Steel guide rod. Upgrade or not?

P

Pond James Pond

New member
I like my SP-01. It feels solid. It feels like quality.

The only bit that doesn't fit that image is the plastic guide rod that came as standard. Despite this, it clearly does the job.

A nice steel replacement is available but is there any point?
 
Though I replaced the plastic guide rod with a steel one on my CZ 85 several years ago, there is no real reason to do so other than it's metal instead of plastic-which might appeal to your sense of aesthetics. Some have argued that the extra weight of the steel rod offers the advantage of a more controlled (less) muzzle rise when shooting-I won't argue this claim, except to say that I haven't noticed any difference whatsoever.
 
While shooting my G27 the plastic guide rod let go, rendering the gun unusable. I went to a Wolff steel guide rod and used the old Glock recoil springs. There's 12K trouble free rounds thru it.

I DON'T like plastic guide rods!!
 
Plastic guide rods can break. But the few I've seen break (particularly the captured plastic guide rod assemblies like those in a Glock) tend to work even when broken. For most shooters, a recoil spring failure or ammo failure is far more likely. There are probably a million+ guns out there with plastic guide rods, and you really don't hear a lot of horror stories about plastic guide rod breakage.

Functionality? As long as the gun locks up consistently (and lockup should not be affected by guide rod material), the gun's function and accuracy should not be affected by either type of guide rod using the proper springs. That's because the bullet is OUT of the gun before the slide has moved more than a small fraction of an inch.

A metal guide rod can weigh a bit more, and some feel it helps reduce barrel rise during recoil, but it would have to be a pretty heavy guide rod to make much of a difference that most shooters would notice. It might be difficult to find a metal guide rod and recoil spring replacement for some factory "captured" guide rod assemblies.

Should you use a metal guide rod in your weapon? If it didn't come that way, I'd argue that it may depend on the gun's design and how the base of the guide rod interacts with the frame. The base of a steel guide rod may be harder than the frame of some alloy or polymer guns, and that hardness can cause wear. If wear isn't likely, and the owner wants a steel guide rod, then there are probably no downsides to the change.

With my guns, if it came from the factory with a steel guide rod, that's what I use; if it came from the factory with a plastic one, that's what I use... Then, too, because none of mine are broken, I don't feel a need to fix them. If one ever breaks and causes a problem, I might feel differently.

Then there's the issue of full-length vs shorter guide rods...

.
 
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Performance wise, there is no reason to upgrade it, unless you just want to for aesthetic reasons. That's been the consensus for several years on the CZ gorums, and from competitive shooters running the SP-01.
 
Heavy Metal

I had the plastic guide rod on my G22 break a few years back Switched out the plastic for a SS one, been very satisfied. I also went on to switch it out in my G19 as well. Both pistols function to my satisfaction. :cool:
 
With my guns, if it came from the factory with a steel guide rod, that's what I use; if it came from the factory with a plastic one, that's what I use... Then, too, because none of mine are broken, I don't feel a need to fix them. If one ever breaks and causes a problem, I might feel differently.
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Well, my "standard" SP-01 did not, but apparently steel rods are standard on the shadow-line range of SP's. So in the case of this gun it seems to have factory blessing whichever I were to go with.
 
Personally I wouldn't touch the plastic guide rod. But since we're only talking about a $22 investment at CGW, experimenting with a steel guide rod replacement can't possibly hurt.
 
I have a Colt Mustang from 80's Pistol never gave me a lick of trouble TILL I went with a steel guide rod. I quickly changed back to the plastic .
 
No excuses

Polymer guide rods just seem to be an un necessary cost cutting measure that shouts lower quality. I cannot understand why a manufacturer of a quality pistol would not w
Equip it with steel guide rod... Some of the lame excuses I've heard still do not convince me. I don't think I'll see Sig doing the polymer guide rod anytime soon.
The same day I got my Beretta M9 last month I ordered a steel guide rod ,
I absolutely hate polymer guide rods.
 
TBH, I don't see polymer as lower quality. It is, however, cheaper.

Polymer, after all is a pretty technologically advanced material: far more so than steel in terms of what it can withstand and provide. Strength weight, cost, resilience, flexibility.

So as a material I'm not against it, except that in my all-steel gun it seems a bit out of place. It (the gun) has, nonetheless, performed without fault so clearly this part is not a weak link up until now.
 
Pond said:
...Polymer, after all is a pretty technologically advanced material: far more so than steel in terms of what it can withstand and provide. Strength weight, cost, resilience, flexibility.
Click to expand...

One of the key traits of polymer guide rods is that polymer (the type used in guide rods) has greater lubricity (an innate slickness) not possible in steel or alloys without a lot of polishing and continuing lubrication.

It may be that gun makers DID move to polymer guide rods because it was cheaper, but that doesn't mean it wasn't as good as (or possibly better than) steel components in the same role.

It wasn't long ago that plastic in automobiles would've been considered insane, and now its an important component that reduces both COST and WEIGHT (and improved mileage.)
 
Any chance the polymer guide rod is part of the design?
Maybe to provide flexibility and lubrication in the event of misalignment problems?
Just thinking out loud here.
 
If it works as is, leave it alone. No reason to be macho and screw it up because it's plastic instead of steel
 
Some years back, SIG introduced steel guide rods with their legacy P-series pistol. If you weren't around at the time, you couldn't believe the uproar from SIG owners -- complaining about the cheapness, etc. For a year or two, SIG returned to metal guide rods.

In subsequent years, they went back to plastic guide rods, and while there may still have been an uproar the second time out, it wasn't as loud. I don't participate on the SIG forum much, nowadyas -- only have one SIG and it's been given the Gray Guns treatment -- not much it needs or I need to do to it.

For a couple of years I had a SIG P-226 X-Five (.40) Competition. That was the SA version with a non-adjustable trigger. The X-Five version had a very complex guide rod with five different pieces, and at least two of them were plastic. (My gunsmith broke one of them -- the recoil spring bar -- while trying to make it easier to rack the slide, which was very difficult with THAT particular gun.) He fabricated a replacement part (which worked fine), and I waited for four months for SIG to send me a replacement piece. SIG has used (and may still use) plastic in some of their top-end guns.

Using plastic in that gun, which came at a premium price, was arguably NOT a cost-cutting step.

Some CZ owners like steel guide rods in their SA .40s (which have full-length guide rods), and in the alloy-framed compacts, but CZ -- at one time, at least -- wouldn't sell you a steel guide rod for a compact if they knew it was for an alloy-framed gun. That may not be the case nowadays. At one time, Mike Eagleshield, who was then the head gunsmith at CZ-USA, told me he had seen some frame damage from steel guide rods in alloy-framed guns (which use full-length guide rods), and that such damage was not covered by warranty. I've not heard of any such problems in recent years, so those may have been some unusual incidents -- or CZ has changed the alloy formula.
 
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I feel exactly the same as you Mr. Pond. I know my SP01 functions just fine with the plastic guide rod, but the rest of the gun is such a tank that it feels flimsy and out of place. I will probably replace with a guide Rod from CGW just because I don't like the plastic one being there. If it causes malfunctions though it will be back to plastic for me.
 
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