Hi guys.

Had a ton of great help and response from misc on previous gun thread.

Decided I don’t need a gun for hiking necessarily, can just get bear spray.

But after I just finished my marksmanship class which was great I decided that what I would really like to pickup would be a full sized 9mm for my home defense / fun / additional open carry to my concealed carry in the case of a riot type situation and I’m protecting my business etc..

Anyways there’s really no Glock 17s available for a reasonable price anymore and I would want to switch some things out on one anyways so was thinking about putting one together myself and had a few questions.

If I was to buy a cerakote frame like this

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/872797131

I can pretty much follow a poly 80 build without having to drill it right?

Just buy a slide and upper kit, buy the frame part kit etc and plug everything together?

Also have no real experience with a lot of these parts I’m looking at but I would like to get a threaded barrel and a suppressor so I can take it to some outdoor shooting areas and shoot with subsonic while not wearing any hearing protection. In that case does it make sense to get a slide like this?

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/873736837

Would I need to get a red dot right away with those fiber optic sights? Or can you use them like iron sights as is?

Also haven’t really seen any reviews on swamp fox. Does it make more sense to throw something else together and just get a slide like a grey ghost for that $$ and invest in Trijicon optics? Or a cheaper slide that I can slowly upgrade.

Also I love the look of the windowed slides if I’m going that route but does it takeaway from the glocks appeal of being able to take some abuse? Like could stuff get into the gun more easily and cause malfunctions etc?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated, thanks.

Suppressor height iron sights are fine by themselves. The only reason to get a red dot on top of that is faster target acquisition and co witness. Windowed slides will not mess with the reliability of the gun. If you want that Glock reliability you need to use as many OEM glock parts as possible especially the slide and lower parts kits. Check your state laws cause I know Washington has some weird chit regarding 80% builds

Thanks, gonna talk with the guys at my ffl/shooting range/gun shop later today, will probably buy some stuff through them too for it depending on what they have etc.. will try to get mostly Glock oem parts other than maybe the trigger and slide. Maybe a different well reviewed barrel.

Is that even a Glock anymore, since it's not made by Glock?

I would be buying a Glock frams and getting as many oem parts as possible. Just wanted to check that I don’t need to do anything like drilling if I buy that cerakote Frame. Since it’s just a stripped lower, right?

There are tons of good aftermarket barrels and triggers. The barrel is more an accuracy than reliability thing and for the cost of OEM you can get better aftermarket parts usually. What trigger you want really depends on what you use the gun for. If its a carry gun go OEM if you aren't using it for carry talk to the guys at your FFL if they seem knowledgeable. I know very little about aftermarket glock triggers

It's not but its the same design as a gen 3 Glock and the parts all interchange so people just say glock for shorthand

Yes its just a stripped lower. Don't be scared to drill some holes if you have any experience at all with hand tools. It's not hard at all. The worst part about doing an 80% build is getting chitty frame rails that aren't to spec.

If that's the route you want to go, why not just do the poly80? You don't need an actual drill press, there's a video floating around of some guy literally building a Glock on the tailgate of his pickup truck at the range with an exacto knife and a drill. It only took him like 17 minutes to go from parts to shooting it.

man y u gotta be so damn difficult. buy a g19 and fuk off--enjoy the hike

You literally can’t buy a g19 right now.

Also want the larger grip on the frame, I know the .5 diff in barrel from the 17 has a negligible effect on accuracy from the 17 but I already have a carry gun and wouldn’t mind the larger mag and having a bigger grip is what I’m looking for atm.

All the frame completion kits are out of stock and I’m impatient.

So I tracked down every single part/spring/block/lock etc.. needed and got every part ordered. Everything is oem except for apex trigger stuff and an upgraded expanded slide lock and an engraved mag release.

Got a basic windowed iron sights Brownell slide and some triljicon night sights, and a double diamond gold barrel.

Already talked to ffl and going in to get my frame ordered tomorrow after I figured out I could track down all the parts.

Will post when I finish.

Was able to pickup a lone wolf slide completion kit so that was easy at least.

Worst part is drilling a canted hole and ruining your lower. Worst part is using a file for 6 hours to clean up excess material because you didn’t have a dremel. Answering for a friend btw.

https://m.********.com/ShootingtipsT...ernal&mt_nav=0

One of the videos shows the full process from start to finish of a guy literally doing this with drill and exacto knife on the tailgate of his truck at the range in less than a half hour

You are a patient man to do that job without a dremel lol. It's not that hard to fix a canted hole. Check out MarineGunBuilder on Youtube. There is almost nothing you can do that will completely ruin the lower. Worst case scenario is you have to fill the holes with JB Weld and redrill