the first time. It's a simple gun-which is what I like about it :)
 
I too broke down and bought a glock 33 for concealment, It just was the best option out there for what I wanted, Summer carry options. Not my favorate gun and I will still be looking but it works the way it was intended to work.

Jim
 
If you look down Glock barrel you will notice "polygonal" rifling config.. Conpare it to standard "lands and grooves" config. in another of your guns. When you fire lead in standard rifled gun, lead can and is forced into grooves, barrel I.D. remains the same. In a Glock the lead effectively lays a lead layer all along the entire surface of barrel reducing I. D. enough to "squeeze" following bullets fired and dramatically increases pressures. If you wanna shoot lead get a second barrel with standard config. rifling, They're pretty cheap. .40 Glock.......use factory ammo with standard barrel.
 
If you plan on reloading for your Glock 22, just follow some precautions and all shall be well...

1) As the others have stated, do not use soft unjacketed lead bullets. Pay the extra $$$ for plated or hard jacketed bullets, and you won't regret it.

If you insist on using unjacketed lead, make sure that it is hard enough to resist getting chewed up by the polygonal rifling. Soft lead bullets that work fine in a conventionally rifled barrel will end up turning your Glock barrel into a smoothbore barrel.

2) Load conservatively. Stick with the lower end of the spectrum.

3) Carefully police your brass. If there are any amounts of unusual bulging, toss it out. Because of the throated factory barrel, you get ironclad reliability with a wide range of ammo, but at the same time, the 6 o'clock area of the brass casing gets subjected to more wear and tear.

Or...

You could buy an aftermarket barrel and load for your Glock as you would any other brand. The reason for the aftermarket barrel is for the additional chamber support, especially at the 6 o'clock position, and also because the conventional rifling allows you to shoot softer alloys of unjacketed lead. This is the safest way to reload for it.

What most of us do is to use the aftermarket barrel for plinking purposes (saves lots of wear and tear on the brass), and the factory barrel for defensive use.

Barsto and Jarvis have my vote as the best aftermarket barrel, followed very closely by Briley, KKM, and Olympic Arms.

http://www.barsto.com
http://www.jarvis-custom.com
http://www.briley.com
http://www.kkmprecision.com
http://www.olyarms.com
http://www.lonewolfdist.com

Lone Wolf carries Jarvis, KKM, and Federal Arms barrels.

The Olympic Arms barrels are the best bang for the buck, since they only cost 114 + shipping.
 
I have to chime in about hard cast lead here. All the above is good advice, BTW. But If you shoot hard cast, you need enough pressure to swage it into the barrel. You can in some cases get more leading from hard lead than soft, because more flame will engulf the sides of the bullet.

I have a simple formula somewhere to calculate optimal pressures vs BHN of the bullet, but off hand I seem to remember top 10mm pressures being needed for BHN 18 bullets. I may be mistaken. BHN 16-22 is pretty standard for mail order hard cast.

Not that this is a major concern, but it is a big debate subject among wheelgunners and target shooters.
 
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