project advice

Let me start out by saying that I'm not a machinists. BUT!! I am a tool guy I have my on wood shop and I have a granite shop as well. So I'm not unfamiliar with tools by any means. if I were going to do this project out of stone or wood it would be no problem..

I do have a full machine shop to work with. I have a good friend that is a retired machinist and he has 3 huge end mills 2 lathes and quite a few other nice pieces of machinery. He will be helping me with this project but I want to do as much of it my self as I can because that's who I am. I like learning. SO why am I here if I have some one to help me? HE has been retired for 20 years and is a little fuzzy on the tooling needed. I don't think he did a lot with hardened steel

here is the project..

I just bought several glocks one of them being a glock 17. I want to modify the g17 so I need advice on tooling more than any thing.

This is a picture of the factory slide



This is what I want to do to it



The rear of the slide needs to be milled out .125" and 2 holes need to be drilled and tapped. On the front of the slide I want to cut the notches to better cool it and take off a bit of weight..

I currently have a double fluted 1/2" solid carbide bit for the milling but I don't know if this is the best thing I have herd that it will work I have also heard that I want a 5 fluted end mill. I know that the slide is stainless and has a 64 Rothwell rating so here is the question..

what bit is rite for milling this?

I also need a 1/4" ball nose but for milling the notches on the front of the slide what is the best one for milling these notches?

one more question is there any one out there willing to make me a glock slide out of carbon steel?

the only ones on the market are stainless. For an experienced machinist it should be an easy project. I could send the slide so it could be replicated.

epdesign said:

For an experienced machinist it should be an easy project.

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Machinists love to be reminded how simple their work is.

Garwood said:

Machinists love to be reminded how simple their work is.

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You mean an experienced machinist couldn't easily make that?

Epdesign, I can't give you competent advice on your questions but you might see if you can get the "powers that be" to move this to the Gunsmithing section.

I'd be interested to see the responses as well.

-Ron

If you have access to a horizontal mill the slots can be cut with a 1/4 to 5/16th carbide tip convex cutter. Sprocket cutters or involute gear cutters will also work and are more common in machine shops. At least up here. Most gunsmiths have knee mills and will plunge cut them with 1/4 to 5/16 carbide slot/end mills. Ball mills are pretty slow and don't give quite as nice a finish but the slots can be polished out if need be.

With the sight just do the mill work on top, find center with an edge finder and drill and tap the holes.

I may be wrong but I thought Glock slides were carbon steel with a tennifer treatment, not Stainless.

StrikerDown said:

I may be wrong but I thought Glock slides were carbon steel with a tennifer treatment, not Stainless.

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I'm pretty sure you are correct, they are carbon steel. They had to nitride them to make them pass military specifications. I think the stainless ones are coming from Caspian. Some other companies may make them as well.

Caspian Arms Ltd.

I have contacted all of the major manufactures of the glock slides including glock... ALL responses were we don't manufacture those. I contacted turnbull to see if they could caseharden a glock slide an I was told no because they are "stainless". I want to case harden a slide.. I have been on this project for quite some Time now and I have been in contact with quite a few manufactures with no results. I have also talked to many smiths and none of them claim to have the time.

my statement about an experienced machinist being able to do this was based upon how complicated it looks.. I made the effort to make one out of maple. it took me 4 hours and it was fairly accurate but not close enough. and I don't want to take any chances with a gun. I like my hands.
-The thing is I'm offering some one work if they want the project! and there price is not a ball breaker. I would be willing to spend $400 to no more than $600 on the top end. this slide would be for a glock19 if your a smith that's even better.

my main question for now is TOOLING! for my current project. do I have the rite tooling or no?

I will post pic's of the work.

THANK'S! in advance It has been areal pain in the ass trying to gather all the info to do this project. most of the time I just get...send it to me ill do it for you.. that's not what I want. What I want is to learn. that's fallowed by no responses..i hope my search for the rite info ends here.

im new to the glock thing I'm a 1911 guy and I make grips as a side business. this is my most recent project for a customer..














One last thing im looking for is some one who does wire EDM that can cut me several 1" diameter emblems out of silver if that's possible

speerchucker30x3 said:

If you have access to a horizontal mill the slots can be cut with a 1/4 to 5/16th carbide tip convex cutter. Sprocket cutters or involute gear cutters will also work and are more common in machine shops. At least up here. Most gunsmiths have knee mills and will plunge cut them with 1/4 to 5/16 carbide slot/end mills. Ball mills are pretty slow and don't give quite as nice a finish but the slots can be polished out if need be.

With the sight just do the mill work on top, find center with an edge finder and drill and tap the holes.

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thank you I will check and see if he has one.. horizontal mill

epdesign said:

I have contacted all of the major manufactures of the glock slides including glock... ALL responses were we don't manufacture those. I contacted turnbull to see if they could caseharden a glock slide an I was told no because they are "stainless". I want to case harden a slide.. I have been on this project for quite some Time now and I have been in contact with quite a few manufactures with no results.

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Interesting. I would swear that my Glock (1st Gen) top slide is NOT stainless, at least I know it sticks to a magnet real well...

