To start off let me say I’m in no way affiliated Advantage Arms or Glock. I don’t get paid to advertise or test their products and I definitely don’t get paid to write reviews.
I took the Glock out today with the Advantage Arms conversion kit installed. I wasn’t exactly skeptical of the kit after reading about it online but I was expecting to have some sort of break in period. I opened the kit up and out fell an orange piece of paper that instructed me to put some oil on the parts in the picture. I grabbed the oil they shipped with the kit, put the drops on the slide where they wanted me to and rubbed the oil with my finger to spread it around some.
I took a piece of standard 8.5″x11″ sheet of printer paper and hung it up. Next I paced off 10 meters and turned to fire. The magazine seated perfectly just like my original Glock magazines. I chambered the first round took aim and pulled the trigger. Bang! Nice, I thought. There was almost no recoil and the gun hit pretty close to where I was aiming. I went ahead and fired a few more at a slow and controlled speed then I just let the last six or so speed their way to the target as fast as I could reasonably regain my sight picture. At the end of those 10, I went up to the piece of paper and measured the spread of hits and they all fell within a three inch circle, save one. (Though I think that one was me getting a little trigger happy.)
I finished the day by placing 10 to 20 targets out and running training drills to help with quicker target acquisition and movement. I fired in the neighborhood of 120 rounds (give or take five rounds) and never had a jam or malfunction of any kind.
It wasn’t an intense break-in but I was impressed at the quality, feel and accuracy of the kit.
If Advantage Arms wouldn’t have stamped their name on the slide you wouldn’t even know it was a company other than Glock that created the kit. With the market for these kits (I waited eight weeks while they caught up on back orders) I’m surprised Glock hasn’t jumped on this boat and started creating their own.
I’m not a professional instructor but I think the advantages to this kit are obvious. While I’m not shooting my standard caliber with its standard recoil I’m getting much more training time in and it’s much cheaper. I can practice every drill and training exercise I know for five times as long thanks to the cost savings. If you are worried about the recoil and muscle memory issues you can always finish your shooting day with your original caliber by removing the kit (as simple as field stripping the Glock) and putting your original hardware back in place.- Everyday Prepper
JWR Adds: Advantage Arms also makes .22 LR conversion kits for Model 1911 pistols, with an equally good reputation. Both of these conversion kits are available via mail order to US customers with no FFL paperwork, since they do not include a pistol frame.