Glock gen 4 vs 5, & duty gun clone concept

Keith03

Newbie
Duty gun clone concept:
I am issued a gen 4 G17 and I have no complaints about it. I am in the market for a clone of my work gun and a backup gun. We cannot modify internals, but we can get authorization to carry personal guns. If am going to buy a clone of my duty gun, it only makes sense to make it as identical to the work gun as possible. That logic would lead me to two gen 4 guns, which seems like ageing technology now and would be hard to sell/worth less, later if the department changes to gen 5s in a year or two.

Do the better trigger and barrel, glock’s claim of increased reliability, etc of the gen 5 make it worthwhile to buy two gen 5 17s, and a gen 5 G26 (as a backup gun)? Or buy one gen 4 17 and a gen 4 26 and be good with that? Money its self is less of an issue if it’s well spent.

RMR is a possibility down the road but probably not for a year or two.

I have not been able to find meaningful gen 4 vs gen 5 comparisons from well recognized folks like Fisher, Blowers, Pressburg, etc. Maybe they can chime in here or if someone knows their stance on the matter I would appreciate that being shared.

I typically shoot about 500 rounds a month of pistol. I had been averaging right about 90 scores on a B8 untimed at 25 yards with oem glock night sights and 115g hand loads. With the Ameriglos I just got on the gun, and AE 147s I shot a 95 but I only got that 10-shot string.

Thanks
 

Joe _K

Established
Buy a Gen 4 or 5 Glock 26/19/43 as a back up, then a 17, pick up a Type 2 RMR, and send the 17 to AETI or similar quality shop and have them mill/mount your RMR.

Shooting the Red Dot will make you better at Itons. From everything I’ve seen and heard there’s not a whole hell of a lot of difference between the Gen 4 and the Gen 5. Better yet, get a 19X and RMR that.
 

Arete

Regular Member
Been using the duty gun and clone gun for training for a long time and that concepts works really well for me.

Now have to get a 2nd RMR G17 going . . .

I recently compared a 19X to a 19, and a 17, shot about 300 rounds. Didn't see any significant differences in performance or feel. This 19X has a NY1 in it, though, whereas the other guns had the coil spring, so it wasn't an apples to apples comparison. I need to find an unmodified Gen 5 to see how the trigger differs from the 4.

If you hate the finger groves, the 5 of course lacks them. Or you can remove them on a Gen 4.

For me, as much as I want to hate the finger grooves, I find they enhance control of the gun during recoil.

As to the 19X, if you put a full size WML (X300, TLR) on a 19/17, the end of the bezel is the longest part of the gun, and it's the same length on both platforms.

Thus, IMO, there is no advantage to the 19X if you are using a WML.

If you already have spare parts for the Gen 4 and earlier guns, you'll have to buy almost all new spare parts for the Gen 5 guns. Now, Glock parts aren't all that expensive, so there's that to consider.

I recently read a test of the new gen Glocks with 3 19s and 3 17s, over 135,000 rounds through the six guns. Only 1 stoppage and no parts breakages. Very impressive. Accuracy is also very good, and remained very good. But the Gen 4 is plenty accurate, too.
 

Keith03

Newbie
I can shoot my issued gun as much as I want.

The duty gun clone concept, as I understand it is this:
Have one gun clean proven and ready to go all that time. That is the gun that gets carried. The other is as close to the same as possible but gets trained with and gets the shit kicked out of it. If something happens, I am not out my work/carry gun. Things can and do break, shit happens. It would suck if I was practicing before a shift and something broke. especially if range staff/armorers were not around. I have two G19s with enough rounds through them that I have had weird stuff happen and was glad to have the other gun to depend on while I figured out the other. I have had sights blow off on a couple occasions, and saw a slide stop spring break not too long ago.

This is totally up for discussion. I would love to have folks chime in on this as well.
 

Boy Scout

Regular Member
Thanks, I had not really heard of that as a concept before. I wasn’t judging, if that’s how it sounded...I realized it could have come across douchey.

My take, from a low-income cop standpoint, would be to shoot my duty gun as much as possible and burn up their gun and ammo, as possible. I want to be proficient with all my guns, but most especially my duty weapon as that’s the one I carry most of the time. If something breaks, it’s on the department to fix it. If I shoot so much that they complain about it, they can live with it.

That being said, I carry a personal G19 off duty and use it occasionally for UC stuff, so if something breaks on my duty gun, I have another one to carry til the armorer can get me new one/fix mine.

I feel like two identical Gen 4 17’s are going to shoot similarly, but not identical, as my Gen 4 19 and 17 do. I would think spending hours training on one gun does a disservice to the other one. Personally, I’d rather drop that coin on either a pimp gun (RDS, etc) or ammo, but I don’t have that much to spend!
 

JLL2013

Regular Member
I get the concept and it makes sense.
However, I think the concept really applies to weapons that need handfit parts (IE 1911's).
How much time and money does it take to repair a broken part on a Glock? $15 and 5 minutes probably.
 

MrMurphy

Regular Member
I am with Boyscout. I've been shooting Glocks since 1992, carrying one since 2000 and until 2014 all on my dime. I don't shoot enough due to $ and time constraints that swapping guns would be a huge issue. As our last few OISs have proven the turnaround time ev en in a smaller agency to get a replacement gun is about an hour to get the right guy with keys and paperwork in.
 

ccw1911

Newbie
The counterpoint to using a clone gun for training is that if your main gun ever has a problem it will be when you really need it.
 

Arete

Regular Member
Dept won't let you shoot non-dept ammo (even for training) in the dept gun, answer is clone gun. Shoot what you want, as much as you want.
Dept won't let you shoot reloaded ammo for fear of voiding gun warranty, answer is clone gun.
Carry a RMR Glock and it gets taken for evidence after a OIS? Answer is the clone gun.
Get put on admin leave and dept takes the dept gun, answer is the clone gun.
Shoot a LOT and want to keep the round count down on your primary gun? Answer is the clone gun.
Primary gun breaks a part that you don't have with you? Carry the clone gun until you can acquire that spare part.
Primary gun out of service for whatever reason, answer is the clone gun.

When I go to train, primary gun and mags go into the trunk, I switch to the clone gun and mags. When I'm done shooting, swap guns again and good to go. No issues about carrying a dirty filthy gun, no worries about a part failing due to firing all those extra rounds, no worries about my duty magazines getting stepped on, rocks and mud in them, no need to download the duty ammo and then load the mags back up. I clean the clone gun when I choose to, not when I have to. Very time efficient, too.

Shoot the primary gun occasionally, but 90% of my shooting is with the clone gun.

I shoot around 10k rounds a year, this is what works for me.
 
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