It looks like all the Lone Wolf stuff is stainless though - Lone Wolf Distributors - Products - Bare Slides

Another interesting note on the Glockstore site, they list their replacement slide as made out of 416 stainless that's been hardened to 42/46 Rockwell. - Replacement Glock Slide

Finally, Brownell's has some interesting replacements with similar work done on them - Glock Slides | Brownells

All seem to be some kind of "stainless" though!

-Ron

MetalCarnage said:

Interesting. I would swear that my Glock (1st Gen) top slide is NOT stainless, at least I know it sticks to a magnet real well...

It looks like all the Lone Wolf stuff is stainless though - Lone Wolf Distributors - Products - Bare Slides

Another interesting note on the Glockstore site, they list their replacement slide as made out of 416 stainless that's been hardened to 42/46 Rockwell. - Replacement Glock Slide

Finally, Brownell's has some interesting replacements with similar work done on them - Glock Slides | Brownells

All seem to be some kind of "stainless" though!

-Ron

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So far I have contacted lone wolf, glock, Caspian, salient, and the glock store as well. all of the glocks I bought are gen 4.

I know I can buy a slide with all the work already done but that defeats my real purpose here. I want to do the work my self.

epdesign said:

So far I have contacted lone wolf, glock, Caspian, salient, and the glock store as well. all of the glocks I bought are gen 4.

I know I can buy a slide with all the work already done but that defeats my real purpose here. I want to do the work my self.

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I understand completely. I was just listing some common sources as I was surprised to see everything done up in stainless.

-Ron

I have machined quite a few Glock slides over the years, mostly around the ejection port area when i convert them to shoot blanks and carbide tooling will work. i use 4 flutes end mill and you'll find that once you break through the surface hardness the steel is a bit softer, not much, but enough to allow me to finish the job with sharp files. Your 1/2 end mill will work fine for machining the sight area, but you will need a 1/4 or 5/16 ball end mill to do the slots. Never tried tapping one of those slides, good luck with that.
My advice if you go ahead and do it, is to have a few spare mills. These slides are really hard on tools and I doubt you could machine all those slots out of just one end mill, especially if you are looking for a nice finish. Having been there, I would not start a job like this with less that 3 new 5/16 ball mill sitting on the bench and would be happy to finish with one still in usable condition.

Pre-64 said:

I have machined quite a few Glock slides over the years, mostly around the ejection port area when i convert them to shoot blanks and carbide tooling will work. i use 4 flutes end mill and you'll find that once you break through the surface hardness the steel is a bit softer, not much, but enough to allow me to finish the job with sharp files. Your 1/2 end mill will work fine for machining the sight area, but you will need a 1/4 or 5/16 ball end mill to do the slots. Never tried tapping one of those slides, good luck with that.
My advice if you go ahead and do it, is to have a few spare mills. These slides are really hard on tools and I doubt you could machine all those slots out of just one end mill, especially if you are looking for a nice finish. Having been there, I would not start a job like this with less that 3 new 5/16 ball mill sitting on the bench and would be happy to finish with one still in usable condition.

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Ah now we are getting some where. After milling, what was the steel? Carbon or stainless?

epdesign said:

one more question is there any one out there willing to make me a glock slide out of carbon steel?

the only ones on the market are stainless. For an experienced machinist it should be an easy project. I could send the slide so it could be replicated.

Click to expand...

If you can find a manuf for the slide, it can be surface hardened as Glocks are by having it Melonited: SHOT Show Report: MMI-Trutec Salt-Bath Nitriding for Barrels « Daily Bulletin
It doesn't matter whether it is carbon or stainless steel. It will colored black by the process.

RWO

I went ahead and ordered 4 5/16" ball mills

as far as tapping a smith that has tapped theses before told me a regular high speed tap chucked in the end mill will do it. he said after it is milled and drilled put the tap in the mill but turn it by hand this will just insure that it is tapped strait. I just got this info yesterday.

as far as the slide go's

I want this finish



In order to do it the steel can not be treated in any way and it can not be stainless so again if any one want's this project let me know. Im trying to get this done by X-MAS for my 16 year old daughter.

As far as I can tell they aren't stainless cause I normally put cold blue on the cuts to blend in the mods and I remember building a comped 17L years ago and in those days the only finish I used was either hot blue or parkerize. I'm surprised to hear that Caspian's Glock are stainless only, the one I worked on also ended up being blued so they must have made carbon slides at one point. Pisses me of that I didn't have a camera in those days, there's tons of stuff that I did that is just foggy memories.

Pre-64 said:

As far as I can tell they aren't stainless cause I normally put cold blue on the cuts to blend in the mods and I remember building a comped 17L years ago and in those days the only finish I used was either hot blue or parkerize. I'm surprised to hear that Caspian's Glock are stainless only, the one I worked on also ended up being blued so they must have made carbon slides at one point. Pisses me of that I didn't have a camera in those days, there's tons of stuff that I did that is just foggy memories.

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Yeah, it was always my understanding that Glock parkerized them and then put their tenifer or nitride over top of the parkerizing. If they are carbon steel under all that garbage one should be able to get it color case hardened.

Went back to the shop and pulled a Gen4 17 out of the toy room. I ran some emery cloth over the cut out parts so they would show up well in picture and then applied the cold blue with a small paint brush. Instant deep blue, well, as deep as cold blue can get.

P.